2 Germanys Reach Out In Sci-Tech

WEST BERLIN—East Berlin’s Humboldt University and West Berlin’s Technical University are less than three miles apart. But the Wall makes scientific communication almost impossible. What applies to the two Berlins is equally true for the two (Germanys. “Just inviting people to give a talk at a seminar simply did not work out,” said Dietrich Dörner a professor of psychology who studies machine intelligence. His attempt last summer to invite a colleague failed when the East German government refused to al low him to cross the border. But that situation may be improving, thanks to a treaty on cooperation in science and technology signed in September during the visit to Bonn of East German General Secretary Erich Honecker (see THE SCIENTIST, September 21, p. 8). The agreement provides for joint scientific symposia and exhibitions, scientific exchanges “for the purpose of information, study, teaching and research,” joint research projects, and the sharing of research material and instruments. In the past, East German scientists received permits for travel to the West only for international conferences, and even then only if the state had a clear interest in the meeting. That interest, of course, was more often tied to reasons of national security than to spreading scientific knowledge. Such fears of non-academic involvement were mutual. Silke Bernhard, who organizes the Dahlem Conferences on biomedical topics, recalls what happened once when she tried to invite a young East German scholar. “He and his wife signaled desperately that, for heaven’s sake, I should not call them at home and I should not send an invitation again.” But restrictions cut both ways. In July a 57-year-old self-employed electrical engineer from Frankfurt was indicted for illegal intelligence activities. He is charged with having subscribed to the publicly available U.S. Defense Marketing Service and having provided it—for money—to an East German engineer. In another, similar case, a scientist was given a three-year prison sentence. The new agreement should make clearer the distinction between scientific exchanges and illicit intelligence services. Officially approved projects, of course, will be beyond any doubt. To this end, each proposal will be funneled through a bilateral commission. The commission, according to Article Four of the agreement, will “select the areas and topics of cooperation,” “name partners for the cooperation” and “clarify the organizational procedures and financial conditions of the cooperation.” Each side will appoint half of the members, who will convene at least once annually. A Stronger Economy “We expect cooperation with scientists from Dresden, Magdeburg and Jena similar to those taken for granted with Western countries,” said Heinz Riesenhuber, West Germany’s minister for science and research. “I am confident that intensifying the scientific-technological cooperation with the GDR will have a positive impact on economic relationships as well, since technological projects often have pivotal effects.” Nearly all of the 27 projects on an initial list released when the agreement was signed stem from personal and informal contacts between scientists from both states. Professional societies on both sides of the border had been largely left out. “We would rather have been involved in an earlier stage,” said Peter Hermann of the Association of German Engineers (VDI), “but we got no official invitation.” The same is true for the DVT, the umbrella organization for all West German scientific and technical societies. But the VDI, the largest technical professional society in Western Europe with 97,000 members, plans to invite an East German delegation to discuss how to implement the agreement. The first step is to inform each other about conferences and workshops—of which the VDI arranges about 100 each year—and to arrange for mutual participation. “We will have to start from scratch,” confirmed Bernhard, whose conferences rarely include East German scientists. “In many cases they simply are not known in the West,” she said, “because they often do not publish in those international journals generally recognized as leaders of the field.” East German scientists appear to expect a lot from the new agreement. “Certainly there have been discussions at one symposium or another,” said Freidhart Klix, a researcher on human memory and how it controls speech recognition and learning at the Humboldt University. “But the agreement adds a new quality, a shift from a mere exchange toward true cooperation.” Klix hopes to meet soon with Dörner to arrange a common research project on intelligent machine systems and cognitive psychology. Sietmann writes on science from West Berlin.

2 Germanys Reach Out In Sci-Tech

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