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a draft
The following can be fired off in whatever direction is appropriate.

	This letter is in support of making an exception to the rule about
Fullbright scholars returning to their countries of origin in the case of
Professor Yoav Shoham in connection with his work as Assistant Professor
of Computer Science at Stanford University.

	There is a great shortage of qualified people working
in Shoham's area which happens to be my specialty also.
The field of using mathematical logic to express common sense
knowledge in a way that can be used by intelligent computer
programs started about 30 years ago, but progress has been alow.
The main reason has been the shortage of people who combine the
necessary knowledge and ability in logic with the necessary
interest in the basically non-mathematical problem of
common sense reasoning and problem solving.

	This specialty is important to maintaining the U.S. lead in
technology related to defense.  The current DARPA research projects
in developing artificial intelligence systems for a pilots associate,
an autonomous land vehicle and naval battle management will all experience
performance limitations related to their ability to use common
sense knowledge.

	Shoham is one of the few people who combine the abilities required
to advance this field as evidenced by his PhD thesis and his more recent.
This is why we chose him for our faculty and why he is included in our
current DARPA project on developing the logic approach to artificial
intelligence.  We expect him to develop this difficult field by his own
research and also to help students get started in it.

Sincerely,