From 3 to 8 September 1975 the International Association for the Study of the Artificial Intelligence held its regular conference in Tbilisi. The conference’s agenda and participants were approved by the International Organizing Committee. The conference was arranged by the Soviet organizing committee and the Georgian SSR Academy of Science Institute of Cybernetics.
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The International Committee included among the participants four Soviet scientists who were Jews who had been refused exit visas:
- the eminent Soviet cyberneticist, A. Ya. Lerner (from Moscow);
- O. Ya. Gelman, a former senior research associate at the Georgian SSR Institute of Cybernetics, who was dismissed from the Institute two years ago after applying for an emigration visa to Israel, and who had received a refusal ‘for security reasons’;
- and the brothers Isai and Grigory Goldstein (from Tbilisi).
About a month before the conference was due to begin. Gelman was given permission to emigrate and told to leave immediately, which he did.
The Soviet authorities refused to accept the nomination of Lerner and the Goldstein brothers. The International Committee then sent a questionnaire to all association members asking what they should do in consequence. Of 300 replies received, 200 suggested that if the scientists invited were not allowed to attend by the Soviet authorities, the conference should be transferred to another country — otherwise members would refuse to take part in the conference. After a statement to this effect had been issued by the Committee, Lerner was allowed to participate in the conference.
Professor McCarthy, president of the association, and Professor Winston, chairman of the conference organizing committee, came to Moscow ahead of time and checked literally every step of the arrangements for Lerner’s journey to Tbilisi, right down to the reservation of his hotel room. After many delays, A. Ya. Lerner arrived in Tbilisi and was able to take part in the conference.
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The Georgia KGB forbade the Goldstein brothers to ‘go near’ the place where the conference was being held. Nevertheless, they came to one of the sessions. While putting a question to the speaker, Isai Goldstein observed the conference regulations by giving his name and that of his country: Israel.
The next day the brothers were summoned to KGB headquarters where they were categorically forbidden to attend the conference meetings. When they objected, saying they had been invited to the conference by Americans, a KGB official declared: ‘As this conference is taking place in Tbilisi, we are the masters here — not they.‘ In spite of this, the Goldstein brothers were persuaded by the conference organizers to participate in its work, and the conference chairman, Chavchanidze, even found himself forced to declare publicly that they had been invited by the USSR Academy of Sciences and the Georgian SSR Academy of Sciences.
Near the building in which the conference meetings were held a continuous watch was kept by officials of the Tbilisi KGB, led by Major L. V. Shanidze CCE 32); they also followed, almost openly, individual conference participants. However, there were no excesses. Some KGB officials wore conference membership badges (but not name-tabs).
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