High-Tech Hardship

For several years now the federal government has been trying to prevent the Soviet Union from getting the benefits of American high technology that could be used for military purposes. This policy has been staunchly pressed by the Defense Department and has led to endless skirmishing with the academic community, which believes in the free and open exchange of ideas, and more recently with American companies, which want to sell their products abroad.

The Commerce Department, which administers the government’s export-controls policy, has consistently taken a more accommodating line than the Pentagon has, but it has generally lost to the hard-liners at Defense, particularly Assistant Secretary Richard N. Perle. From time to time the Administration has announced that it intends to liberalize its policies on export controls and on the communication of sensitive information, but after the announcements have been made the policies haven’t changed.

A few weeks ago yet another panel of the National Academy of Sciences reported that the Administration’s export controls are not working but are causing a severe economic hardship on American companies. It turns out that the vaunted American technology is generally available elsewhere, so Soviet Bloc countries are obtaining it despite the refusal of the United States to sell it. At the same time, foreign buyers are increasingly shunning American suppliers because the buyers do not want to get tied up in the Administration’s export red tape--whose outcome is dubious at best. The National Academy panel estimated the cost of this policy on American companies at $9 billion a year--a figure that the Defense Department disputes.

Now Malcolm Baldrige, the secretary of commerce, has announced that he agrees with the academy report and will ease or drop most of his department’s restrictions on the sale of high-technology products overseas. This is altogether the right decision, and it is supported by logic, by experience and by the thoughtful consideration of a variety of knowledgeable people with no particular axes to grind.

But the Pentagon apparently will not give up without a fight. Perle & Co. will take their argument to the White House in hopes of enlisting the support of other ideologues to force Baldrige and Commerce to back down. If reason prevails--a big if--the Administration will realize that the export controls are ineffective and self-damaging and should be dispensed with. Baldrige is right. The White House should stand by him and reject the Pentagon’s pleas.