1212 



The conference report expanded on this theme. Science and tech- 

 nology were considered the key to development, but the "constant 

 drain" of native scientists and technologists creates "the most serious 

 consequence" which is "evident in the difficulty — and, in some cases 

 the impossibility — of ensuring the training, in each branch of science 

 and technology, ... of specialists and research workers capable of 

 producing a real impact on the community." ^^^ 



Eduardo Frei Montalva, then President of Chile, explained. "No 

 one can help but be aware that tl\e development of contemporary civili- 

 zation depends on science and technology," he began his opening ad- 

 dress to the conference. He continued : ". . . countries not involved in 

 this process of research or unable to perceive and adapt it to their own 

 reality are irrevocably doomed." President Frei pointed out the con- 

 nection between the advance of knowledge and advances in the human 

 condition, and the cause-and-effect relationship and the process of 

 acceleration in applying new discoveries and their impact on the life 

 of man. He emphasized the requirements of building a scientific-tech- 

 nological infrastructure and then came directly to the point of the 

 negative impact of brain drain on development: "Hence, while it is 

 true that all mankind benefits from the immense progress that science 

 and technology have bestowed on man, it is no less evident that the 

 differences between highly developed and developing peoples, instead 

 of diminishing — as apparently might be thought — are increasing con- 

 siderably with the increase in knowledge and the power it brings with 

 it." Chilean and North American pioneers used the same wagon to 

 conquer their frontiers, he went on to illustrate his point, but today 

 Americans construct space-ships, while Chileans could barely turn out 

 a small range of minor items of machinery at high cost and of indiffer- 

 ent quality. "This is why," he continued, "we can say that the gap be- 

 tween the highly developed and the developing countries lies not so 

 much in economic and financial resources as in human resources, which 

 are quantitatively and qualitatively conditioned by the education we 

 are able to ^ve them." It was not just a question of eliminating il- 

 literacy, he insisted, "but of producing generations equipped and able 

 to accede to that higher knowledge that today marks the limits of the 

 superiority and inferiority of strength and weakness." ^^^ 



If these and other observations made in the conference report are 

 indicative of prevailing attitudes, then it is apparent that Latin Amer- 

 icans perceive brain drain as a formidable barrier to national progress, 

 as deterring development, and thus as widening the gap with the ad- 

 vanced countries. Critics of brain drain who maintam the same gen- 

 eral stance would no doubt apply similar judgments to other develop- 

 ing areas of the world.^^^ 



"ai Ibid., pp. 29-30. 



532 Ibid., p. 67. 



"3 For specific cases of Injury to Latin American countries by talent migration, see 

 the Pan American Health Organization, Report on Brain Drain from Latin America, 

 1966, pp. 12-14. 



The LDCs are not the only countries concerned about technological and developmental 

 gaps. Professor Adams writes : "Even the Industrialized nations of Western Europe fear 

 a widening technological gap between themselves and the United States, which will 

 condemn them to dependency on patent licenses, or product and processes hand-me- 

 downs." (Adams, op. clt., pp. 3-4.) On another occasion Adams referred to British Prime 

 Minister Wilson's concern for the Impact of American technological predominance on 

 Europe and his warning that continued nationalistic policies would lead to an "Industrial 

 helotry" under which Europe would produce only the conventional apparatus of a modern 

 economy while relying on the United States for the products of the sophisticated, science- 



