TECHNOLOGY : Cheney Raps Easing of Computer Curbs to Soviets : Defense Secretary Disagrees Openly With Head of Commerce Department

In a rare public airing of a long-running bureaucratic dispute, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney on Wednesday took issue with Commerce Department plans to ease export controls on the sale of some personal computers to the East Bloc.

“It gives them significant capabilities they do not now possess,” Cheney said a day after the Commerce Department announced its decision. “We would have preferred an arrangement that would have” permitted the sale of less sophisticated computers to the Soviet Bloc, Cheney added.

The Commerce Department, in a reversal of Reagan Administration policy, announced Tuesday that it would lift requirements that U.S. manufacturers obtain special licenses to sell certain medium-capacity computers to non-Communist countries. At the same time, the department said it would recommend that Washington and its allies drop a prohibition against the sale of these computers to the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies.

That recommendation would clear the way for U.S. producers to sell the so-called AT-compatible units, described as “medium-capacity, mid-range” computers, to the East Bloc.

Since the United States was the only country in the 17-nation Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Exports to object to sale of such computers to the East Bloc, the approval of the Commerce Department’s plan by CoCom is considered a virtual certainty.

American companies have argued that the type of technology found in AT-compatible computers is already widely available from other sources in Asia and other nations that impose few, if any, controls on sales to the Soviet Union. U.S. export restrictions, which are intended to limit the flow of advanced technology to America’s adversaries, have put domestic PC makers at a competitive disadvantage, they say.

Michael Liikala, Western regional director for the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Export Administration, said the agency determined that similar computers were readily available from suppliers in 11 countries, including some in Eastern Europe.

“We had evidence of assembly (of AT-compatible machines) in Hungary and Czechoslovakia,” Liikala said. “Obviously, if they’re manufacturing these things in the East Bloc, it’s silly to recommend against U.S. sales to Eastern Europe.”

Cheney said he decided to air his disagreement with Commerce Secretary Robert A. Mosbacher, who made the decision, to correct published reports that indicated the defense secretary had met with Mosbacher and approved the Commerce Department decision.

Following Cheney’s remarks, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said President Bush supported Mosbacher’s decision.

Officials said the Commerce Department was able to effectively lift the controls without notifying the President or Defense Department in advance. It did so by issuing the decision in the form of a “finding,” which concluded that the computers already are widely available on international markets to East Bloc nations.

In an 18-month inter-agency review of the computer-export policy, the Defense Department argued repeatedly that the restrictions should not be lifted. While the Pentagon’s approval would have been necessary to change the policy formally, officials said the Commerce Department could proceed without Pentagon approval by issuing the decision as a regulatory change.

“It’s a decision that the secretary of commerce is empowered to make,” said Marion Blakey, a Commerce Department spokeswoman. “It is final.”

Earlier Disagreement

It was the second time that Cheney, formerly a conservative six-term congressman from Wyoming, openly differed with Bush Administration policy. And for the second time, the dispute focused on the Soviet Union’s campaign to restructure economic and military policy, placing Cheney as a hard-liner who remains skeptical of Soviet intentions.

In April, Cheney departed from the Bush Administration’s position on Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, predicting that he would fail in his efforts to reform the Soviet system. Gorbachev would likely be replaced with a leader more hostile to the West, Cheney added.

In a recent hearing, Cheney reiterated his views as a skeptic of Soviet reform, telling House members that the economic restructuring has as its goal the modernization of the Soviet military.

On Wednesday, Cheney said he believed that the U.S. decision to allow the sale of the personal computers “will give them a computing capability that has military applications. That should be avoided,” he added.

Could Aid Soviets

“I’m not satisfied we are protecting technology,” said Cheney.

Former and current Pentagon officials said the sale of the computers could add substantially to Soviet military capabilities because they can be used together in large networks, improving the flow of basic and applied research as well as making better logistics and communications networks possible.

The Apple II computer, one example of the medium-capability computers cleared for export, is used by U.S. forces in planning the targeting of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, said one knowledgeable former official.

If the eased export restrictions allow the transfer of the medium-capacity computer technology, said the former official, “all bets are off.” That would allow the Soviets to use the computers to build still better computers and to improve the memory capacity and speed with which Soviet computers operate.

Administration officials said it is unlikely that Cheney can persuade Bush to overturn Mosbacher’s decision. But they added that the Commerce Department’s handling of the decision offended Cheney’s sense of fair play, and he could not remain silent.

“Cheney is a guy of unusual commitment to fairness in the process,” said one adviser. “He would never do something like this. I think he was shocked.”