
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 25, 1990                   TAG: 9004250304
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

SCIENTIST WANTS JAPAN TO REFURBISH U.S. LABS

As a gesture of gratitude, Japan should donate $100 million a year to the United States with "no strings attached" to help modernize this country's aging research laboratories and equipment, the president of the National Academy of Sciences said Tuesday.

By acknowledging the training that tens of thousands of Japanese students and scientists have received in the United States, such a "credible act . . . would be viewed very favorably by the American public and its political representatives," Dr. Frank Press declared in a wide-ranging speech on the economic and technological challenges posed by Japan.

The amount he proposed is five times what the U.S. government itself is spending this year to refurbish the facilities.

Press also called for "a major initiative" to teach Americans the Japanese language and urged Japan to share more of its basic research discoveries with the rest of the world by publishing them.

Unusual for both its candor and specificity, Press' keynote address at the academy's annual meeting surprised many, and it may well live up to his own prediction earlier that the talk will become controversial.

by CNB