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\F2\CSTANFORD ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE LABORATORY
\CDEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
\CSTANFORD UNIVERSITY
\CSTANFORD, CALIFORNIA 94305
\F0



							August 25, 1974



Dr. Zohar Manna
The Weizman Institute of Science
Rehovat, Israel

Dear Zohar:

\J	Let me remind you of your promise to help monitor the
situation concerning Israeli attendance at meetings in the USSR.
The first question is whether Israelis are currently getting
visas for internationally sponsored meetings.  As you know,
Israelis have been refused visas to meetings to which they have
been invited, but my impression is that this applied to
Soviet domestic meetings, and the cases I know about are ones
where the initial invitations came from Soviet scientists who
either didn't know that the invitees were Israeli or who were
pressuring the Soviet system by issuing the invitations.
(Incidentally, I think that instead of accepting Ershov's
repeated expressions of optimism about getting a visa for
you to the Novosibirsk MTC meeting, I should have told him
that no Stanford people would enter the USSR until you had
your visa, but that is hindsight).

	As you probably know, the AI community is generally
taking the position that it is too late for the issues
raised by Minker to affect holding the meeting in the Soviet
Union; they were all known at the time the decision was made,
but the meeting would be moved even at the last minute if
delegates couldn't get visas.  We have received assurances
on this point from one of the organizers, and they know our
position, but the organizer in question was not Brezhnev,
but only Stefanyuk.

	I hope to hear from you about the current situation,
and I suggest you send a copy of your letter to Erik
Sandewall.\.

							Best Regards,

						


							John McCarthy
							Director, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
							Professor of Computer Science