Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1985. július-december (39. évfolyam, 27-48. szám)
1985-10-24 / 40. szám
Thursday, Oct. 24. 1985. AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZO 7. MERCUR1US VERIDICUS EX HUNGÁRIA. A Magyar Hírmondó, Recent visit by U S. Physicists to Cuba In June 1983, my wife, Maria E. Stiller, and I visited Cuba as members of the 2nd North American - Cuban Scientific Exchange (NACSEX) group visit. Since I am a physicist, the Cuban Academy of Sciences arranged a series of visits for me to physics institutes. Among these were Geography, Geophysics and Astronomy, Computer Sciences, and Unconventional Energy Sources. In a subsequent discussion with members of the Academy, I was asked to undertake the organization of a group similar to NACSEX, in the U.S. physics community. I suggested that an alternative would be for me to present a proposal from the Cuban Academy to the Committee on International Scientific Affairs of the American Physical Society, for discussions on scientific exchange possibilities. This was agreed to, and I made a presentation to this Committee in March, 1985. It's response was unanimously favorable, and it was suggested that I try to arrange for an informal visit by U.S. physicists. This approach was accepted by the Cuban Academy and an invitation was extended to three of us, to attend the annual meeting of the Cuban Physics Society, and to deliver invited papers. Professor R. Park, Chairman of the Physics Department of the University of Maryland, Professor Bernd Crasemann, Chairman of the Physics Department of the University of Oregon and I^ent to Cuba for a week, in June, 1985, carrying greetings and an invitation to visit the U.S. from Professor R.R. Wilson of Cornell University (former Director of FermiLab), our President, to the President of the Cuban Physics Society. In addition to attending the meeting, we visited the Physics Departments of the Universities of Havanna and Oriente, as well as several research institutes. Discussions were also held about the possibility of advanced training in the U.S. for staff members and graduate students. We found their physics libraries to be almost totally without our physics journals, and we are now arranging for shipment of surplus journals dating back to about 1970, to both universities. In addition, we are going to provide them with ongoing subscriptions to our journals. More formal discussions will be held in April, 1986. By-then we hope that their President, Professor D. Stolik, will have received a visa from the State Department to attend our meeting in Washington, D.C. Bertram Stiller ♦ From 1949, I have been engaged in cosmic ray and astrophysics research at the Naval Research Laboratory. Coincidentally with the activities described in this report, my annual contract was not renewed, and I was told that the reason was a matter of national security. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Var- konyi, who is attending the 40th session of the UN General Assembly, met with Foreign Ministers Vu Hsue-Chien of China, Abdellatif Filali of Morocco, Farouk as- Saraa of Syria. The Littlest Ambassador (A Poem for Samantha Smith. In remembrance.) Let us walk through the dark forest of Samantha’s death and hear singing in the tops of Androscoggin pines her epitaph: “We are meant to live, not to fight and die.' Her life raced down the cold Atlantic, like an outbound schooner running on the Penobscot tide. Hope sang in her taut heart like a halyard in a Grand Banks gale. We are meant to live, not to fight and die.’ Listen, Grand Banks doryman, to the song in Samantha’s heart. Listen, feller of Androscoggin pine. Listen, Bath Iron builder of ships. Listen, papermaker of the north wood. Listen, potato grower in the valley of the Kennebec. Did you twine in Samantha’s heart this song of life? Did you teach her to frame the issue square as a clipper sail? Bold common sense you bred and the will to act in a Maine schoolgirl. To Andropov she wrote: We are meant to live, not to fight and die.’ The words sing in the tops of Androscoggin pines. Sing in the soul of a brokenhearted widow-mother. Sing across the rooftops of grieving America. Samantha Smith is daughter of us all. These words sing in the Pripyat Marsh where Soviet antifascist heroes lie. Down the Volga shore, across Siberia, glowing in the midnight sun. You in Washington who will not hear, listen to a down east schoolgirl’s dying words: We are meant to live, not to fight and die. Within a Smile stirs hope A world of needs are this way willed Thus, opaque indeed looms the night When daybreak bright Is in dawn stilled Samantha smiled and again A weary world knew youth A child's courage showed the way To dreams of peace that filled our days— Within her smile danced truth As sadness fills our common sky A world in shadow, stunned, asks why And yet her smile, etched on our hearts Resides in us, never to depart Until her dream is realized And Yet Her Smile — Timothy L Wheeler — Tommy Toledo Show the “Mercury” to your friends!
