∂23-Jan-82 HPM	24-Jan-82 JMC	Secure robots
a021  0047  23 Jan 82
PM-Scientist, Bjt,580
Universities Rebuff State Department Restrictions on Soviet Visitor
    STANFORD, Calif. (AP) - A widening dispute over the federal
government's attempt to extend anti-Soviet sanctions to academia has
lopped two universities from the itinerary of a Soviet scientist whose
specialty is robots.
    Stanford University has been declared off-limits to Nikolay Umnov
because the school refused to honor State Department restrictions on
his visit. The university said it could not successfully police a
visit, and that to make the attempt would disrupt the free environment
needed for creative work to take place.
    The University of Wisconsin followed Stanford's lead Friday, saying
it was an ''open institution.''
    Wisconsin Asssociate Dean Camden A. Coberly and professor Ali A.
Seireg said they plan to withdraw their acceptance of Umnov's visit.
That move will reduce the scientist's itinerary to Auburn University
and Ohio State University.
    But at Ohio State University, where Umnov was to spend six weeks,
professor Robert B. McGhee said Umnov would be ''welcome for two or
three days. I'd accept restrictions for a visit of that length, but
not any longer.''
    Umnov has been caught in a dispute over what visiting Soviet
scientists can see and do during a three-month scientific exchange
program that is sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences and
funded by the U.S. government.
    As part of the Reagan administration's attempt to restrict Soviet
access to U.S. technology, the State Department said Umnov couldn't
see anything not already published in open literature.
    It also said he should be restricted to mechanical theory of robotic
locomotion, with no industrial visits and no access to control units
or computer programming techniques that have given robots new
flexibility and made them more useful in the workplace.
    The measures are justified because the government is paying for the
visit, said Sue Pittman, a State Department spokeswoman. She also
cited ''possible technology transfer risks,'' an administration term
for thefts or leaks of U.S. scientific secrets.
    The restrictions reached universities hosting Soviet scholars via
letters from the national academy. As criticism of the restrictions
mounted, the NAS on Tuesday halted distribution of the letters.
    The restrictions are ''absurd,'' according to Bernard Roth, a
professor in Stanford's Department of Mechanical Engineeering.
    ''Guys in the U.S. who know something about it (robotics) learned
from the Russians,'' he said. Potential military applications are
''very small. ... I don't think anyone will win a war on the basis of
those machines. It's certainly not of critical national interest.''
    He added that nothing is being done in the field that the Soviets
''either don't already know or can easily figure out for themselves.''
    In refusing to honor the restrictions, Stanford Vice-Provost Gerald
J. Liberman said, ''We believe the best interests of American science
and technology are served by open exchanges of university research
activities.''
    He said in a letter to the NAS, ''The campus is completely open; and
the thousands of visiting scholars to campus each year have free
access to any of the university's programs. Even if we had the means
to monitor or police the activities of visitors, such actions would
drastically disrupt the academic environment which is essential in
fostering creative research endeavors.''
    Attempts to restrict visiting scientists are not new, and last
February Stanford President Donald Kennedy expressed ''grave concern''
over federal attempts to apply export controls to academic teaching
and research. He was joined in writing protests to the secretaries of
state, defense and commerce by presidents Marvin L. Goldberger of the
California Institute of Technology, Paul E. Gray of MIT, Frank H.T.
Rhodes of Cornell and David S. Saxon of the University of California.
    Kennedy told the faculty senate earlier this month the universities
had done ''sporadic negotiating'' with some agencies and had had
''skirmishes'' with others.
    
ap-ny-01-23 0346EST
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kjk - Question for the robotics people:  isn't Umnov in robot locomotion?
Aren't the Russians significantly ahead of us in locomotion?
What are the expected gains from Russian→US technology transfer vs.
US→USSR?
	In other words, do we stand to gain more than Russia from Umnov's
visit?  If so, a letter to the State Department informing them that they
are applying an import restriction rather than an export restriction
may be in order.
	A brief review of the status of known Russian work in robotics might
be useful for clarifying the tradeoffs.  Is anyone here willing to do that?
	Lest people get the wrong impression--I'm opposed to applying
export restrictions to academic work.  I think the State Dept is wedged.
However, a specific instance of the loss we incur from these restrictions
may do more than a thousand pages of moral, ethical, and philosphical
argument.

