Presswatch/Exposing a Disaster
Ledeen, Michael
PRESSWATCH EXPOSING A DISASTER by Michael Ledeen rr he biggest story of the year—per1 haps the biggest story of the decade—was buried in the pages of the country's leading newspapers, and only...
...But the analogy is inapt...
...never before had the government taken such steps against a Japanese corporation...
...The Soviet Union has obtained the ability to manufacture submarine propellers that are far quieter than anything they could produce in the past...
...This alarming development has taken place because the Soviets were able to purchase the technology for the production of these deadly-quiet propellers from two of our own allies: Japan and Norway...
...Simply return the attached reservation application...
...It is hard to imagine a greater catastrophe in the field of military technology, and it is hard to imagine a more fascinating or explosive story...
...Presented in a custom made, velvet lined hardwood chest complete with safety lock...
...Flawlessly crafted by master gunsmiths to be a perfect recreation of the famous 1858 black powder, muzzle loading Remington .44 caliber revolver, the cylinder is strikingly engraved in 24kt...
...There seem to be two main explanations...
...That was the basic story, and one would have expected it to become one of the hottest items of the spring...
...The New York Times buried the story on an inside page in the business section, and the Washington Post gave THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY 1987 27 virtually no coverage to the matter...
...The situation was like The Hunt for Red October...
...Meanwhile, in Norway, the plot thickened...
...The Wall Street Journal covered it briefly on page 36 on April 30...
...this is fact...
...The next day the Journal followed up on the story on page 20, reporting that the Japanese had searched Toshiba's offices and factories, but did not note that this was a unique event in Japan...
...It was apparent the Soviets had managed to leapfrog into a technology they weren't capable of producing on their own...
...Part of this theory of deterrence hinges on our ability to keep our submarines invulnerable to Soviet surprise attack, and also on our ability to detect Soviet submarines if they get too close to our shores...
...For many years, this advantage was considerable...
...Each revolver will be individually serially numbered and hallmarked...
...But this, too, received scant coverage in the American press...
...gold with repeating silhouettes of Frederic Remington's world renowned sculpture "The Rattlesnake...
...The New England Collectors Society is a division of Reed & Barton Silversmiths, makers of fine products since 1824...
...These days our security depends less on ready access to blueprints or materials than on our collective ability to apply knowledge . . ." This may be credible with regard to allies, but it is folly with regard to enemies like the Soviet Union...
...Name Address City State Zip For fast service on charge card orders • Telephone TOLL FREE 1-800-654-5526 -9 AM - 5 PM EST Mon-Fri Not applicable in AK, CT & HI Please allow 8-10 weeks for shipment after payment of deposit...
...Indeed, he seems to feel that the major threat to American security The New England Collectors Society Proudly Presents the Nrst rREDERIC REMINGTON Commeriorative Pistol "the Rattlesnake Issued in a strictly Limited Edition of only 5000 individually serially numbered pistols...
...While a handful of Washington insiders knew about this matter early in the year, it first surfaced publicly in a Reuters story out of Oslo, dated March 22 ("Soviet Submarines Said Improved by Norwegian Technology...
...I have enclosed $495.00...
...G50008 28 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY 1987 comes from those very few initiatives that move in the direction of protecting American security...
...After the War, many of those brave soldiers took it with them when they went West...
...Unlike some of the spectacular diversions of Western high technology to the Soviet Union, which were the work of the KGB or the GRU, this one apMichael Ledeen is senior fellow in international affairs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C...
...Since the American public would be outraged if the facts were brought out in a persistent investigation by major media, it is doubly regrettable that the media failed to develop the story...
...Furthermore, the giant trading company, C. Itoh, which had arranged the deal in the first place, was similarly ordered to refrainfrom any further operations with the Soviets for 90 days...
...Why was this story not more vigorously pursued...
...The Reuters dispatch contained the story's basic ingredients: the fact that it appeared that law had been violated, since, according to the Norwegian defense minister, "firms were barred from exporting material that could damage NATO...
...This unique commemorative pistol is a truly rewarding acquisition that you will exhibit proudly in its own hardwood custom made display chest...
...These are the famous "rope sellers" Lenin so loved...
