House Committee Votes to Ban Sales of Toshiba Goods at PXs

The House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday approved a ban on sales of Toshiba Corp. products in military exchange stores but refused to go along with a harsher measure.

An amendment proposed by Rep. Duncan L. Hunter (R-Coronado) would have broadened the sales ban to include all Defense Department contracts with the giant Japanese electronics firm and a Norwegian company. But committee members, citing possible procedural delays, refused to attach Hunter’s proposal to the PX bill.

The panel voted 31 to 0 in favor of the narrower measure, the latest in a series of congressional responses to Toshiba’s sale of sensitive high-technology equipment to the Soviet Union.

“The security interest of the United States and the Free World, including Japan, has been compromised severely as a result of these sales . . . . It is estimated it will cost somewhere between $30 billion and $50 billion to repair the damage,” said Rep. Dan Daniel (D-Va.), chairman of the panel’s readiness subcommittee, which approved the ban on PX sales Tuesday.

A subsidiary of Toshiba, Toshiba Machine Co., and Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk, Norway’s state-owned arms manufacturer, sold computerized propeller-milling machines to the Soviets, thereby enabling them to make their submarines quieter and more difficult to track.

Daniel said service members and their dependents bought $23-million worth of Toshiba consumer electronics, housewares and small appliances last year at 411 military post exchanges. Kongsberg, which does not manufacture consumer products, has no sales at military stores.

A measure pending in the House would ban all Toshiba and Kongsberg sales in the United States. A provision of the giant trade bill passed by the Senate on Tuesday would ban Toshiba exports to the United States for two to five years.