Controversy Over NAS Letter Rages On

Five months after it was delivered, a July letter from the National Academy of Sciences to a foreign associate member suggesting that he resign because of his alleged anti-Semitic activities is still generating controversy. Correspondence expressing support for the move, as well as letters protesting it, continue to arrive at the NAS office; two scientific societies have joined the chorus of supporters. The issue has focused attention on the criteria for membership in the academy, prompting some to question the statement in the NAS bylaws that one's scientific contributions are the only determining factor. The debate centers on Russian mathematician Igor R. Shafarevich, head of the algebra section of the V.A. Steklov Institute in Moscow, the mathematics institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Barbara Spector, The Scientist, Sept. 28, 1992, page 1). In the 1970s, Shafarevich was a critic of the Soviet government, advocating increased human rights in the USSR. The letter, signed by academy president Frank Press and foreign secretary James Wyngaarden, refers to "your anti-Semitic writings as contained in Russophobia," a text Shafarevich wrote in 1982 that has been circulated increasingly over the past three years. "Moreover," the letter continues, "we are informed that there are few, if any, Jewish members of the Steklov Institute in Moscow." The letter concludes: "If Russo-phobia represents an accurate expression of your views, and if our information of the composition of the algebra section is a reflection of your influence on hiring and appointment practices, you may wish to consider whether it is appropriate for you to maintain your membership [in NAS]." The letter was approved unanimously by the NAS council but was not voted upon by the NAS grass-roots membership before it was sent. Shafarevich denies that Russophobia is an anti-Semitic text. He also denies that he has hiring responsibility at the Steklov (see Opinion, page 11). Jewish former students of Shaf-arevich have been quoted in the September 28 issue of The Scientist and here as saying that in the past Shafarevich has aided, not hindered, the careers of Jewish mathematicians. Today, however, Shafarevich is taking part in ultranationalist activities, according to Russian news accounts. An article in Moscow News (Olga Bichkova, No. 25[620]:7, June 21, 1992), for example, described a June 12-13 meeting of the Russian National Sobor, an umbrella organization of ultranationalist groups.20According to the article, Shafarevich spoke at the meeting, calling for Russian borders to be restored to those of the former Soviet Union. After the meeting, some of those in attendance stormed a television station, calling for "Television without Jews." Until his recent resignation, Shafarevich was a member of the editorial college of the newspaper Den, a "right- wing, anti-Semitic publication," according to Robin Saipe of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry's Washington, D.C., office. An issue that has bubbled beneath the surface of the Igor Shafarevich controversy is whether his outspokenness as a Soviet dissident in the 1970s played a role in his election as a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences. The notion that Shafarevich's well-known anti-Soviet stance might have influenced his election surfaced in news accounts of the letter from NAS president Frank Press and foreign secretary James Wyngaarden suggesting that Shafarevich resign from the academy. According to a Chemical & Engineering News report of Aug. 10, 1992 (Richard Seltzer, 70[32]:15), "Shafarevich was elected to NAS in 1974 on a wave of support from U.S. mathematicians, after his dissident, human rights activity put him in trouble with Soviet authorities, notes Lawrence A. Shepp, a math researcher at AT&T Bell Laboratories [Murray Hill, N.J.]." Academy members voting to elect a researcher to membership are provided only with a list of that individual's scientific contributions. The NAS bylaws say that nominees are to be judged on the basis of their "primary scientific achievements." Press says Shafarevich's dissident activity was not a major factor. "He was not elected to the academy because he was a good guy back in the 1970s," says Press. "When people talk about [Shafarevich's election], all they talk about is his scholarly attributes." However, says NAS spokesman Steve Push, "while no one [at the academy] is aware that anyone argued that [Shafarevich's dissident activity] was why he should be elected, since Shafarevich was elected by the membership, we can't say that it wasn't a factor" in the members' decision to vote for him. "The written record suggests that politics was not taken into consideration" when Shafarevich's candidacy for membership was evaluated, Push says. However, he adds, "there's a lot that goes on that's not in the written record." "It's nave to say there is no link between honorifics and politics," says Shepp, who was not a member of NAS when Shafarevich was elected. "Election to an academy may