May 8, 1972

Secretary William Rogers
Department of Stata
Washington, D. C,

Dear Mr. Secretary:

   I have just bee8 informed by Professor Kosower and his colleagues
at Tel Aviv University in Israel of the difficulties being experienced
by Professor Veniamin G. Levich and his family in the USSR subsequent
to his decision to accept the offer of a position at Tel Aviv
University as Professor of Chemistry there. Be has been demoted
from his position as Head of the Theoretical Electrochemistry Group
in the Institute of Electrochemietry of the Academy of Sciences of
the USSR.  His older son has been dismissed fran his position as
engineer and his younger 80x1, a theoretical phyoicist has been refused
the right to apply for an emigration permit. Professor Levich, a member
of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and an internationally know8
and distinguished physical chemist and theoretical physicist, certainly
has every right to make a free choice concerning his career and the
place in which it is pursued, and I do hope that the powers that be in
the Soviet Academy of Sciences can help to rectify the obvious dis-
service that has been perfamed against a talented individual and
against the normal uninhibited progress of scientific research.

Sincerely yours,

Christian B. Anfinsen
Chief, Laboratory of Cheuical
  Biology, NIAMD