TAW - If the US Gov't doesn't want Umnov to know anything about 
state-of-the-art robotics, why are they letting him in??  That seems
to be the way to handle these things, as opposed to making every
US technologist in a sensitive field take Diplomacy courses.

JMC - I think that both Roth and Lieberman have made misstatements in
order to make their case stronger.  In my knowledge and Tom Binford's,
the Russians are mainly behind us in robotics.  Only in walking machines
have they done anything substantial.  Of course, they are very secretive
about what they do, and before they receive any visitor at an institute,
they determine what he may and may not be shown and what may be discussed.
Many institutes are secret and known only by Post Office Box numbers within
the country.  When people from one such institute (the Institute of Applied
Mathematics in Moscow) wanted to talk with me in 1965, they pretended to
be from a different institute.  Only later, when that institute wanted to
buy an American computer, did its existence emerge from secrecy; I never
got to visit it.

My attempts to collaborate with Ershov on MTC broke down mainly because
it was illegal for him to put scientific information in a letter except
by sending published documents.  It is illegal for a Russian to give a
foreigner written scientific information except in the form of published
books or papers.  In the 1960s, these rules were often bent, but exceptions
have been few since then.

Roth is also wrong in saying that robotics has no
military applications.  Lieberman's statement
''We believe the best interests of American science
and technology are served by open exchanges of university research
activities.'' contains the assumption that putting no restrictions
on Umnov would achieve that result.

Finally, the statement that restrictions are impractical and would
disrupt the University is phoney.  A visitor's schedule is made by
the University's "Office of Foreign Visitors", and nothing is easier
than leaving something off the schedule and notifying the Principal
Investigators of a few DoD sponsored projects that this has been done.
It doesn't prevent someone who wants to from telling all in the coffee
shop, but it would probably satisfy the State Department and have a
high probability of accomplishing what they want.

It is often argued that the Soviets can get all the information they
want by monitoring the literature.  It isn't easy to tell to what
extent this is true.  Certainly they are often behind in many areas,
and in many areas of computer science, their work is derivative - e.g.
putting on a Soviet computer systems done earlier in the U.S.  Of course,
there is the possibility that derivative work is all we hear about.
Overall, it seems that restrictions have important but random effects.
Of course, the restrictions the Soviets place on travel by their own
people are far more effective than our restrictions, but the effects
are additive.

Stanford is imposing restrictions on access to information, because the
Center for Integrated Systems will give special access to the companies
that are paying for it.  Even the Computer Forum gives special access to
its members.  The CIS has been agonizing for the better part of a year
about how best to give privileges to the 12 companies.

All the above constitutes criticism of the misstatements by Roth and
Lieberman.  There still remains the question of whether the particular
action of the State Department is reasonable.  If I had to make a
decision myself, I'd want more information about what the Russians do,
how open they have been, and what the military applications are.
On the basis of my experience and the information contained in the
article, their position seems a reasonable compromise.

In contrast to this, Stanford seems to be taking an absolutist position,
and its spokesmen are inventing facts to fit the desired conclusions.
Perhaps the position is a leftover from the 1960s.

Comments on the comments:  KJK wants to be sure people won't get him
wrong.  Let it be noted that his views are orthodox.

TAW wants to know why the Government let's Umnov in at all if they want to
restrict what he learns.  Usually the Defense Department wants to restrict
Soviet visitors and argues against letting them in many cases.  The
present case has the earmarks of one where the Defense Department opposed
the visit, and the State Department got a compromise.  The State Department is
in the business of making agreements and it prefers letting them in.
However, the State Department is often more aware than others of
bargaining considerations.  For example, Americans were able to visit
Novosibirsk before any other foreigners including Soviet satellites in the
1960s while it was still a closed city, because the State Department had
mapped it on Pittsburgh and wouldn't let Soviets visit Pittsburgh until
Americans visited Novosibirsk.  The National Academy of Sciences likes
exchanges.  Individual American scientists like visits and don't much care
if the exchange is very uneven.  In fact, I have found it good for the ego
to be on the informative side of such conversations.  Only later do I
notice that I have learned almost nothing.