PARTICIPATION OF A WOULD BE EMIGRANT IN A SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE
                         IN THE SOVIET UNION




        At the  Fourth International  Joint Conference  on Artificial
Intelligence (IJCAI),  held in  Tbilisi, USSR from  3 to  8 September
1975,  Alexander  Y. Lerner,  a  cyberneticist who  had  declared his
intention to emigrate from the USSR to Israel four  years previously,
participated  without  incident   in  a  panel   discussion  entitled
"Artificial Intelligence,  Cybernetics and Mathematics".   Since this
was the first  time that a  scientist refused permission  to emigrate
was permitted  to take  part in  a scientific  meeting in  the Soviet
Union,  there has  been  curiousity about  how this  came  about, and
whether  a more  humane  policy more  in keeping  with  the customary
openness of  scientific meetings  can now be  expected in  the Soviet
Union.

        Artificial   intelligence  is   the  study   of  intellectual
processes with emphasis  on how computers can  be made to  carry them
out.  The IJCAIs (conferences)  have been held every two  years since
1969  in Washington  D.C., London,  Stanford California,  and Tbilisi
USSR.  Each meeting  has had several  hundred attendees -  about half
Americans,  since  most  reasearch  in  AI  is  American.   The IJCAI
(committee) is an  informal organization of  individuals representing
only themselves that  meets at each conference  to select one  or two
individuals responsible for organizing the next conference.

        At the  Stanford conference  in 1973,  a delegation  from the
Council of Cybernetics of the USSR invited the Committee to  hold the
next  conference  in  the  USSR  at  a  location  to  be subsequently
determined.   At first,  there was  considerable skepticism  that the
informal style of IJCAI was compatible with the way things might have
to be done  in the USSR, but  the Soviet delegation accepted  all our
proposals regarding organization including the complete  authority of
the Program  Chairman, Professor Patrick  Winston of M.I.T.  over the
program and the overall authority of the General  Chairman, Professor
Erik Sandewall  of Upsalla University  (Sweden).  It was  agreed that
Professor  Winston  would   publish  an  English   language  advanced
proceedings and that translations of Soviet papers would  be supplied
in time for  this.  It was agreed  that delegates from  all countries
would be allowed  to attend, because of  a previous case in  which an
Israeli invited to a  conference was subsequently denied a  visa.  No
issue concerning the attendance of Soviet citizens was raised.  There
was some  behind the scenes  muttering about treatment  of dissidents
and  problems  with  Intourist,  but  after  an  initial   vote  that



conferences  should alternate  between North  America  and elsewhere,
there were 8 votes  for the USSR against 3  for Japan and 1  for West
Germany.

        An  inquiry  established  that  Israelis  were   admitted  to
International Conferences held in the Soviet Union, although  when an
Israeli working in the United States was invited to a Soviet domestic
conference (perhaps in the belief  that he was an American),  no visa
could be obtained.  (This raises some questions for  people receiving
such invitations).

        About a year before the Conference, Professor Jack  Minker of
the Union  of Concerned Scientists  (They are concerned  about Soviet
treatment of  dissidents and would-be  emigrants), proposed  that the
Conference  be  moved  from  the  Soviet  Union  because  of  the ill
treatment of  these people.  The  organizers declined on  the grounds
that the state of these issues had not changed since the  decision to
hold the  meeting in  the USSR.  Professor  Minker pursued  this goal
with a letter to the SIGART newsletter, and an ad hoc meeting held in
connection with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) meeting
in San Diego voted 31-0 for moving the meeting.  The Professor Minker
proposed  to  organize   a  panel  on  Artificial   Intelligence  and
Cybernetics for the  meeting and to  invite Alexander Lerner,  one of
the better know would-be emigrants to take part.  Dr. Lerner had been
employed by the Institute of  Problems of Control in Moscow  until he
tried  to  emigrate  in  1971  and  was  rather  prominent  in Soviet
cybernetics and held many official positions.  In 1971 he  was fired,
remained unemployed, and had his  name removed from a new  edition of
his book.  He  is one of the  more prominent refuseniks and  has been
interviewed  by foreign  newspapers  and visiting  U.S.  Senators and
Representatives.

