1086 



vev in 1905 claimed tliat 12,000 sub-Saharan African student's re- 

 mained in P" ranee witli their families; 11,000 more were still pursuing; 

 their studies.^^^ According^ to one French researcher, it was generally 

 Icnown to be a considerable problem that 62 percent of the students 

 from Africa, Asia, and the Antilles studied science, medicine, den- 

 tistry, and pliarmacy, the occupations most susceptible to bi-ain drain, 

 Avhile those from the more industrialized countries studied mostly 

 French literature and culture in order to teach in their countries. . 

 Among 80 students interviewed at the Faculte des Sciences in Paris in. 

 1967. 69 percent of Vietnamese wanted to remain in France ; 25 pei*- 

 cent were undecided. The North Africans were divided equally: half 

 wanted to stay, half to return. Among Africans, 15 percent preferred 

 France, 52 percent wanted to return home, and 33 percent were un- 

 decided. In another survey conducted by an African among African 

 students, 61 percent indicated a wish to study in France even if their 

 courses had been available in Africa. Expressions of this sort are not 

 evidence of brain drain per se, but they are part of an attitude, reaf- 

 firmed in American, surveys, that frequently lead to it.^^* 



mo\t:ment to west Germany 



According to Baldwin, "In Europe many more countries have not 

 suffered from a brain drain than have." He cites the examples of 

 France, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, West Germany, Spain, Italy, and 

 Yugoslavia. In the Far East, Japan has also been spared higli-level 

 talent losses. Norway and Switzerland, he declared, have lost "quite 

 substantial proportions'' of their annual output of professional talent 

 to North America."^ Special political and ideological conditions exist- 

 ing in the Soviet bloc have prevented it from being a contender in the 

 world competition for professional manpower. 



With regard to West Germany, Eugene B. Skolnikoff indicates that 

 it has suffered brain drain losses. Some 5 percent of all German grad- 

 uates in science, he wrote, emigrate each year.^^'' Whatever losses West 

 Germany may have suffered, apparently, they have been compensated 

 in some measure by counterflows from other directions. According to 

 Nuri Eren, Norway and Sweden have lost many of their "brightest 

 stars" to Germany.^" Mr. Eren acknowledged the absence of quanti- 

 tative innnigration data in estimating the weight of imported talent 



iM Report of U.N. Secretary General, Outflow of Trained Personnel from LDCs, Nov. 5, 

 19fiS. D. 32. 



"< Henderson, op. cit., pp. 37-38. ^ , , ^ , ^ , 



1^ Baldwin, op. dt., p. 359. Japan has not been entirely spared from high-level brain drain 

 losses as Baldwin indicates. On Apr. 11, 1974, the writer attended a meeting- of the 

 National Press Club where In conversation with Mr. Kinjl Kawamura. Chief of the Ameri- 

 can General Bureau, The Asahi Shimbun Newspaper, the brain drain problem was dis- 

 cussed. Mr. Kawamura agreed that Jap-an may not be a prime loser of talent, but still it 

 has lost key professionals. He cited the case of a Japanese scientist, Leona Ezakl, who had 

 won a Nobel Prize for developing an advanced electronic element important in computer 

 technology. It was discovered that Mr. Ezakl was In New York working for IBM where he 

 preferred to remain rather than return to Japan. The principal reason for this decision, 

 along with the high salary and prestige, was the desire to stay in research, having avail- 

 able the advanced computer facilities of IBM. In Janan. a man of his rank would have to 

 move into management, and this he did not wish to do. Mr. Kawamura also indicated that 

 tliere were a number of Jananese M.D.s at the National Institutes of Health who also did 

 not want to return home. Again availability of advanced research facilities was the major 

 reason for their decision. One of the medical scientists had made the important discovery 

 of a cancer virus affecting the liver. Mr. Kawamura observed that Japan had lost "a nation- 

 al asset" when this scientist decided to stay in the United States. 



"« Skolnikoff, op. cit. p. 92. 



"' Eren, op. cit.. p. 11, 



