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 ...
