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C00002 00002	Professor Michael Rabin, Rector
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Professor Michael Rabin, Rector
University of Jerusalem
Jerusalem, Israel

Dear Michael:

	As you may know it was voted at the last International Joint
Conference on Artificial Intelligence to hold the next one in the
Soviet Union, at their invitation.  At the time, it was stated that
the decision was contingent on their admitting the Israeli delegates,
and the Russians were told this informally.

	I just read in the Stanford Daily about an Israeli being refused
as visa to a Geophysics conference in the Soviet Union, so the issue is
clearly still alive.  The story also said that the International Geophysical
Union has a policy of meeting only in countries that admit all delegates,
but nevertheless this meeting will almost certainly be held without the
Israeli delegates.  This makes it clear that if the AI Conference intends
to implement our condition, we need a contingency plan and a criterion
that to trigger its implementation.

	The contingency plan must be to hold the meeting somewhere else.
and it must be somewhere that won't drastically change the distances
delegates have to travel which excludes the USA and Japan which were
the original alternatives.  I consider that the present alternatives
are Sweden (where the General Chairman, Erik Sandewall lives), Britain
(where there is a substantial AI community), West Germany (which had
also invited the conference), and Israel (which might have special
reasons for helping and which would be the most embarassing alternative
to the Russians).

	As to the criterion, I am propos