involve politics--and, in Shafarevich's case, it probably did." --B.S. A researcher who traveled to Russia with NAS funding wrote in a trip report to the National Research Council that Shafarevich supports "the most extreme right-wing groups such as Pamyat," the best-known Russian extremist nationalist movement with an anti- Semitic ideology. Based on this report, a link between Shafarevich and Pamyat was mentioned in the September 28 issue of The Scientist, as well as in the New York Times (Warren E. Leary, Aug. 21, 1992, page D16). However, no proof that Shafarevich is a member of Pamyat exists. "He is part of the same broad political current [as Pamyat]--there's no doubt about that," says Felix Browder, chairman of the mathematics section of NAS and University Professor of Mathematics at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J. Says Press: "We are concerned [about Shafarevich's activities] on two levels: One, denial of access to the world of scholarship on the basis of ethnicity, and two, his active association--through speechmaking and television coverage--with these extremist movements." On the question of what evidence the academy has that Shafarevich denies access to scholarship, Press says: "He takes part in the activities of right-wing movements, and these movements have these views. Whether Shafarevich himself at his institute does this is not quite clear. His actions are indirect--you have to look at his book and the actions of these movements." Critics of the NAS move say that, while Shafarevich's ultranationalist activities merit censure, the academy's letter was itself not beyond reproach. "There's no excuse for the council's doing it so fast and on their own [without consultation with the entire NAS membership]," says NAS member John Tate, a professor of mathematics at the University of Texas, Austin. "There certainly was no emergency." But others contend that, with the political and economic situation in Russia so precarious, Shafarevich's reputed support for the right wing represents a potentially dangerous situation, and the academy was compelled to reject his views publicly as quickly as possible. "There is a serious danger of a fascist, neo-Nazi regime in Russia," says Browder. "This is a clear and present danger, and I think the academy was right to denounce it." Press says that the influence of right-wing groups in Russia "recalls what happened in Germany in the '30s--demonstrations with a gradual escalation to violence." Says Browder: "I supported the letter because I thought it was important for a letter to be sent, although I did not think the letter that was sent was the best possible. I think the details are much less important than the central thrust of the letter." NAS member George Mostow, a professor of mathematics at Yale University, says that in the debate over whether the academy acted wisely, "there are two views." One, he says, is that the potential danger represented by Shafarevich's activities is so profound that "it's a minor point that the academy didn't cross its Ts and dot its Is legalistically." The second viewpoint, Mostow says, is held by "academicians who know that in science you proceed by rules, and you don't ignore rules, regardless of whether at the moment they seem less serious [compared with the need for swift and decisive action]." The American Physical Society and the New York Academy of Sciences have both sent unsolicited letters of support to Press. The APS communication, signed by APS president Ernest Henley, expresses "our support for the principles enunciated in your letter. . . ." The NYAS letter, signed by Cyril M. Harris, NYAS president and chairman of the board, tells Press that the NYAS board passed the following resolution: "That the board of Governors and the Human Rights of Scientists Committee convey... their support for the... letter to Y.R. Shaforevich [sic] deploring his anti-Semitic writings (as example--the book `Russophobia' as translated by the U.S. Department of Commerce)." At press time, three other societies were considering supporting NAS. In addition, the American Mathematical Society is expected to continue an ongoing debate on the Shafarevich case at the AMS council meeting in January. Another expression of support for the academy's action has come from 24 NAS mathematicians who signed a September 24 petition "to commend the courageous action taken by the Council of the National Academy of Sciences in sending the letter...." The petition was orchestrated by mathematician Lawrence Shepp of AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, N.J. Shepp has translated Russophobia, accompanying the text with a set of translator's notes attacking the work, and has circulated the text and notes to NAS officals and other interested parties. In March, Shepp drew up an earlier petition to Press "to recommend close scrutiny of any proposed help to the V.A. Steklov Institute" because of alleged anti-Jewish discrimination there. The March pe- tition did not mention Shafarevich. Shepp says he developed the second petition because "I wanted