He was a friend of the noted linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky, and communicated with the Jewish American writer Elie Wiesel through a letter, in which he criticized Israel's involvement in the Guatemalan genocide and, satirically, Wiesel's silence on any issue concerning Israel's "terrorist" activities world-wide. As described by Chomsky: "In the mid-1980s, Salvador Luria, a friend of mine who is a Nobel laureate in biology and politically active, knew about this [i.e., the genocide]. It wasn't a big secret. He asked me to collect articles from the Hebrew press which described Israel's participation in genocidal attacks in Guatemala – not just participation, it's a leadership role – because he wanted to send it to Elie Wiesel with a polite letter saying: as a fellow Nobel laureate, I would like to bring this to your attention. Could you use your influence – he didn't ask him to say anything, that's too much, but privately could you communicate to the people you know well at a high level in Israel and say it's not nice to take part in genocide. He never got a response."