mrotenberg@cdp.uucp (05/27/91)
The {New York Times} reported on Saturday that the Committee for
Multilateral Export Controls ("Cocom") has decided to ease hi-tech
export control restrictions. According to Allan Wendt, the State
Department's senior representative for strategic technology policy,
"The new list will provide stronger controls on truly strategic items
while freeing from control those items that are are needed to
modernize the economies of the proscribed countries that are no longer
considered militarily critical." ("US and Allies Move to Ease Cold War
Limits on Exports," {New York Times}, May 25, 1991, at A1.)
The Times story does not indicate whether there were changes in the
restrictions on the export of encryption technology, such as DES.
According to the Times, "under the new rules agreed to late Thursday
in Paris after a year of often tense talks, restrictions will be
lifted on the export of almost all personal computers. Controls will
remain on items like night-vision systems and supercomputers that are
considered essential to maintain the Wests' superiority in military
technology over the Soviet Union. American computer and telecom-
munications equipment makers said that while they were generally
pleased with the liberalization, they felt that the changes did not go
far enough in two area, computers and telecommunications equipment.
[The revised list] is expected to result in a 70 percent drop in the
number of computer-export applications submitted to the commerce
department. [PCs up to 486 will be decontrolled, but RISC- based
machines will remain on the list]. The ability of US telecommunications
equipment makers to sell more advanced fiber-optic telephone equipment
to the Soviets will also be restricted under the new rules. The
source for most of these concerns [upgrading Soviet telecommunications]
in the United States was the intelligence community, particularly the
National Security Agency. 'No one is trying to keep the Soviet Union
in the Stone Age,' Mr. Wendt said. 'What the Soviet Union needs is
good old-fashioned telephones.' Cocom officials vowed to strengthen
export control procedures on the smaller number of items that will be
restricted."
Marc Rotenberg
CPSR Washington Office