to support Frank Press; I thought it was a wonderful thing he did. I wanted to show that people in the academy agree with him." Shepp acknowledges, however, that "it wasn't as easy to get signatures as for the last [March] letter." Some people, Shepp says, objected on the grounds of "keeping separate scientific honor and political thought" as criteria for membership in NAS. On September 28, NAS mathematics section chairman Browder sent a mailing to some members of the math section, asking them to choose among four alternatives: "I approve of the Press- Wyngaarden letter"; "I approve of the Press-Wyngaarden letter except for the last sentence [that suggests resignation]"; "I disapprove of the Press-Wyngaarden letter"; and "I reserve my opinion." "I did so because I was curious to know what the ideas of the math section were," says Browder. He has reported these figures to the section. NAS's math section has 95 members, including four emeritus members and 17 foreign associates. Browder says he did not send the poll to the emeritus or foreign members because they cannot vote on candidates for NAS membership: "I sent it only to active members of the section who are entitled to vote on whom to recommend for new members." Shafarevich, a foreign associate, was not sent the poll. As of November 1, Browder's deadline for the balloting, he says 43 people had selected one of the four possible responses: 19 respondents selected the first option, 11 chose the second, 10 marked the third, and 3 picked the fourth. NAS member Serge Lang, a professor of mathematics at Yale University, objects to the way Browder conducted his poll and the way he reported the results. In a November 11 letter to math section members, Lang suggests that the foreign associates should have been polled. Citing letters from French foreign associates Jean-Pierre Serre and Henri Cartan objecting to the NAS action, and Press's response to Serre and Cartan, Lang writes: "...letters to and from foreign members have been distributed officially to the section, and they are playing an important role." In addition, Lang writes, in his reporting of the results of the poll, Browder "does not give the number of people who did not respond. He does not report that some members (e.g. me) warned him that the poll could not represent our opinion properly. I know of at least one... member who did not fill out Browder's poll....The measurement of attitudes is a more complicated affair than Browder makes out." Browder says that two people returned ballots with none of the four options checked off, but included "comments hostile to the Press-Wyngaarden letter." He says: "I chose to count them as opposed. I assumed that their [written] remarks constituted a vote." Lang has written a nine-page statement on the Shafarevich case, accompanied by a 12-page document entitled "Comments on the Meaning of Membership in the National Academy of Sciences" and a copy of a six-page letter he sent to Shafarevich in April 1990. In the 1990 letter, Lang refuted some fundamental points made in Russophobia, along with extensive documentation for his refutation. Lang's statement on the Shafarevich case registers "serious objections to the manner in which the Council and Press- Wyngaarden acted and wrote...including the low standards of the NAS letter," providing lengthy documentation for his objections. The letter, he writes, "is defective partly because it deals in generalities instead of documenting specific passages in [Russophobia]." He takes the academy to task for being inconsistent in invoking "principles" and making undocumented accusations about Shafarevich's role at the Steklov, among other things, which he says leads to contradictions, selective application of "principles," and "a morass from which I don't see how the NAS will extricate itself." Lang writes, "The unprecedented NAS letter to Shafarevich has now opened publicly two broad questions concerning: (a) the overall responsibilities of the Academy; and (b) the meaning of membership in the Academy and behavioral criteria used for membership, as distinguished from criteria of scientific contributions." Lang's piece on the meaning of NAS membership says, "Instead of merely issuing a warning that Shafarevich's election to the NAS meant only a certification of his mathematical works, the Council's choice was to emphasize the general honorific aura of the Academy . . . and to introduce officially explicit behavioral criteria for membership according to `principles.' Therefore it is now officially established that election to the NAS means more than the narrow certification of specific works." Lang then goes on to relate the Shafarevich case to six other cases in which either behavioral or scientific criteria might have come into play, asking whether the circumstances go against the "principles" of the academy. He also mentions his own case: "I have been scientifically productive since 1951, but also outspoken on several issues.... I have no way to measure the extent to which this outspokenness caused my non-election [to NAS] until 1985." Lang