The Nation : Commerce Dept. Scored on Soviet Sales

The Pentagon, making public a long-simmering internal dispute, accused the Commerce Department of an “egregious lapse of responsibility” that had allowed high-tech American computers to be sold to Soviet-controlled corporations. The Defense Department said the Commerce Department had improperly allowed a computer shipment to a Soviet-owned company in West Germany earlier this summer and that, based on its own investigation, it now believes “as many as 50 other licensed shipments were also permitted to Communist-controlled companies.” The Commerce Department authorizations for computer export licenses were made without Defense Department reviews to companies that were controlled by Eastern Bloc nations but located in Western countries, said Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Arnie Williams.