        I accepted Professor Minker's invitation to be on  the panel,
and Winston  accepted the  panel for  the program  simply determining
that the panel topic was suitable for the conference and  that Minker
was qualified to organize it.  In April 1975 three  Soviet scientists
came to M.I.T. to discuss the program and at their request Minker was
persuaded give up being chairman of the panel and it was  agreed that
I was asked to be co-chairman with a Soviet scientist subsequently to
be appointed.  There is a difference of opinion on the sense in which
the Soviet scientists agreed to Lerner's participation - whether they
said  only  that they  had  no personal  objections  or  whether they
committed the Soviet Council on Cybernetics.

        In May the  New York Times reported  that Lerner was  told by
the KGB (a Soviet organization combining the functions of the FBI and
CIA with  political control  functions not carried  out in  the U.S.)



that he would not be allowed to go to Tbilisi and participate  in the
conference.  This event caused  Minker to renew his campaign  to move
the  conference with  a mailing  to the  members of  the  ACM Special
Interest  Group on  Artificial Intelligence  getting about  500 cards
supporting his position.  The organizing committee members  agreed by
telephone to send a letter to the Soviet organizing committee stating
that  we  took  the  issue  of  Lerner's  right  to  attend  and  the
Conference's right to hear him very seriously and that  his inclusion
in  the  program  was  within the  prerogatives  of  the  the Program
Chairman.  The letter  went on to say  that there would be  a "public
protest" at the conference if  Lerner were not allowed to  take part.
The form of the protest  was not stated, partly for  tactical reasons
and  partly   because  it  would   depend  on  what   the  non-Soviet
participants would want to do.  In any case, it was planned to obtain
a tape of  Lerner's speech and play  it at the panel,  but additional
actions were contemplated.  The letter was signed by all but one non-
Soviet member  of the  Organizing Committee; he  was not  informed of
enough of the background in time to make up his mind.

        A letter was received  from I. M. Gelfand, who  was appointed
Soviet co-chairman, asking about  the suggested content of  the panel
and  suggesting  that  good  participants  be  obtained.   The  reply
discussed the  scientific question  and emphasized  that part  of the
membership of  the panel was  already determined,  that participation
was  not  organized  on   national  lines  and  that  I   would  take
responsibility for continuing Minker's invitation to Lerner, and that
the Program Chairman (Winston) had the final authority.

        No reply was received to either of the above letters.

        When  the  members  of the  Organizing  Committee  arrived in
Moscow, the Soviet Committee had apparently still not decided what to
do  about  the  issue, except  that  they  offered  several arguments
against  the  participation  of  Lerner  in  the  panel  and  in  the
Conference.  The  first argument was  that the Soviet  delegation was
made up of the nominees of various organizations, and no organization
had nominated Lerner.   The reply was that  the AI Conference  was of
individuals not  delegates, and his  registration for  the Conference
had  been accepted  and he  had been  invited to  participate  in the
panel.

        Lerner was visited in his Moscow apartment.  He had a tape of
his proposed remarks, and an airplane reservation to Tbilisi,  but he
was not thought that perhaps the KGB would prevent him from  going to
Tbilisi.  The New York Times correspondent Christopher Wren,  who had
written the May article about  Lerner being told that he  couldn't go
to Tbilisi  was contacted and  expressed journalistic  interest.  The



U.S. Embassy's  scientific counselor was  contacted, told  what might
happen, and he expressed a desire to be kept informed.

        On the morning  when the conference  was to open  a breakfast
was held at which the Georgian host, Dr Chavchanidze, Director of the
Institute of Cybernetics in Tbilisi, proposed a  compromise.  Lerner,
who had arrived in Tbilisi  without incident, could take part  in the
conference and the panel, but as  a guest and not as a member  of the
Soviet delegation.  In return  for this, both Lerner and  the foreign
members of the Organizing Committee were to promise to discourage any
political activity at the Conference.  Both Lerner and the Organizing
Committee were entirely satisfied with this.

        Once this was agreed,  Dr. Chavchanidze and the  other Soviet
organizers acted with  great courtesy and consideration.   Dr. Lerner
was greeted courteously by his old friends, his request that his wife
be  admitted  too was  granted  without hesitation,  and  a prominent
Soviet computer scientist replaced Gelfand, who was ill in Moscow, as
co-chairman  of the  panel,  and another  prominent  Soviet scientist
agreed to participate and took part in a preliminary  get-together of
the panel, but had to  return to Moscow before the panel  took place.
The panel took place smoothly in a room crowded with both  Soviet and
foreign participants.  It was agreed that both sides had lived  up to
the letter and spirit of the agreement.

