NOT ‘ON HOLD’: GATES, EAGLEBURGER WANT THE RESURGENT SOVIET MILITARY TO GET EXPANDED ACCESS TO WESTERN HI-TECH

(Washington, D.C.): Within recent
months, the United States has acceded to
the demands of Germany and others among
its partners in the Coordinating
Committee for Multilateral Export
Controls (COCOM) to expand the
availability of militarily relevant
Western goods and technology to the USSR.
Using the justification that such
technology could help Mikhail Gorbachev
remain in power, COCOM decided in June
1991 to reduce the so-called
“core” list of restricted
technologies by half, effective
1 September.

In accordance with this decision —
all other things being equal — the
Soviet military-industrial complex, which
traditionally has obtained first call on
such imports, stands to obtain access to
valuable assets like high-precision
machine tools, advanced computers, and
specialized microprocessors. These
technologies would make Moscow center’s
armed forces more formidable at reduced
costs, while adding to the burden on
Western taxpayers obliged to pay for the
costs of maintaining an adequate defense.

Of course, all things are decidedly not
equal in the aftermath of yesterday’s
coup. The persistent and malevolent
designs of those who brought Gorbachev to
power (and who were instrumental in
keeping him there) — the military, the
KGB and the Communist Party — are now
obvious to all. It would appear
equally obvious that aiding these
elements is inconsistent with both the
best interests of the United States and
its allies — and of the Soviet people.

Indeed, that was the reason President
Bush announced the following on 19 August
(a message broadly reiterated in the Rose
Garden today):

“I think things will be on
hold. If [they’re] going to set
back democracy, set back reform,
obviously not only the United
States, but Europe, will put
things on hold as well. There’s a
lot at stake in all of this. And certainly
I wouldn’t go forward with aid or
assistance when you have this
kind of extraconstitutional
action taken by a
handful of people backed up by
the military there.”

Given the President’s statement, it would
seem a reasonable expectation that the
“aid or assistance” of
unquestionably greatest importance to
those engaged in “set[ting] back
democracy” — namely, formidable
dual-use technologies — would assuredly
be put “on hold.” Yet,
the Center for Security Policy has
learned that Deputy National Security
Advisor and CIA Director-designate Robert
Gates and Deputy Secretary of State
Lawrence Eagleburger oppose any
interruption in the planned
liberalization of export controls on just
such technologies.

The Center
earnestly hopes that President Bush will
reject this bizarre counsel, if only to
avoid any further weakening of his
already de minimus response to
the violence now being perpetrated by the
Soviet central authorities against the real
reformers in the USSR.