The Soviet-Eastern European Research and Training Act of 1983. Hearing before the Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education of the Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, Ninety-Eighth Congress, First Session on H.R. 601.

Hearings on The Soviet-Eastern European Research and Training Act of 1983 are presented. Objectives of the act are to help ensure the nation's independent factual knowledge of the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, to help maintain the national capability for advanced research and training on which that knowledge depends, and to provide partial financial support for national programs to serve both purposes. The U.S. Congress has stated that certain essential functions are necessary to ensure the existence of that knowledge: graduate training; advanced research; public dissemination of research data, methods, and findings; contact and collaboration among government and private specialists; and first-hand experience in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries by American specialists. Testimony is presented that suggests that the act would allow the United States to enter into meaningful relationships and understandings in the military and political spheres in order to know the Soviet Union. The act will also insure the continuation of academic exchanges with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. These exchanges provide important insight into current developments in these countries. The legislation will also make it possible to strengthen studies of the Soviet Union in certain disciplines, such as economics, in which the United States has been particularly weak. (SW)