COMMENT ⊗   VALID 00002 PAGES
C REC  PAGE   DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002	@make(letterhead,Phone"497-4430",Who,"John McCarthy",Logo,Old,Department CSD)
C00013 ENDMK
C⊗;
@make(letterhead,Phone"497-4430",Who,"John McCarthy",Logo,Old,Department CSD)
@style(indent 8)
@blankspace(8 lines)
@begin(address)
Ms. Dorothy Hirsch
Committee of Concerned Scientists
9 East 40th Street
New York, New York  10016
@end(address)
@greeting(Dear Dorothy:)
@begin(body)
	Many thanks for the annual report of CCS, and I'm sorry I
was unable to attend the meeting.  The activities of CCS are all
useful even though some of them are mainly symbolic in their effect.
Here is a suggestion for another activity that would have more
than symbolic effect.

	CCS should collect a list of all international scientific
meetings to be held in the Soviet Union.  These meetings are listed,
usually more than a year in advance, in the journals of the relevant
scientific societies.  CCS should attempt to get American and
other foreign participants to undertake a human rights activity
at each such meeting.  This activity should be more substantial
than the usual urging that participants visit scientists who have
been denied their rights.   

The activities can include invitations by international program committees for
specific mistreated scientists to take part in the meeting including
panel discussions and to present papers where the achievements of
the scientists make this appropriate.
If the person is to be on the program, this requires action well in
advance, but if mere attendance is the issue, it can be done at the
last minute - even after arrival in the Soviet Union.

	In this connection, it is important that international bodies
reject the Soviet concept that attendees at meetings are delegates
from organizations or countries and insist on the customary Western
concept that attendees at general scientific meetings attend
individuals.  Thus we don't demand that an individual be included
in the "Soviet delegation", but merely that he attend as an individual -
if necessary at the invitation of the international organizing committee.

	(It should be noted that the Soviet notion of delegation
is not just a subterfuge; it's the way they handle domestic meetings,
even when there is no political question.  One often encounters residents
of the city where the meeting is held, who can't attend because their
employer has not seen fit to include them in a delegation.  Nevertheless,
international organizations can make their own rules).

	It is important that international organizations be persuaded
to include provisions that everyone have a right to attend as an
individual regardless of country in their conditions for acceptance
of invitations.  The best way would be to get such provisions into
the bylaws of as many international scientific organizations as possible.
Then if the defenders of human rights wake up at the last moment, as is
usually the case, they have stronger legalistic backing.  However, even
when the point has not been made explicit, our side can argue that
it's part of common custom, which it is in most of the world.
@newpage
	The usual situation will be that CCS is able to contact a few
people in a scientific society who have never been to the Soviet Union
and who have no human rights activist experience and who are otherwise
rather busy.  Therefore, it is worthwhile to develop a standard pattern
of activity that can be adapted to particular circumstances where there
is extra energy.  This can include:
@begin(enumerate)
	 CCS should get someone to draw up a paragraph about the
obligations of the hosts of scientific meetings to admit all comers
to general congresses and get scientists to urge that it be part of the statutes of
of all international scientific organizations.

	 For each meeting, CCS undertakes to locate Soviet scientists
who should be allowed to attend.  If there is time,
individuals who should be included in the program should be sought.

	Meeting organizers should be urged to write to their Soviet
local organizers, notifying them that the organizers insist that
specified individuals be allowed to attend.  The individuals should
have been invited beforehand and their consent obtained.  In the past
this did not lead to reprisal against the individual.  However, if
this does lead to reprisal or pressure, it will be necessary to revert
to a last minute approach.

	The mechanism for preventing people from attending is usually
by posting guards at the door.  Prominent members of the international
organizing committee should escort their guests to the door along with
Russian speaking scientists who can translate.  The credentials of the
guards can be challenged, since they may be KGB types who are not
associated with the scientific organization and reluctant to identify
themselves.

	In case the guests are physically prevented from entering
the meeting or arrested, there should be a demonstration.  This demonstration
can take two forms:
@begin(enumerate)
	a. Officially moving a session from its meeting hall outside or to
the lobby of a hotel or even cancelling a session.


	b. A small parade with signs.  Signs can be made on ordinary
writing paper and affixed to clothing with pins.  Depending on the
courage and enthusiasm of the participants, the parade can be confined
to the building where the meeting is to take place or can venture outside.
@end(enumerate)
	6. Participants should know the telephone numbers of the news
media in Moscow and should hold a press conference about the issue
when this is appropriate.
@end(enumerate)
	After there have been several such confrontations, CCS
or the scientific organizations may be in a position to bargain
with the Soviet Academy about rules that will avoid confrontations
in the future.  It might be best that CCS or perhaps the International
Council of Scientific Unions bargain with the Soviet Academy, because
any given discipline holds a conference in the Soviet Union so rarely
that experience won't accumulate from conference to conference.
@newpage
	Please circulate this to people who will be interested.  I
would be glad to take part in a telephone conference on the subject,
and might even be able to attend a face-to-face meeting.
However, I'll be abroad between March 28 and June 20.
@end(body)
Best Regards,



John McCarthy
Professor of Computer Science



@flushleft(P.S. I enclose an account of the events at the International Joint
Conference on Artificial Intelligence in 1975.)

@flushleft(cc: Jack Minker, Louis Lerman)