Open Door for Scientists

Among the invidious features of the present McCarran law, the provisions that apply to visiting scientists are perhaps the most immediately harmful to this country. At present, there are two resolutions before the House Judiciary Committee introduced by Representative Gubser that aim at eliminating the worst features of the law as it applies to temporary visas.

These resolutions are already long overdue. Since 1952, the restrictions imposed by a cut back in funds have served to intensify the weaknesses of the present law. The main trouble is that the law takes almost no account of the different status of temporary and permanent visas. Both immigrants and visiting scientists are subjected to a painstaking routine of highly personal probing into their past political affiliations, even for a short visit. The sole exception made for a temporary visitor is to allow him to appeal to the Attorney General, after a written admission of his own political ineligibility to enter. Such a written statement is completely unacceptable to most scientists, for it implies a political position they do not hold.

Further snags in the operation of the law, even when it does not bar a man from entering, keep the process of clearance so slow that the scientist often misses his conference by the time the department gets around to granting the visa. The result, in such cases of delay, has been to create even more ill-will than immediate refusal.

The reverberations of McCarran's law have been felt both here and abroad. Across the Atlantic, the growing number of bungled cases has produced a mounting resentment of U.S. policies, especially among traditional friends. Further, by keeping out the scientists, the law has closed one of the most impressive aspects of American society--that of unfettered scientific research--to foreign observers. In the past this has been a powerful way of advertising democracy.

At home, the damage can be estimated by viewing the extensive past contributions of foreign scientists, and the present isolation is mirrored in the steady decline here of international, scientific conferences. The International Congresses of Biochemistry, Psychology, and Genetics, have all refused to meet in the United States this year--although it is this country's turn to play host. The Congress of Geneticists, meeting in Italy last year, adopted a resolution which reads as though intended for a totalitarian nation, but was meant for this country:

"The Congress asks the International Committee not to recommend that the next Congress be held in any country to which it may be expected that scientists would be refused permission to enter on grounds of birth or political associations, past or present."

The Geneticists are meeting in Canada this year.

The two Gubser proposals would remove the unnecessary restrictions on acceptable men. The first calls for a prompt review by the Consular officer of any temporary visa for a technological, teaching, or scientific purpose. This is aimed at doing away with the present damaging delays.

The other provision would amend the law by allowing the Secretary of State to review a refused visa, or to give a board of scientists and others the reviewing power. This board would weigh the scientist as a security risk against the contribution he might make to the country.

There is no question in these resolutions of relaxing the present security regulations. They specifically state that no alien, excluded under the present law, shall be admitted under the amended version. And the great number of these visas apply to non-secret, publicized work.

If then, as these resolutions suggest, the U.S. can trade greater scientific freedom for a minimum security risk, the chance is too good is let pass. Scientific exchange is not something the McCarran Law can close down without crippling consequences for the West.