The Nation - News from Oct. 13, 1986

An estimated $11 million worth of specialized computers and related equipment have been diverted to the Soviet Bloc in one of the biggest unauthorized transfers of U.S. high technology to the East, U.S. officials in Washington and Vienna said. The equipment was routed through Austria to East Germany in two separate shipments this summer and U.S. officials said they think the “probabilities are pretty high” that it wound up in the Soviet Union. No laws were violated in the shipments, but the movement of high technology items to the Soviet Bloc circumvented U.S. attempts to deny to the East advanced computers and other Western equipment that could have military applications, the officials said.