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@make(letterhead,phone"497-4430",Who"John McCarthy",Logo old, Department csd)
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@begin(address)
Academician Gurii Ivanovich Marchuk
State Committee for Committee on Science and Technology
Moscow
USSR
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@greeting (Dear Gurii Ivanovich:)
@begin(body)
	Gene Golub told me about meeting you again in Moscow, and
it made me remember our contacts in the past.  For the last several
years such contacts have been few, and the poor relations between
our countries, both official and in public opinion, are a large
part of the cause.  We hope that conditions will improve in the future.

	One matter that affects scientific public opinion is the
problem of scientists who are in prison in the Soviet Union for
what most of us Western scientists consider to be political reasons.
A particular crisis now arises in the case of Anatolii Shcharansky,
a computer scientist, who we hear is near death in prison from
a hunger strike.

	Anything you can do to ease his situation, especially if
he could be released, would improve scientific relations between
Soviet and Western scientists, especially computer scientists.
His death would create conditions that would greatly increase
the time before the previous level of exchange can be re-established.
If there is any action by Western computer scientists
that would make Shcharansky's release possible, we would try to
get it considered.
@end(body)
Sincerely,




John McCarthy
Professor of Computer Science