High-Tech Ban

Halting strategic exports

American customs officials last month boarded an Aeroflot airliner at Dulles International Airport in Washington and seized three crates of suspicious cargo. The Soviets immediately accused the U.S. of a "bandit operation" and a "criminal, barbarous act," but the customs officials replied that they were merely carrying out U.S. Government rules banning the sale of high-technology equipment to the Soviet Union and other Communist nations.

In fact, the Aeroflot shipment contained only nonembargoed items: common air navigation equipment, radiation measurement devices and spare parts for a fertilizer factory. But the incident pointed up the confusion surrounding the policy on American exports to the Soviet Union, which were virtually halted after the invasion of Afghanistan 17 months ago. Although the embargo of the shipment of grain and phosphates was lifted in April, the ban on the export of high-technology goods remains theoretically in force. The American action has cut off the sale of about $150 million in exports, primarily of computers, to the Soviets.

The U.S. policy, though, has been glaringly inconsistent. For example, Armco steel was barred in March 1980 from joining a Japanese steel firm in constructing a $350 million cold-rolling mill in Novolipetsk. But Caterpillar was granted approval late last year to supply pipelaying equipment used in building the 3,000-mile Yamal Peninsula natural gas pipeline. A semiconductor chip that U.S. companies cannot sell to the Soviets has been licensed for production in Brazil, which is not bound by the embargo. The microchip, in fact, is a component in a popular computer game that is for sale in Western European toy stores. Says Samuel Pisar, a Paris-based international trade expert: "The U.S. and its Western allies have simply never formulated a consistent policy on exports of technology to the Soviets. Decisions on whether to sell or not vacillate continually, depending almost totally upon the political climate of the moment."

Since 1949 most Western European nations and Japan have kept a close eye on the sale of high-technology goods to Communist nations through an obscure NATO affiliate, the Coordinating Committee on Export Controls. Known as CoCom, the agency is run by a small staff out of a Paris office that is inconspicuously wedged between a hair salon and a bank. Though CoCom has no official power to ban sales, its recommendations are generally followed. After the invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. stepped up pressure on its allies and CoCom to halt technology exports to the Soviet Union. But while the U.S. Government has stopped trade by some American companies, foreign firms have sometimes flouted U.S. policy. The French, for example, signed a contract last September to build the steel factory that Armco could not. And after Alcoa was forbidden last year to construct a Soviet aluminum smelter, a West German firm went ahead with the project.

The inconsistent enforcement of the Western trade embargo has naturally left U.S. businessmen confused. Says Sperry Corp. Chairman J. Paul Lyet, whose company has sold computers under Government license to the Soviets: "We never knew what Government policy was under the previous Administration."

The Reagan White House is now trying to clarify its own rules. It has ordered the FBI and the CIA to step up enforcement activities, and a high-level review of the embargo is under way. The Administration has also warned American exporters that lifting the grain embargo should not be considered a precedent for ending the high-technology ban.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.