Mir Science

A Soviet-U.S. magazine

Even at the peak of detente, the Soviet Union reserved to itself the power of the press: no American general-circulation publication was ever translated and sold on newsstands to ordinary citizens. Last week, during an era of renewed East-West tension, that barrier was broken in a small way: Soviet officials distributed 20,000 copies of the first issue of In the World of Science, a Russian-language version of Scientific American (worldwide circ. 1 million in eight languages) that is being produced under a licensing agreement with Mir, a Moscow publishing house. Said Yevgeni Velikhov, vice president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, in an introductory editorial: "This publication in the U.S.S.R. acquires special significance at this time of limited international co operation."

The inaugural issue, the result of five years of discussions between the magazine's publisher, Gerard Piel, and Moscow officials, makes plain that editors in the U.S.S.R. will translate all articles and occasionally will include entirely new pieces by Soviet authors. More pointedly, notes Chief Editor Sergei Kapitsa, "we have the right, in consultation with the American editors, to remove any article of a given issue." Among taboo subjects: social and economic sciences and defense matters. The Soviet issue also excludes consumer advertising. The translation does, however, retain the original's colorful charts and photographs, thereby making it, at a hefty price by Moscow standards of two rubles (about $2.80), one of the handsomest magazines on the Soviet market. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.