-STATUS OF (Sanitized) NEGOTIATIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01676R003400120025-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 4, 2002
• Sequence Number: 25
• Publication Date: September 22, 1960
• Content Type: MF

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 MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD
SUBJECT: Machine Translation
OGC 60-070
1. Mr. Sorel together with Mr. Bagnall and Mr. Houston
appeared before the House Committee on Science and Astronautics
on 13 May 1960. Present for the Committee were:
Overton Brooks, Chairman (D., IA.)
David S. King (D., Utah)
George P. Miller (D., Calif.)
Perkins Bass (R., N. H.)
J. Edward Roush (D., Ind. )
2. Mr. Sorel read his prepared statement which was
commended by the Chairman.
as co-witness testified as to the n nature o his machine
translation research and development. He pointed out that his efforts
had been controversial and departed from his prepared text and
proposed that a test be performed by having the Committee counsel
select a random text of perhaps 15, 000 words in Russian in the field
of organic chemistry and then have the IBM cards key punched, also
under the Committee's staff supervision as well as the succeeding
computer run. The product would then be sent for evaluation to
three scientists in the field, presumably academic types not con-
nected with Georgetown or the sponsors of its experiments.
3. Mr. Bagnall was asked some questions about the scope
of this present translation effort and pointed out that while only a
modest percentage was fully translated by the Government almost
all the Russian material was scanned and the nature of the contents
made available to Government and the public. Chairman Brooks
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complimented this report for its improvement over prior testimony
before the Committee. Mr. Bass was interested in the time currently
taken with translations and abstracts, and Mr. King was interested in
what the Russian were doing. Mr. Bagnall pointed out that they are
making a very big effort in the translation field. Chairman Brooks
questioned whether the diversity of the effort in Government did not
spread the effort too thin. Mr. Sorel replied that in his opinion the
diversity was good because of the diverse interests and that through
the existing coordination this diversity could be planned. He stated
that centralisation would be needed for whatever eventual facility
was decided upon.
4. Mr. Sorel pointed out that the Government was now at
the turning point as to whether to put funds into application of research
to date and create a central facility. He repeated his remarks in the
prepared statement that we were considering proposals by both
F- I
LAWRENCE R. HOUSTON
General Counsel
DCI
L_- DDCI
AD/CR
C/FDI?
Legislative Counsel
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