The epidemiology, spread and prevalence of AIDS are dependent upon many factors. At the Second International Conference on AIDS held in Paris this summer, some estimates were given of the reported cases of AIDS throughout the world and a small number have been reported in the Soviet Union; this is our understanding as well.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Thank you.

HOW MANY SCIENTISTS REFUSE TO PARTICIPATE IN SOVIET EXCHANGES?

Mr. HAMILTON. Of course, one thing struck me this morning is, everybody is for exchanges among you.

I am curious-how many of your colleagues in science today would not participate in an exchange? Are we talking about a handful of them; are we talking a significant percentage?

Mr. LEDERMAN. In my case, there are certainly a number. I would say it is very hard to put a number to it. It is a minority. Mr. HAMILTON. Ten percent, thirty percent?

Mr. LEDERMAN. Somewhere in that range, yes.

Mr. HAMILTON. And they refuse to participate on the human rights question, usually, I presume?

Mr. LEDERMAN. Exactly.

Mr. HAMILTON. Is that the experience with the rest of you?
Mr. NOBLE. Less than 5 percent in my case.

Dr. VAUGHAN. I would not like to specify a percentage since my information is only anecdotal. Based on approaching scientists in the cardiovascular area to attend symposia or to participate in joint research I would say that the percentage of refusals because of the human rights question is small.

LINKAGE OF SCIENTIFIC EXCHANGES TO POLITICAL EVENTS

Mr. HAMILTON. What about the problem of linkage to political events? After the Afghanistan invasion we canceled a lot of these agreements.

Is that good policy on our part? How do you feel about that as participants in exchanges? Should we-that is, the U.S. Government-link participation in scientific exchanges to national and international events?

Is this one means of an appropriate protest of Soviet policy?

Mr. NOBLE. From the perspective of the scientists, it is extremely bad. These projects develop very slowly and we develop our contacts and get a program in motion, and an interruption such as you are talking about, in my experience, really takes the thing back to square 1.

Mr. HAMILTON. Obviously, it would hurt the exchange. I can appreciate that.

But as a scientists, as an American, also, would you take the position we ought not to link the exchanges in any way to outside events under any circumstances?

Mr. NOBLE. That is much more difficult to respond to, because I think I am not sufficiently aware of the kinds of effects that those limitations might have.

I guess on the surface it seems to me that this sort of a response, a political response, hurts us as much or more than it does the country we are trying to penalize.

So, it makes me wonder whether it is effective.

Mr. HAMILTON. Do your exchanges in the medical field go full speed ahead or should they go full speed ahead even if you have the Soviets invade Afghanistan?

Dr. VAUGHAN. I agree with Dr. Noble, first of all, from a scientist's point of view. If it is not destructive, at the very least it is an interruption of the scientific research. It can be a problem to tie the continuation of work or exchanges to political events.

On the other hand, the particular exchange that I have talked about is pursued under bilateral agreements between the two governments, the Soviet Government and the United States Government, and I think that the scientists involved in that exchange have to realize this.

In my opinion, not speaking for the Institute, they must realize that there are times when perhaps political or intergovernmental exigencies must play a role, as much as one would wish they might not.

Mr. HAMILTON. I take it you three at least believe with respect to the human rights question that rather than not participate, the better thing to do is to participate and express your objections to the Soviets about their human rights violations.

Is that your attitude, basically?

Mr. LEDERMAN. Yes; that is, exactly.
Dr. VAUGHAN. Yes.

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Mr. HAMILTON. Gentlemen, I would like to ask unanimous consent to make part of the record the following: A CRS study prepared for the subcommittee on exchanges,1 material submitted by Dr. Press,2 a letter supporting United States-U.S.S.R. exchanges signed by 46 American organizations,3 a statement of the Institute of Soviet-American Relations, a statement of the Epsalen Institute of California, a statement of the Federation of American Scientists on Exchanges, statements of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the National Bureau of Standards, a statement of New England Society of Newspaper Editors, and other statements that will be submitted by various U.S. agencies and groups that we have contacted.

Without objection they will be entered into the record.4

U.S.-SOVIET EXCHANGES ON ENERGY ACCELERATORS

Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Torricelli.

Mr. TORRICELLI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. Lederman, the question of the accelerators has gotten tremendous exposure with articles in the Times and so forth. I know this is somewhat off our conversation today but I wonder if you could provide some insight and share what you see as the practical implications of a developing Soviet leadership in the field because

1 See appendix 1.B(1).

2 See appendix 3.

3 See appendix 2.

* See appendix 3. A and 3B.

of the scale of their investment and how you see that in economic and/or military terms.

Mr. LEDERMAN. I don't really see it in military terms directly. Indirectly, everything, all technology, has some effect. The Soviets in the accelerator field have been rather frustrated. For a period in the late 1960's they had the world's highest energy accelerator but it took them many, many years to make it usable. Their bureaucracy was such that the people who built the machines were not the ones to use it, so it was handed over and it wasn't usable.

By the time it got to be usable it was superseded by both the United States and Europe. So, now they have learned that lesson. I am not sure they have learned all the lessons in management of a large scientific enterprise like an accelerator, but they seem to have a very high ambition, as the New York Times pointed out, to build this accelerator. And we believe that they will have the same benefits that accrue here.

In the Soviet Union, they have so limited a backup of high-technology civilian economy. Things we can order from the catalog they have to make special efforts to fabricate. They visit the factory and discuss it and there is in principal an enormous technology transfer that takes place when you are at the cutting edge of building an instrument such as a large accelerator.

It goes on in all countries at a different level. At our much higher level, we also have to discuss things with industry in order to get the kinds of things made that we need and the end result of that conversation, industry has a new capability which reflects itself in a contribution to the GNP and taxes paid back which defray the cost of the investment. In principle, the Soviets must do much more of this.