...Toshiba in Japan (a private corporation) and Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk in Norway (a wholly state-owned entity) sold the Russians both the hardware and the computer software needed to build a computer-aided manufacturing facility for the quiet propellers...
...The Rattlesnake" you need send no payment now...
...One of the leaders in the campaign against any effort to protect our own technology is Robert B. Reich, the adviser to Democratic candidates for President (and one of Gary Hart's gurus...
...The Pentagon had proposed real steps against Toshiba, ranging from a ban on all U.S...
...Norway was studying stepsto take against the firm...
...is proud to announce The First Frederic Remington Commemorative Pistol, "The Rattlesnake...
...i wish to pay as follows: ^ Charge my credit card for my deposit of $165.00* and, beginning...
...By mid-May the Japanese had announced their punitive measures...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY 1987 29...
...Peterson had spoken with several people in the Pentagon, one of whom summarized the situation nicely: Last year, our sophisticated underwater sonar detectors began picking up silent-prop Soviet submarines offshore that we hadn't managed to track...
...With the exception of ABC, which covered the story in early May (complete with an interview with Secretary Weinberger), no network covered it...
...This replica has not been endorsed by Remington Arms Co.., Inc...
...Green) involved in foreign sales for Kongsberg, and the British government was said to be investigating Green's connections with the KGB...
...o ne final point is in order: for much of the intellectual community, the very idea of export controls is anathema, a kind of international know-nothingism...
...There the story rested for more than a month, when, so far as I can establish, it was reported for the first time in the American press by John E. Peterson of the Detroit News...
...And even Democratic Senator Donald Riegle of Michigan called for Reagan to "take the strongest possible action against both Toshiba and Kongsberg...
...Please ship my Frederic Remington Commemorative Pistol...
...On the harsh frontier, the Remington .44 caliber revolver often meant the difference between life and death...
...And Peterson found some CoCom documents that dealt with the deal, one of which stated: "There's no doubt this was an unequivocal violation of CoCom regulations...
...By focusing on Japan, and leaving out the entire question of East-West strategic trade, Reich begs the central question...
...PRESSWATCH EXPOSING A DISASTER by Michael Ledeen rr he biggest story of the year—per1 haps the biggest story of the decade—was buried in the pages of the country's leading newspapers, and only surfaced because of the enterprise of a journalist from the Detroit News, who apparently reads the wire services more carefully than do his more celebrated colleagues at the networks and in the famous dailies and weeklies...
...As most educated citizens are aware, a good deal of our ability to deter a Soviet attack against the United States hinges on our technological superiority in certain key areas of warfare...
...So full marks to the Detroit News and demerits to most of the others...
...There's no doubt it alters the strategic balance...
...This new principle presumes the possibility—indeed, the necessity—of viewing American technology as a body of knowledge separate and distinct from that possessed by other nations...
...And now, for the first time in history, in special honor of the two great Remingtons of the Old West, the sculptor and the gunsmith, the New England Collectors Antique Reproductions, Inc...
...The best treatment of the story, two full months after it first surfaced, appeared in Business Week in the May 18 edition...
...Second, in line with the State Department's efforts to be nice to everyone, even those who sell out our national security, are the efforts of members of Congress to make sure that no one can punish countries or companies that violate existing international agreements, and to weaken any effort in the U.S...
...The sale violated agreements with the United States and the regulations of CoCom (the international Coordinating Committee on Trade in Paris, which regulates the flow of Western technology to the Soviet bloc...
...The Japanese were promising to take stern action against Toshiba if the story proved true...
...A "senior staff official on the Senate Banking Committee" said that he was outraged "that the State Department would intervene in this matter, given the gravity of the threat to our national security caused by this sale...
...It is simply another example of the inability of some of our best journalists and editors to recognize the crucial events of our time...
...And why has the American government not been more aggressive in demanding that severe punishment be meted out to the Japanese and Norwegians who have so frightfully undermined our national security...
...Date Signature All applications are subject to acceptance...
...Exquisitely engraved in 24kt...
...The KGB, which spends billions every year to steal our high technology, rightly regards high-tech gadgets as a strategic resource...
