Two top SA scientists are refused entry into Russia.

Date: 17 Aug 1970
Updated: 30 Sep 2019

Two top SA scientists are refused entry into Russia.

On 17 August 1970, two top South African scientists were refused entry into the Soviet Union during the International Science Congress in Leningrad. The scientists were Prof. L.H. Wells, Head of the Department of Anatomy at the University of Cape Town and Prof. Phillip Tobias, a palaeontologist at Wits University and initiator of the excavation at Sterkfonetin in 1966. Both Prof. Wells and Tobias were invited to speak at the Ninth International Science Congress, but the Russians refused their visas at the last moment. Prof. Wells said he thought that the refusal was due to pressure on the Russian authorities from Afro-Asians. Prof. Tobias had, on previous occasions, attended the Congress, but it would have been Prof. Wells’ first attendance.

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How we know this

01The Cape Times, 18 August, 1970. ‘Russians Bar two SA Scientists’ in The Cape Times, Available at: The National Library of South Africa, Cape Town Campus
02CradleofHumankind.co.za, N.D, ‘Tobias, Phillip’ [online], Available at: www.cradleofhumankind.co.za [Accessed 05 July 2011]

Last updated · 30 Sep 2019

Cite this entry

South African History Online. (2011, August 12). Two top SA scientists are refused entry into Russia.. South African History Online. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0067739

South African History Online (2011) 'Two top SA scientists are refused entry into Russia.', South African History Online, 12 August. Available at: https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0067739 (Accessed: 19 August 2026).

South African History Online, Two top SA scientists are refused entry into Russia. [website], https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0067739, (accessed 19 August 2026).

"Two top SA scientists are refused entry into Russia.." South African History Online, 12 Aug. 2011, https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0067739. Accessed 19 Aug. 2026.

South African History Online. "Two top SA scientists are refused entry into Russia.." South African History Online. August 12, 2011. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0067739.