discusses physicist Yuval Ne'eman, an Israeli foreign associate of NAS. Ne'eman is the cofounder of the right-wing Tehiya party, whose platform includes denial of political rights to Palestinians in the occupied territories. "Ne'eman has ... used his `position of influence to interfere with the rights of' Lebanese and Palestinians," Lang writes, quoting a statement from Press regarding Shafarevich in the Aug. 21, 1992, New York Times article. "What is the position of Frank Press and the Council of the Academy concerning the way Ne'eman has used his `position of influence'?" Lang also mentions Stephen Smale, a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley: "Stephen Smale made major mathematical discoveries in 1960-61. These earned him a Fields Medal in 1966.... but he was not elected to the Academy until 1970. Many persons (including Smale and me) came to the conclusion that it took so long because of his political outspokenness, especially in opposition to the Vietnam war." In addition, Lang's piece discusses the cases of NAS members William Shockley, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who claimed to have scientific evidence that whites are smarter than blacks; former Rockefeller University president David Baltimore, coauthor of a 1986 paper whose data were called into question; and National Institutes of Health researcher Robert Gallo, whose role in the discovery of the AIDS virus has been questioned. Lang also mentions the case of Harvard University political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, who was nominated to NAS, but not elected, in 1986 and 1987. Huntington, highly regarded by many of his colleagues, wrote a book that included an analysis that he claimed determined that South African blacks were a "satisfied society" before the early 1960s. Lang has gathered a 50-page collage of New York Times articles describing riots, strikes, and disturbances involving South African blacks during that period. Huntington was a consultant for the State Department, the National Security Council, and the CIA. Lang writes: "I urge people not to interpret membership in the NAS as being more than a certification of narrow scientific contributions. Even such a certification is subject to questioning." Lang sent his material to members of the NAS council, as well as to Browder, requesting that he distribute it to members of the mathematics section. The material, however, had not been distributed before the November 1 deadline for Browder's poll. Smale, who signed Shepp's petition expressing support for the NAS letter, believes that issues of collegiality are playing a role in the controversy. "The algebraists, at least publicly, are attacking Press, and the analysts are defending him," says Smale, noting that Shafarevich is an algebraist. "Scientists sometimes rally around their closest colleagues--publicly, at least," adds Smale, who was worked in several fields of mathematics in his career, none of which overlaps with Shafarevich's. Smale says that it isn't necessarily always bad for extra- scientific matters to influence NAS membership: "I don't call that, exactly, `politics,' but people will take [such issues] into consideration in fairly extreme cases. I don't think it was wrong to support Shafarevich [for membership in the 1970s--see story on page 8] partly because of his courage, and I don't think it's wrong to condemn him now. "One shouldn't make decisions solely based on [extra-scientific criteria]; science should be the first consideration. But I'm not an absolutist. What Shafarevich is doing is extremely destructive, and a big contribution to anti-Semitism in Russia. He legitimizes it. For NAS to speak out on that is great." Joseph Birman, Distinguished Professor of Physics at the City College of New York, believes that the debate over the NAS letter "places emphasis on the wrong issue." In a letter to The Scientist, Birman writes that "What the NAS does or doesn't do is its own (and its members') business, as it is a private organization, self-selected, with its own rules, precedents, and values--albeit that it was chartered by Congress and is supported by public funds. The focus of attention . . . should properly be on the central issues: the actions and writings of [Shafarevich]." But Yale's Mostow says that such a focus leads to unwarranted publicity for Shafarevich's views. "My own personal view is that he many not deserve all the attention he's getting," says Mostow. "He deserves the criticism, but not the attention." Mostow says he thinks that Browder's poll--by virtue of the fact that the mathematics section chairman found it worthwhile to have a ballot on the subject--will "make the [NAS] council more cautious the next time," even though the majority of respondents said they supported the intent of the NAS letter. The message academy officials are getting, Mostow says, is that "the council did not act up to the standards of the academy in formulating the letter the way they did."

Controversy Over NAS Letter Rages On

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