Jeremy Stone

Jeremy Stone

Jeremy Stone is the son of journalist, communist and Soviet agent, I.F.Stone.

Soviet visit

In the 1980s, David W. Hafemeister was involved in numerous exchanges with Soviet scientists, making his 'professional life more exciting as a result".

Hafemeister first met Evegeny P. Velikhov, the Soviet Academy's then vice president for applied physics and mathematics, at a meeting of the International Physicians for Social Responsibility in the summer of of 1983. Earlier in that year, a group of Soviet academics had sent an open letter to US scientists, asking whether, in the light of president Reagan's "Star wars' speech of March 1983, there had been a change in the professional consensus in the US, regarding the feasibility of effective missile defenses.

Only the Federation of American Scientists responded directly and were invited by Velikhov to visit the Soviet Union. Despite a partial boycott on bilateral scientific contacts, which the federation had joined mainly because of the soviet government's treatment of Andrei Sakharov, the group decided to accept Velikhov's invitation.

In November, the federation sent a party to the USSR, which included FAS president Jeremy Stone, John Pike of the FAS staff, John Holdren, University of California - Berkeley and FAS vice chairman and FAS chairman David W. Hafemeister.

Velikhov told Hafemeister, that the reason he decided to organize the Committee of Soviet Scientists was to educate a new generation of Soviet Scientists, including himself, about nuclear arms control and to re-open the US-Soviet dialogue on strategic defense with the roles reversed.

Now it would be the Soviet scientists who would try to convince the the US government, with US scientists as intermediaries that the pursuit of ballistic missile defenses would be counterproductive.