The San Diego resolution in favor of getting the 4IJCAI moved
from Tblisi was a big mistake for the following reasons:

1. The logistical reason for wanting to move it is quite thoughtless
of the interests of anyone but Americans.  The Committee decided to
hold alternate conferences in North America and the one after this at
M.I.T. in particular.  If the IJCAIs are to be international at all, this
is about as far as one can reasonably go in accomodating the fact
that most of the people working in AI are Americans.  After all, it is
still much easier for us to cross the Atlantic than it is for
Europeans.

2. Proposing to move the conference more than a year after the
original decision and after the Erik Sandewall and the Russians have
put in a large amount of preliminary work, especially when the proposal
accompanies Anthony Ralston's proposal of a boycott if we don't get our
way is a proposal that the American AI community throw its weight around
in a way incompatible with an international organization.  If this is
done, the rest of the world will justifiably feel that IJCAI's informal
organization is not justifiable and that the only possibility is the
extreme one-country-one-vote formalism of IFIP.  If we ever go in for
that, IJCAI will no longer be run by scientists but by semi-professional
officials.

3. The political reason for moving the conference resembles the recent
Paris UNESCO decision to carry out no projects in Israel and is just
as unjustifiable.

The recent concentration of articles and letters in the SIGART
Newsletter on international and SIGART politics suggests that many
people have nothing to say about scientific topics.  It is suggested that
the editors reduce the amount of such stuff by a factor of ten.  AI is
a difficult enough subject without SIGART serving mainly as a distraction.

John McCarthy