Toshiba Computer Technology Sales Are Cited in New Charges
Toshiba Corp. of Japan illegally sold computer technology to the Soviet Bloc, a lawmaker said Friday, but Pentagon officials and Toshiba spokesmen called the charges untrue.
“A wide variety of available evidence shows that within the last seven years Toshiba Corp. and other Japanese firms have been heavily involved in illegally enhancing the micro-electronic capability of Warsaw Pact nations,” Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) said through an aide.
The issue could affect pending trade legislation restricting the sale of Toshiba products in the United States for two to five years, a ban that congressional aides said could cost the company $20 billion in sales.
Congressional sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said U.S. intelligence analysts prepared secret reports that Toshiba:
- Sold Czechoslovakia a complete factory in 1979 to make computer chips in a deal of questionable legality.
- Sold East Germany a more advanced computer-chip assembly line in 1986, in a deal of clear illegality.
- Negotiated an illegal deal for a second assembly line in East Germany in 1987.
Controversy over the deals was reported in Friday’s editions of the Washington Times.
In public discussion of the classified intelligence reports, the deals have been labeled Toshiba 2, Toshiba 3 and Toshiba 4.
Toshiba 1 refers to the admission by Toshiba six months ago that a subsidiary had sold the Soviet Union machine tools for making quiet submarine propellers, making it harder for the U.S. military to detect Soviet submarines.
U.S. intelligence learned of Toshiba 4, the second deal with East Germany, protested it through diplomatic channels, and managed to kill it before the technology was delivered, according to congressional sources.
Defense Department officials said they did not have enough evidence to prove that any of the deals went through.
“The information that we have is that we feel these actions, Toshiba 2, 3 and 4, have not occurred,” said a Pentagon spokesman, Army Col. Arnold Williams.
