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CHAIRMAN'S MESSAGE
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CHAIRMAN'S MESSAGE

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Well, here I am, picking up the pieces.  I wish to thank
Larry Travis and Steve Coles for keeping things going through
our recent flap [SIGART Newsletter, Aug. 1974].  I also wish
to thank Bob Balzer for his extensive efforts on behalf of
SIGART over the past year.  I admire Bob's willingness to
serve an organization that he doesn't wish to join, though
I don't understand it.

Let me take advantage of this position to add a few personal
observations to the already overworked discussion of the
International Joint Conference on A. I., planned for September 1975
in Tblisi, USSR [ibid.].  I was a member of the committee
that selected the USSR location, though I voted for another
site.  The major issues that have since been discussed were
known to the committee members and some problems (e.g. potential
visa difficulties for certain people) were given explicit
consideration at the time.

Since subsequent discussions have not (in my view) brought out
any important new facts, and since the composition of the
amorphous IJCAI committee hasn't changed much, it seems
unlikely that there will be a change in position unless significant
new information appears.

Incidentally, in an attempt to gather some facts, an informal
inquiry was made recently to
the Israeli Foreign Ministry concerning visits of Israelis to the
USSR.  They stated that they didn't know of any case in which
an Israeli scientist was unable to get a visa to attend an
[B-international conference] in the USSR in the last two years.