U.S. REVOCATION OF VISAS FOR SCIENCE CONGRESS

Grey River Argus, 24 March 1949, Page 3

U.S. REVOCATION OF VISAS FOR SCIENCE CONGRESS

LONDON, March 22.

The American Embassy in London to-day granted a visa to Dr Will Olaf Stapledon, British phychologist, to enter the United States for the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace, beginning at New York on March 25.

The embassy yesterday revoked visas issued earleir to Dr Stapledon and three other British delegates to the conference. Tfipse whose- visas have been withdrawn are Professor J. D. Bernal, Dr J. G. Crowther and the novelist, Mr Louis Golding. In Washington to-day the State Department said the three British delegates had been found to be “inadmissible” according to the immigration laws of the United States.

A State Department spokesman declined to say whether the British delegates were regarded as Communists, but lue added that the Department had similarly denied entry to delegates from France, Italy and Latin America because they were known or believed to be Communists. He said that delegates from Russia and other Iron Curtain countries were being admitted to the United States because they were the official delegates of their respective Governments. Those from Britain, France, Italy and Latin America were not official Government delegates. Professor Bernal, Dr Crowther and Mr Golding held a press conference to protest against the cancellation of their visas.

CONNECTION WITH POLAND

Golding, who wrote “Magnolia Street” and several other successful books, said: “We can only assume that the revocation has something to do with the Wroclaw conference in Poland last autumn.” He said they were asked at the United States Embassy if they had attended and, when they said they had, their visas were cancelled. “1 am completely nonpolitical and am entirely a creative artist, interested in peace,” he said. “I had received my visa only two hours before it was cancelled.” The film actress, Patricia Burke, daughter of Marie Burke, whose visa also was cancelled, said: “I am not a Communist. I have no political feelings whatsoever, but I have a passionate love and desire for peace.” HUXLEY'S ASSOCIATE Reuters points on that one of the scholars who had his visa cancelled, Professor Bernal, a Cambridge crystallographer, was the scientific brain behind 'D-Day. Julian Huxley once called Professor Bernal “the wisest man in the world.” - The 48-year-old Professor Bernal, who is a Fellow of the Royal Society, said last year: “The slowness of the sharing of the atomic energy is a major' cause for the continued and dangerously increasing tension in the world.” ' . Dr Crowther is a scientist and .author of many books on history and social relations of science. He has lectured on scientific subjects in several countries and during the war he was director of the Science Department of the British Council. The only one of the British delegate who'has been allowed a visa, Dr Will Olaf Stapledon, is a 62-year-old doctor of philosophy . In a letter to the Manchester Guardian after he had attended the Wroclaw conference, Dr Stapledon wrote: “Even allowing that our press is prejudiced against Russia, I am reluctantly forced to believe that there is grave evil in the Russian State.” Many Communists and Communist sympathisers were invited to New York for the conference on peace and the United States State Department says it ‘entertains no illusions about the way the Communists will try to manipulate the congress.” The conference is sponsored by the United States National Council of Arts, Sciences and Professions. WELL-KNOWN PICTURE. All are familiar with that picture of misery entitled, “Man with a Cold.” Happily most of us know that, we can draw relief from “Baxters.” The first few sips of Baxters Lung Preserver brings a big improvement. Discomfort disappears and heavy cold conditions are quickly cleared. It’s the swift, soothing action that makes “Baxters” so popular. All chemists and stores sell it

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