...This edge enables us—or so we like to believe—to convince the USSR that any attack, or threat of attack, against us would be madness, because we would always be in a position to deliver a terrible blow to them in return...
...Now there's vigorous enforcement for you...
...For example: •(Referring to efforts by the White House and the National Science Foundation to spur American R & D) "The overriding goal of these initiatives is to protect future American technological breakthroughs from exploitation at thehands of foreigners, especially the Japanese...
...It's easier to follow sexual politics or to bash the politicians...
...The warnings now issuing from Washington . . . mistakenly assumethat high-tech gadgets are like strategic raw materials—the kind of thing that one shouldn't have to depend on a foreign power to supply...
...The magazine opined that "whatever the two companies gained by helping the Soviets could be over-shadowed by new problems in the U.S...
...Individually hand-crafted of authentic blued steel, brass, and hand-rubbed walnut...
...Unfortunately, that was fiction...
...government purchases to a demand for compensation (Pentagon officials estimate that the sale to the Soviets will cost tens of billions of dollars to American taxpayers...
...Reich derides this view...
...Bill me prior to shipment for my deposit of $165.00* (payable in two monthly installments) and then in equal monthly installments of $82.50* each...
...Hallmarked, serially numbered and accompanied by a personalized Certificate of Registration...
...And, as befits a story of such significance, the News put it on the front page ("Toshiba Aided Soviets with Sub Technology...
...But it was not to be...
...government to monitor and control East-West trade...
...the frightening information that while "NATO experts had previously been able to detect Soviet submarines at a range of about 100 miles," the rangemay have been reduced to about five miles as a result of the illegal sale...
...The story is something out of the Pentagon's worst nightmares...
...51 • Precise recreation of a classic Remington black powder, muzzle loading 1858 New Army revolver...
...Like thousands of soldiers on both sides of the Civil War, General Robert E. Lee always carried this classic pistol as his personal sidearm...
...with shipment, the balance in equal monthly installments of $82.50* as follows: ^ MasterCard ^ VISA ^ American Express Card # Exp...
...CT and CA residents add applicable state sales tax...
...depot de Nemours & Co., nor will it be produced in a facility operated by that company...
...Not available to minors...
...now, all of a sudden, the situation has changed...
...The New England Collectors Society 62 Eastview Avenue Pleasantville, N.Y.10570 Please accept my reservation for The First Frederic Remington Commemorative Pistol "The Rattlesnake" issued at $495.00* including shipping and handling...
...The State Department officials involved in the question fought all such efforts, and, at least for the moment, seem to have prevailed...
...To acquire your First Frederic Remington Commemorative Pistol...
...At the time of this writing (May 18), the Norwegians had arrested a British citizen (a Mr...
...First is the never-ending efforts by officials of the Department of State to avoid nasty exchanges with foreign countries...
...It didn't, since the major media chose to downplay it...
...The facts were confirmed, and the government of Japan ordered Toshiba to refrain from any trade with the Soviet bloc . . . for one year...
...a subsidiary of E...
...By the time Peterson wrote his story, it had already come to the attention of members of Congress, who were quite rightly enraged, both because of the diversion itself, and because the State Department had argued against any punitive measures against the two companies (or governments...
...This despite the fact that, until quite recently, American corporations have shown an amazing willingness to sell our own best technology to foreign companies (not least of which is Japan...
...Otter void in New York City and other areas where prohibited by law...
...gold...
...In an article in the May issue of the Atlantic, entitled "The Rise of Techno-Nationalism," Reich inveighs against efforts to develop and protect American science and technology...
...pears to have been a simple matter of blind greed triumphing over concern for the well-being of the Western world...
...and that the United States government was seriously concerned about the matter...
...Reporter Eduardo Lachica noted one of the more interesting consequences of the event in a curious sentence: a Senate Banking Committee aide said that, if true, the "violations could 'damage' the committee's efforts to approve new legislation to ease existing export-control regulations . . ." In other words, Congress had intended to weaken the American government's ability to stop the flow of sensitive technology to the Soviet bloc, and this case was bad news for those congressional leaders who were pushing the new laws...
Vol. 20 • July 1987 • No. 7
