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Professor Tosiyasu L. Kunii
Department of Information Science
Faculty of Science
University of Tokyo
7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku
Tokyo, 113 Japan
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Dear Professor Kunii:

	I have known Professor Masahiko Sato since 1975 when I was
visitor for two or three months at the Research Institute of
Mathematical Sciences and he was a graduate student there.  I lectured
on the formalization of facts about knowledge, e.g. the fact
represented by the sentence ``Pat knows Mike's telephone number''.
Sato wrote his PhD thesis under Professor Satoru Takasu of Kyoto
University on problems of formalizing knowledge.  This thesis
used techniques of mathematical logic that I didn't know about,
both taken from the literature and invented by himself.
In my view, Sato's results are still some of the best that have
been obtained in this area.

	More recently Sato has worked on the semantics and proof
theory of languages akin to LISP, inventing for this purpose
several versions of a language called QUTE.  Although I
originated LISP, I haven't followed the field of LISP semantics
which got too complicated for my taste.  For this reason, I can't
say how Sato's Qute fits in with the work others have done.

	My general opinion is that Sato is one of the outstanding
researchers in the area of applying mathematical logic to
programming languages.  I think he is worthy of a professorship
at such an outstanding university as the University of Tokyo.

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Sincerely,
John McCarthy
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