Allies to Tighten Export Controls : Moving to Keep High-Tech Goods Out of Soviet Bloc

The United States and its allies decided to tighten export controls to keep high-technology goods out of the Soviet bloc, while also deciding to trim the list of sensitive products.

At the end of a two-day meeting of the Coordinating Committee on Export Controls, the 16 member countries on Thursday “reaffirmed their commitment to COCOM and their determination to control the export of sensitive technology,” a U.S. official said.

No statement was issued at the close of the meeting. But the head of the U.S. delegation, Deputy Secretary of State John C. Whitehead, and three other American officials briefed reporters on condition that their comments be described as coming from the briefing, without specifying who said what.

Rarely Announces Actions

COCOM, based in Paris, rarely announces its actions or even discloses that it has held a meeting. Decisions are made by consensus of the members--all the NATO countries except Iceland, plus Japan--and must be enforced by each member nation’s own laws and regulations. COCOM has no regulatory apparatus of its own.

One of the U.S. delegation members said the meeting was called “at the rather urgent request of the United States.” The Reagan Administration has been concerned by recent violations of COCOM rules, such as the sale by a subsidiary of Japan’s Toshiba Corp. of milling machines that may have helped the Soviet Union make quieter submarine propeller shafts to escape detection.

A Norwegian company, Kongsberg Vaapenfabrik, sold computer technology to help run the Japanese milling machines.

“We thought the meeting was essential to get all the COCOM countries to redouble their efforts,” the U.S. official said. “As a result of this meeting, our delegation has more confidence that the COCOM process can work.”

Another official said the U.S. delegation hoped the evidence of coordinated action would demonstrate to Congress that international cooperation would be more effective than drastic unilateral legislation in keeping sensitive technology out of Soviet bloc hands.

Unusual Meeting

The delegation said Whitehead was the most senior U.S. official ever sent to a COCOM meeting.

“This was an unusual meeting,” one U.S. official said. “It was a meeting of COCOM countries about COCOM, rather than a COCOM meeting.”

The official said the members decided to continue cutting the list of products banned for export. They lifted controls, for example, on some slower, low-powered personal computers that have become widely available in recent years.