1146 



January 1972, when restrictions on East-West contacts were eased 

 in the GDK, until September 1973 some 3,000 East German physicians, 

 scientists, and technologists fled to West Germany, according to an 

 authoritative East German source.^®® 



Under pressures of harsh discrimination, some Jews from the Soviet 

 scientific community and many from other sectors of the intelligentsia, 

 probably numbering in the thousands, have been permitted to emigrate 

 to Israel in recent years. Others like Zhores A. Medvedev, the noted 

 Soviet geneticist and civil rights dissident writer, have lost their 

 citizenship while abroad, and still others like Andrei Sakharov, Rus- 

 sia's world renowned physicist and father of the Soviet H-bomb, 

 suffer serious personal and professional deprivations and are objects 

 of harsh regime attacks. From time to time, scientific communities 

 in Latin America, particularly in Brazil and Argentina, have been 

 targets of direct political attacks and outright persecution by hostile 

 political regimes. Emigration of valuable faculty members and de- 

 struction of scientific centers long in building have often resulted.^^^ 



POLITICAL INSTABIIJTY AND UNREST 



Political instability and unrest are disruptive to orderly national 

 life and unsettling to professionals. Pushed by forces of political 

 adversity, they often seek tranquility in other lands. In generalizing 

 on the reasons for such behavior. Dr. Kidd explained that this factor 

 is one of a number of "push" forces "inherent in the process of 

 development itself." ^^^ 



Instability is a common characteristic of political life in those 

 LDCs that are in the early stages of modernization coupled with new 

 responsibilities of self-government. Many emerging nations, faced' 

 with so many new challenges all at once, proved to be incapable of 

 orderly transition from colonialism to independence. Institutions 

 often hastily grafted on the body politic from essentially alien cul- 

 tures could not withstand the burdens of self-rule. 



Universities have been especially vulnerable to the adverse effects 

 of unrest issuing from these conditions. Often politicized to the ex- 

 treme, they tend to become enmeshed in the conflicts for power. Po- 

 litical unrest among university students may result in frequent strikes 

 and sporadic mob violence which makes normal academic life im- 

 possible. ^^^ Continued residence under such political conditions is 

 sometimes uncongenial, if not dangerous, for academic professionals, 

 particularly those who believe that the university is a marketplace for 

 the free exchange of ideas and that scholars have a right and obliga- 

 tion to examine and discuss all problems no matter how contemporary 

 or relevant to conditions at home.^^" 



=«« Journal of Joseph G. Whelan, Notebook No. 3, Sept. 25, 1973, pp. 166-175. 



^ For a discussion of experiences In Brazil and Argentina, see H. Movses Nussenzvelg, 

 'Migration of Scientists from Latin America," Science, 165 (Sept. 26, "1969) pp. 1328- 

 1332. Mr. Charles V. Kldd of the Executive Office of Science and Technology made the 

 following all-lncluslve judgment on the cause of brain drain from Argentina : "In Argentina. 

 I would venture the guess that the structural problems, the nature of the unlversitv the 

 antiquated university structure, and the political situation, the heritage of Peron — all put 

 together are the primary reasons for migration from Argentina." (Hearings, Senate Judici- 

 ary Committee, International Migration of Talent and Skills, 1968, p. 84.) 



»* Hearings, Senate, Judiciary Committee, International Migration of Talent and Skills, 

 1968, p. 80. 



^isMylnt, op. clt., pp. 243-244. 



270 Melvln J. Fox, "Some Pluses and Minuses of the Brain Drain," In, International Devel- 

 opment, 1966, op. clt., p. 74. 



