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∂AIL Professor Robert Kates↓Dept. of Geography↓Clark University
↓Worcester, Massachusetts∞

Dear Professor Kates:

	I am writing to you because of your position as chairman of
the N.A.S. Committee on Human Rights at the suggestion of Charles
Trumbull and Gerson Sher of the N.A.S. staff.

	Dr. Trumbull called me to ask whether we could accept
Dr. Rybak of the Ukrainian Academy for two weeks more than we
had previously agreed to accept him.  I told him that we would
accept him for the agreed period, but that I was reluctant to
commit myself now to accept him longer because of the Shcharansky
situation.  I asked him what the Academy was doing about the
Soviet situation and he referred me to Dr. Sher who explained to
me about the activity of your committee.

	What he told me disturbed me so much that I have decided not to
accept Rybak at all, partly as a protest about Shcharansky, although I had
previously decided to limit that protest to at most not extending the
Rybak visit.

	My decision not to accept Rybak at all is a protest at the
Academy's total failure to use its power to promote human
rights.  Dr. Sher explained to me that you have decided to
discover equal violations of human rights in the Communist
countries and elsewhere and to limit yourselves to generalized
protest unlinked to anything the Communists want from us.

	Our experience at the meeting of the International Joint
Conference on Artificial Intelligence meeting at Tblisi in
September 1975 shows that generalized protest is almost useless, but
specific threats and promises can accomplish a lot.  As the
enclosed writeup (which %2Science%1 declined) recounts,
we were able to obtain the participation of a prominent
dissident and refusenik, Alexander Lerner, in our meeting
by threatening to hold a demonstration at the meeting.

	The Soviets had plenty of time to contemplate the
threat, and all the Soviet decision makers journeyed to
Tblisi a day early in order to decide on a response in conjunction
with the local Party and KGB authorities.  I am convinced that
they decided to give in, because Soviet scientists who didn't dare
say that Lerner was being wrongly excluded from the meeting, were
able to emphasize, even to the point of exaggeration, the benefits
that would accrue to the Soviet Union from giving in and the
harm to Soviet interests that would result from a confrontation.
No Soviet scientist would admit any personal objection to Lerner,
but none would stand up for his rights except when there was
some external pressure.
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	My protest is against the Academy's decision to exert no
actual pressure on the Soviets.  Therefore, since the Academy is
useless on this issue, individuals and groups of American scientists
have to protest against the Academy as well as against the Soviet
behavior.

.sgn

P.S. My position is based on considerable contact with the
Soviet Union.  I have been there more than ten times.
I don't like having to express this protest at the expense
of Rybak, whom I have met and who seems harmless enough, but
I see no other avenue at present, and something must be done
about the Shcharansky case.