AW: Background information

[Franz Schönhofer <franz.schoenhofer@CHELLO.AT>]

Franz Schoenhofer

PhD, MR iR

Habicherg. 31/7

A-1160 Vienna

AUSTRIA

phone -43-0699-1168-1319





Bruce,



The scenario you describe sounds familiar to me. I know several people

in Austria who were working in research or at universities back in the

seventies on radioactivity. When they lost their jobs, because either

they were not good enough or were not suitable for team work or simply

did not produce any usable output they suddenly turned to radiophobic

persons, joining or even founding anti-nuclear groups. Some made a

fortune (i.e. new jobs, well paid, in the anti-nuclear "industry"). Some

lost everything, because finally there were so many people competing in

the environmental groups that they again lost their short lasting jobs.

One collegue from my studies at university committed suicide.  



Another point of Asaf Durakovic' past is rather disturbing. In the late

70's and early 80's Yugoslavian citizens did not need any more visa to

travel to Austria - I am very sure about this. Already in the middle of

the 60's Austrians and other Europeans citizens did not need visa to

visit the former Yugoslavia. I remember that I travelled from Greece

home to Austria in spring 1968 and from Beograd on the train was filled

"to the top" with Yugoslav citizens travelling to Vienna to work there.

Tens of thousands of people were coming each year to Austria for work -

so there cannot have been a visa necessary alone of this reason. 



Of course this person might tell the next story - that he was such a

great scientist that he was unlike others not granted a passport..... 



Sorry, one more point: I wonder how he who came from a communist country

could get a job in the USA in a very sensitive field!



Best regards,



Franz









> 

> I have the misfortune of being a former co-worker of Asaf Durakovic,

and I

> have to admit that he is something of an embarrassment to all.  I knew

him

> as a researcher at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in

the

> late 1980's.  While he has supposedly excellent credentials, he has

always

> been a rather pathetic person.  He was forced out the the US Army

shortly

> before I retired in 1990.  I guess the best I can say is that he plays

> 'very

> loose and fast with the truth' and I think that he has been forced to

his

> current state due to a lack of ability to do meaningful research or

work

> on

> patients.

> 

> He was employed by ORISE for a short time in the 1990's and Robert

Ricks

> can

> give you more details on him.  Asaf was finally forced out of that

> position

> and left for the VA after that.  I think he was similarly forced out

of

> the

> VA after that, hence his current situation.

> 

> Asaf is a former refugee from Yugoslavia and claims to have made a

> spectacular effort to escape that regime in the late 1970's or early

> 1980's.

> However, since that time, I have come to wonder if the country didn't

> simply

> allow him to leave and raise the general research level in that

country.

> 

> If anyone would like to talk about him further, please feel free to

> contact

> me off line.

> 

> Bruce Vesper

> LCDR, USN, Retired

> 

> 





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