WILL THE SOVIETS REMAIN COMPETITIVE IN ACCELERATOR

TECHNOLOGY?

Mr. TORRICELLI. For this level of investment we are witnessing, given the construction of the accelerator tunnel-does it indicate to you the Soviet Union will remain competitive in the development of the technology, or that there is a prospect of potential Soviet leadership if there is a disparity in the level of investment in the future? How would you characterize the East and the West in the field?

Mr. LEDERMAN. As I said, I think the Soviets have lagged in the field

Mr. TORRICELLI. That is in the past.

Mr. LEDERMAN. Yes.

Mr. TORRICELLI. Do you project that for the future as well? Mr. LEDERMAN. It is difficult to say at this stage because the U.S. scientific community has a proposal into the government for an accelerator of vastly bigger proportions which we think is the right scientific next step and that decision has not been made.

Far be it from me to try to influence that decision from here, but if in the normal course of events, I think the United States would take the next step. I might give you some numbers. The Soviet machine was designed to be completed in 1993. It will have three trillion volts; the U.S. proposal would have an accelerator working in

1995 perhaps 1996, at 40 trillion volts. So, there is an enormous difference between our ambitions and their actual present activity.

If we lag or defer our own natural evolution of the subject, then the Soviets have a good chance of having the world's largest accelerator and I would think many of us would go there and work because these

Mr. TORRICELLI. You raise, however, an intersting contrast between the two systems. In the NASA trip I described earlier, we all stood with NASA officials looking at the Soviet space station MIR and we chuckled under our breaths at the low level of sophistication. One NASA official made an offer that if it ever broke down, they should let us know so we can put it in the back of the shuttle and bring it home.

The levels of technology clearly were different. The difference is that their's is flying and ours is not.

That comes to mind as you think of the differences in the two accelerator programs.

Mr. LEDERMAN. The tortoise and the hare was the analogy used. Probably apt in both places.

EXCHANGES AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

Mr. TORRICELLI. It seems to me it is often apt.

As a corollary to that, tell me your experience working with Soviet scientists and their technology transfer. How much do the Soviets get real benefits from these exchanges or in fact are showing real leadership in these areas that were mentioned? What are the differences in transferrence to the medical field, to the power field, to industry?

Mr. LEDERMAN. That would be difficult for me to discuss because that is something I just hear by anecdotes and can only guess at the problems. Often in the Soviet Union it is so difficult to get industry to do things because of bureaucracy. The alternative according to the director of their accelerator project is that you have to make them in-house.

You make them yourself and that occupies time and space and creativity that you could be using on other things.

The final comment I can make is that our technology transfer works even though our civilian technology is so much better than theirs. We can still make contributions to it, I would guess they have so much more to gain along those aspects. But that depends on detailed knowledge of the Soviet system.

Mr. TORRICELLI. From your conversations with your counterparts, it is possible for you to assess how closely they are working with industry or how receptive industry is to their own breakthroughs as you consider your own situations and divisions between our academic and our industrial communities?

I wonder, I am often frustrated in what appears to be a large gap that is not bridged quickly enough, not as quickly as it is done in Japan and Germany and other places. Do the Soviets find themselves in a situation like our own or worse?

Mr. LEDERMAN. I think it must be worse. We are frustrated. You mentioned the Japanese, when we want to procure an exotic item we will get a faster response from the Japanese than from Ameri

can industry. They have a high respect for innovation. If they can learn something from it they will bid on it even if they lose money. Mr. HAMILTON. The Japanese.

Mr. LEDERMAN. That is right. The Japanese. The Soviet system, I have no idea. Maybe our expert knows more about it.

Mr. SCHWEITZER. I would make one quick comment. The whole issue of introducing research results into practice has been at the top of the Soviet problem agenda for the last 30 years. It is an issue that the current leadership was singled out as their No. 1 priority. They are trying all sorts of organizational changes and reward systems to accelerate such introduction. However, they are notoriously weak in that area.

Mr. TORRICELLI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

UNITED STATES ACCESS TO SOVIET SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS

Mr. HAMILTON. We will conclude very quickly.

We have had you here a good part of the morning. I have just a couple items.

Is our access to Soviet scientific publications better because of the exchange programs? Do you have a sense that the exchange programs have helped, not just in a particular exchange program but have they opened up the communication with Soviet science in general do you think?

Dr. VAUGHAN. I would say in the area of the cardiopulmonary exchange that certainly has been the case, at least in the sense that as a result of the exchange there have been literally several hundred publications in the scientific literature, many of them joint publications with the Soviet and American workers. Many of them are in the Western literature. Which immediately makes them much more readily accessible than if they were published exclusively in the Soviet journals.

TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER TO THE SOVIETS FROM U.S. EXCHANGES?

Mr. HAMILTON. Let me give you a quote to wrap things up, this may be best directed to you, Dr. Schweitzer; I have in front of me a quotation from the newsletter that says:

From scientific exchange with the U.S. Soviets have obtained information on developing and manufacturing composite materials for missiles and space programs, automated control designs of machines for measuring quality control of weapons components and subassemblies, information on automatic control systems for optimizing roller mills, acoustical data for developing low frequency sonars for submarines, and information on aerial photography, magnetic recording systems and lasers.

What is your reaction to that?

Mr. SCHWEITZER. First I would have to know what you mean by "exchange programs". I think that the definition of exchange program being used there is probably different than the definition we are using here.

Second, I would acknowledge that many things learned on exchange programs have some relevance to these areas, but it is not at all clear that pivotal information is obtained in this manner.