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Leading U.S. Scientists Assail Mccarran Immigration Act

October 14, 1952
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Leading American scientists, including Dr. Albert Einstein and four other Nobel Prize winners, have bitterly criticized the McCarran Immigration and Internal Security Acts, as well as the visa policy of the State Department.

The scientists published their protests in the October issue of “The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,” which appeared today. In an editorial it points out that “through the two McCarran Acts–the Security Act of 1950, and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952–and their excessively rigid, indiscriminate application by the State Department, the United States Government and the American people are undoing with one hand what they are so laboriously and expensively accomplishing with the other.”

Revealing that 26 famous scientists were denied visas to either attend scientific meetings in the United States or to accept teaching posts in this country, the scientists condemned the two McCarran Acts for stifling scientific and intellectual freedom. The other four Nobel Prise winners who assailed the McCarran restrictions are: Dr. Arthur H. Compton, chancellor of Washington University; Dr. Harold C. Urey and Dr. James Franck, both of the University of Chicago; and Dr. William P. Murphy, a physician, who won his prize in medicine.

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