Curbs Eased on Computer Exports to Eastern Bloc : Trade: The Pentagon will no longer take part in screening sales of low-end mainframes. The move calms a turf battle between the Defense and Commerce departments.

The Defense Department said Friday it no longer wants a role in reviewing sales of U.S. medical equipment and less advanced mainframe computers to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, leaving it to the Commerce Department to grant export licenses on its own.

The move is a further de-escalation of a decade-long battle between the two agencies over which should control strategically sensitive exports. For years, Commerce has argued for allowing more sales, while the Pentagon has warned that they could endanger U.S. security.

The action also reflects a continued relaxation of export restrictions by the Bush Administration in recognition of the past year’s political and economic developments in the Soviet Union and Central Europe.

U.S. allies have been pressing the Administration to ease restrictions on the export of strategically sensitive technology so that Western firms can take advantage of new sales opportunities in emerging democracies such as Poland and Hungary.

The White House initially was reluctant to loosen its rules, but it has been forced to reconsider amid fears that the Europeans might bolt and go their own way. A high-level committee has been reviewing U.S. policies and is slated to make recommendations soon.

Although Friday’s decision was expected to speed the processing of export licenses for both categories of equipment, it was not considered likely to have much impact on overall sales. Officials said the Pentagon had been approving most such requests in recent months.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, long a holdout among top Administration policy-makers in advocating any easing, conceded that continued reforms by Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev most likely would bring even more liberalization.

In a speech before the Assn. of American Publishers, Cheney said that “as long as Mr. Gorbachev pursues the current policies he is pursuing . . . we will see it’s easier for the Soviets to acquire military technology . . . than it’s been.”

At the same time, however, Cheney warned against moving too rapidly to lower technology-control barriers.

“There’s already an erosion of the international agreements that limit the flow of sophisticated technologies to the Soviet Union,” he said.

Frank J. Gaffney, director of the Center for Security Policy, a conservative group that follows such issues, warned that while “in this case the move may be genuinely inconsequential,” the Administration should take care that it is not moving too fast.

“We are seeing this happening in such a wholesale fashion that the Defense Department is now obliged to be much more selective on how it uses its capital,” Gaffney said. He warned that the Administration ought to be cautious on how quickly it eases its stance.

Friday’s decision was the product of an interagency review of export-control policy. Defense Department officials said the move was cleared with a number of departments and agencies, including the State Department, that have an interest in the issue.

However, Pentagon spokesmen insisted that the change was proposed by Defense as a streamlining move, on grounds that it was taking too much time to review proposed sales of equipment that did not present any serious security problems.

Officials said the looser regulations for computers would apply only to low-end mainframes such as the IBM 3031, 4331 and 4341 computers.

High-end products, such as IBM 4381 and 9370 computers and their equivalents, still will be subject to both Pentagon and Commerce Department review.

The change, approved personally by William Rudman, deputy under secretary of defense for trade security policy, also applies to licenses for trade shows involving such equipment.

The regulation of exports of strategically sensitive goods is performed under the aegis of the Paris-based Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls, a 17-member compact that includes the United States and most of its major economic allies.

In the past, the United States essentially has set the standards that Cocom has followed. In recent years, however, with other countries developing high-technology equipment of their own, Washington has been somewhat less dominant in the organization.