        Two  other  problems   should  be  mentioned,   because  they
interacted with the Lerner issue.  The first was that the one Israeli
who  tried  to  come was  denied  a  visa by  the  Soviet  Embassy in
Washington less than a week before the beginning of the  meeting.  On
the one hand, the Soviet  organizers didn't realize there would  be a
problem with him, because he  worked in the U.S.  On the  other hand,
his  visa  application  stated  clearly  that  the  was  attending an
international conference.   Moreover, an assurance  that a  cable had
been sent that would result in a visa at the Soviet Consulate  in San
Francisco didn't  result in  a visa.   A further  assurance, obtained
after the  Organizing Committee arrived  in Moscow, that  the problem
had finally been  solved and a visa  was available in Vienna  was not
checked, because the scientist in question decided to give  up.  This
issue had the effect  of making the Western scientists  more militant
on the  Lerner issue and  probably made the  Soviets more  willing to
make  concessions,  since   they  had  given  assurances   two  years
previously that there would be no problem with Israelis.

        The  second  problem  concerned the  brothers,  Issai  and xx
Goldstein of  Tbilisi, who  also had  lost their  jobs for  trying to
emigrate and  who also  wished to attend  the conference.   They were
allowed to attend the panel involving Lerner where one of  them asked



a question  identifying himself  as from the  State of  Israel, which
caused no  reaction at  the time.   The next  day according  to their
report they were  picked up by  the KGB and  told that they  had been
invited by the Americans  which was improper and compelled  on threat
of arrest to promise not to return to the Conference  unless properly
invited.  This caused some  Conference attendees to propose  moving a
session to their  home, but the  organizing Committee declined  to do
this on the grounds that our agreement concerned Lerner and  had been
adhered to, but we stated that the psychological atmosphere  would be
improved  if  something  could  be  done  for  the  Goldsteins.   Dr.
Chavchanidze  stated that  he had  been unable  to contact  anyone in
authority,  but that  the Goldstein's  could come  as far  as  he was
concerned  provide  they   "behaved  themselves",  but   he  couldn't
guarantee what the authorities  would do.  This was Saturday  and the
Goldstein's attended the Monday morning session after which they were
again picked  up and told  they couldn't come  no matter  what anyone
said.  The Conference concluded Monday afternoon.

        Here  are  some  conclusions that  we  have  drawn  from this
affair, but we must emphasize that they are all tentative:

        1. Sometimes foreign pressure can get Soviet organizations to
behave  more   in  accordance   with  international   scientific  and
humanitarian norms than they  will without the pressure.   Success in
any instance cannot be predicted in advance of trying.

        2. It was important that the Organizing Committee itself took
a stand.  The delegation of authority to the General Chairman and the
Program Chairman helped  in this case, since  they could act  on what
they felt  was the  consensus rather than  wait for  formal meetings.
Their willingness to commit themselves was decisive.

        3. The IJCAI involved a number of circumstances that will not
repeat themselves.  Thus it may  have been easier for the  Soviets to
make  concessions  to  the  Organizing  Committee  that  had resisted
attempts to move the Conference from the Soviet Union.

        4. No person on the Soviet side expressed  personal objection
to the participation of Lerner,  but none would have taken  action on
his  behalf  independently.  Presumably  it  was easier  for  them to
advocate concessions to a foreign viewpoint than to  express personal
agreement with that viewpoint.

        5. It was never clear  who made the final Soviet  decision or
on what  level the  decision was made  even though  we know  that the
matter was discussed at the level of the Presidium of the  Academy of
Sciences.    According   to   the  model   of   maximum   evasion  of



responsibility, higher authorities may have ordered the  lower levels
to optimize several  variables simultaneously which  effectively left
the lower level the decision of what to do once it became  clear that
simultaneous optimization was impossible.  This model is supported by
the fact  that if  "loss of  face" was  a consideration,  and several
Soviets said it  was, then less face  could have been lost  by making
the same decisions earlier.

        6. In  our opinion,  the motivations  of individuals  and the
local conditions played an important role, but we have  refrained not
reported our conjectures  about this, because  it would be  unfair to
the  individuals   concerned.   This  goes   for  both   Soviets  and
Westerners.

        7.  Many   of  us   are  still   uncertain  how   to  balance
considerations of  non-interference in  other country's  affairs with
considerations of the proper conduct of scientific meetings  and with
humanitarian considerations.  Soviet scientists with whom  the matter
was discussed also differed  in their opinions of whether  our action
was good, bad, or irrelevant.   This report merely tells what  we did
and how it turned out.