The McCarran Act
SIR,—The naïveté of Mr. J. W. S. Hearle's exculpation of the McCarran Act, which only epitomises the routine contempt for cultural and diplomatic traditions endemic on this side of the Atlantic, stands out clearly when contrasted with opinions expressed by less " understand- ing" yet authentic citizens of the U.S.A. With your permission I quote below the following statement approved by the Council of the American Physical Society at its meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, on November 28th, 1952.
" In the past few years, the progress of American physics has been impeded by United States visa and passport restrictions. A few American scientists have been denied passports and many distinguished foreign scientists have failed to receive United States visas even for short visits to attend scientific meetings. Other foreign scientists fail to come because their visas arrive too late after delays of many months or because they had been irritated by inappropriate questionnaires and inquisitorial personal interroga- tions. The international scientific meetings that originally were to be held in the United States are transferred to other countries.
" The personal exchange of ideas and the collaboration with foreign scientists are essential sources of information and ideas which cannot be replaced by written correspondence or by the study of foreign publications. The present restrictions of personal con- tacts are cutting deeply into this important source of our scientific production. This loss of scientific potential may even jeopardise our national security. Had similar regulations been in force prior to 1942, it is questionable if the United States would have developed radar or the atomic bomb during the last war.
" This loss to the United States is not compensated by any gain in the security of classified information, since the meetings from which the visitors are excluded are open scientific meetings on unrestricted subjects. The main reliance for the security of our technical secrets must necessarily be on the very strict guarding of the information by those who have access to it and not on such illusory and ineffective procedures as the exclusion of foreign visitors from open scientific meetings. Furthermore, the inter- rogations of foreign scientists are chiefly effective in excluding and humiliating scientists who believe in political and ir ellectual freedom rather than in detecting spies who would be less scrupu- lous about their answers.
" The Council of the American Physical Society is not question- ing the propriety of excluding any person who wishes admission to this country with any idea of advancing Communism here. However, the Council strongly urges a more realistic approach by the authorities to the problem of travel restrictions so that free scientific interchange will not be impeded."
As a Canadian resident of more than three years' standing, widely
travelled in the U.S.A. and with business connections in that country, I can assure you that the feelings expressed in the above statement are shared by many other sober and critical individual U.S. citizens, yet they are completely alien to both the bulk of population as well as those responsible for official propaganda.—Youri faithfully,
Manotick, Ontario.
A. M. BRONX.
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