1006 



VISA AND OTHER ADMINISTRATIVE RESTRICTIONS 



Restrictions incorporated in visas and in regulations governing 

 internal travel in the United States and the Soviet Union are one 

 impediment to the free exchange of scientists. These are sometimes 

 imposed by one government in retaliation to measures enforced by the 

 other country.*^* 



American restrictions are imposed by the State Department, which 

 issues visas for exchanges from East European countries and approves 

 itineraries;*^^ and by the Soviet and Eastern European Exchanges 

 Staff, NAS, which, in providing poHcy and procedural guidance for 

 NAS-administered programs, approves Soviet attendance at scientific 

 conferences and insures that Soviet exchange scientists are not security 

 risks: 



[The staflf] administers attendance at conferences, acting for the Government 

 in deciding whether Soviet and Eastern European scientists may attend confer- 

 ences in the United States, whether the United States should seek reciprocation 

 if Soviet scientists are permitted to attend a specific conference. In addition, it 

 passes along security considerations to American sponsors of conferences which 



Soviet nationals will be attending and to Americans attending conferences in this 

 area.*23 



State Department restrictions, according to Byrnes, result from 

 Department of Defense apprehensions over the miUtary significance 

 of planned research and also represent retaUation for restrictions the 

 Soviets place on activities of American scholars: 



... The [State] Department controls admission to the United States and 

 has on occasion denied visas to Soviet scholars nominated in fields which have 

 military significance, such as microelectronics or new types of computers, or in 

 subjects in which the Soviet Union has refused to accept American scholars. In 

 addition, in retahation for travel restrictions imposed on all Americans in the 

 Soviet Union, Soviet participants in the United States must inform the Depart- 

 ment of State of intended travel four days before they can leave their home 

 campus. *2* 



In Uke fashion, the Soviet Union places restrictions on the research 

 activities of American exchange scientists. In addition to the typical 

 restrictions on sensitive military research, the Soviet Union as noted 

 above shows "Httle interest" in exchanging scientists "in the 'soft' 

 sciences." *^^ Barghoom's summary observations of a survey he con- 

 ducted of scientific, including social science, exchanges with the USSR 

 during 1966 and 1967 describes some of the difficulties the social 

 scientist faces in the USSR : 



,'>^ . . Work in Russia is frustrating and annoyingly controlled by government 

 overseers — particularly for social scientists. . . . The more knowledgeable an 

 exchangee is about a nonpolitical discipline, such as mathematics, the more likely 



«i This point was made in a recent interchange between Representative Fuqua, then chairman of the 

 Subcommittee on International Cooperation in Science and Space, House Committee on Science and Astro- 

 nautics, and Mr. Herman Pollack, Director, Office of International Scientific and Technological Affairs, 

 Department of State: 



"Mr. Fuqua. In this cultural agreement, have our scientists been given free rein to go where they choose 

 to or look at various matters that may be of concern from a scientific point of view? 



"Mr. Pollack. On the whole the answer to that is 'No.' However they are being given access to more and 

 more of the institutions and the activities that they are interested in. There are still closed areas, there 

 are still facilities we do not see and we, in turn, impose a comparable condition upon the Soviets in an effort 

 to maintain a sufficient degree of reciprocity so as to keep the pressure on them to open up their facilities 

 that our people are interested in seeing." 



(International Cooperation in Science and Space: Hearings, op. cit., p. 9). 



«2 7970 NS F Authorization, Hearings, Vol. 1, op. cit., p. 455. 



«3 The Participation of Federal Agencies in International Scientific Programs, op. cit., p. 38. 



«4 Byrnes, op. cit., p. 9. The NAS Advisory Committee on Eastern Europe has reported an instance 

 of DoD objections to exchanges based on the sensitivity of planned research. See: "Summary Minutes 

 of Meeting of Advisory Committee on Eastern Europe." November 17, 1962, p. 4. 



«' "A Decade of Scholarly Exchanges with the Soviet Union," FAR Horizons (July 1968), p. 2. 



