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Courtroom 15 2nd floor
us court of appeals
post office build
7th and mission
start 9am to 12 1:15 to 3:30
rich garon, congressman gilman
sf hilton downtown 771-1400

	In my opinion, harassing the Soviet postal authorities as
proposed by the Committee is worthwhile.  Besides the arbitrary rule
of the Communist Party, there are both legalistic tendencies and human
rights tendencies in Soviet officialdom.  Foreign pressure often
interacts with these tendencies to produce results that a simple
view of the effect of the pressure wouldn't be expected to produce.
People who want to act humanely or even merely legally often use
the foreign pressure as a means of getting their way without having
to stick their own necks out as opponents of Communist Party
arbitrariness.  Therefore, I think that pressure in the International
Postal Union as proposed here may well produce some improvement.

	Making a form for direct reporting of non-receipt of mail
is also worthwhile.

	The experience of the international artificial intelligence
community in pressuring the Soviets into admitting Alexander Lerner
to a panel at our meeting in Tblisi was not solely a result of our
own efforts.  The fact that most of the Soviet scientists privately
agreed that Lerner was being mistreated was important but would
not have led to a result without the foreign pressure.

	In my personal opinion, there are a few additional forms
of pressure that might be useful.

	1. The Soviet propaganda magazine %2Soviet Life%1 deserves
a hard time, especially as they have not lived up to their agreement
to keep our magazine %2America%1 available.

	2. Theft in the Soviet postoffice. 653-2740 Owen Chamberlain

For Chamberlain: Physical review letters might consider sending some
issues by messenger when someone is available.  Given the proven
unreliability of the mails, they might include copies addressed to
Soviet institutions or prominent individuals, who would then be
asked to pick up their copies from Brailovsky.
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.cb Supplementary Statement of John McCarthy

	I would like to supplement the statement I am making on
behalf of the Committee of Concerned Scientists with a few remarks
about the effectiveness of the kind of pressure proposed.

	There is a natural tendency to believe that this pressure
from foreigners cannot be effective in making the Soviets
respect the rights of their own people.  The inconvenience to
the Soviets seems insufficient to make any principled government
alter or make exceptions to its policies.  But obviously it has
often been very effective in recent years.  My own experience
relates to a successful effort to get Professor Alexander Lerner,
a prominent older refusenik, permission to take part in a panel
at an international conference held in the Soviet Union.

	I believe the answer has two parts.  First, the Soviet
Government is not self respecting.  Its actions are based on slogans
that almost everyone knows are fictitious cover-ups of base desires
to maintain power and privilege.  Many who repeat the slogans will
contravene them in a minute if there is something personal to be
gained.  Second, many Soviets in many positions, who believe that the
dissidents are being treated unfairly, will emphasize the
advantages of accomodating the foreigners in particular instances.
Third, the people who intercept the mail often steal books and
magazines of value and sell them on the black market (The %2New York
Times Magazine%1 had a recent article about such theft) and will often
make particular problems moot in order to avoid exposure.
Fourth, besides humanitarian sentiments there are strong legalistic
sentiments among Russians made nervous by unpredictable and capricious
decisions of anonymous Communist Party and KGB officials.
These people like to see Soviet law obeyed.
	
	This view of it suggests several additional measures.  First,
the U.S. Post Office should raise the issue of theft of the mail with
the Soviet postal authorities.  Second, when a magazine is not delivered
a statement should be demanded of what was unacceptable about it, and
its return should be demanded.  This will annoy the thieves.
Third, some kind of retaliation in kind against Soviet propaganda organizations
in the United States should be threatened and considered, e.g. the
magazine %2Soviet Life%1 and (say) the Four Continent Book Company.
The action should be frankly retaliatory and not based on finding
the propaganda itself improper.

	The many thousands Russian exiles in the United States undoubtedly
have much information relevant to determining where pressure can
most effectively be applied.

.nofill
John McCarthy
Professor of Computer Science
Stanford University
Stanford, California 94305