An Interview With Stephen Bryen

Multinational Monitor. What is your position on sanctions against Toshiba? Stephen Bryen: The legislation on the table at the moment is the Garn amendment which would cut off imports from the Toshiba Corporation and Kongsberg-Vaapenfabrikk in Norway. Our position is the same as the administration's position. That is, we don't support the legislation. There are a lot of reasons why not, but the major one at the moment, at least in my mind, is that the legislation would be passed after the commission of the "crime." That kind of ex post facto law is not really the way we do things. It fails the test of due process in my view. So, I don't like it from that perspective. That doesn't mean that I think that companies ought to get off scot free. I just don't think the vehicle which the Gam Amendment proposes is the right way to go about it. The impact of the transfer, collectively speaking, was a great one because it did explicit harm to our submarine detection capabilities which are vital to national security. Monitor: Did the fact that so many major U.S. corporations, including some large defense contractors, rely on trade with Toshiba, influence the administration's position on sanctions? Bryen: No, I never heard this mentioned in any internal discussions of the reasons for taking a position against the sanctions. I do know that these companies have been lobbying very hard in Congress to prevent the bill from passing. Monitor: Generally, in East-West trade, do you think that the costs to national security outweigh the commercial benefits? Bryen: I think with controlled goods, there is not much doubt about it. First of all, the impact on the Defense budget, and therefore the taxpayer, is huge compared to whatever benefits go to the various companies engaged in such trade. The defense budget, on the other hand, is very large and gets larger, mainly because a lot o f technology has gotten to the Soviets from the West. Monitor: The National Academy of Sciences' report concludes that the current system of export controls in the U.S. is detrimental to the nation's economy and ineffective in actually blocking critical technology transfer to the Soviet Union. It is particularly critical of the Defense Department's role in policy administration. How do you view the report and its conclusions? Bryen: I try to put it out of my mind. I think it is a sloppy report. The only reason the program works at all is because of DoD involvement. Without it the program would collapse. The program has survived solely because since 1981 the Defense Department has gotten COCOM slightlybackon track. The National Acadernyof Sciences is just jealous of the success that the Defense Department has had. They are anti-defense by nature. Monitor: There were former Defense Department, National Security Agency and CIA officials on the panel that produced the report,but you think the panel is antidefense by nature? Bryen: Yes, but like other NAS reports, it was just written by the staff. The former security agency people were not on the board, they were just observers. Monitor: What is your view of the Commerce Department's management of export controls? Bryen: There is a difference between leadership and management. The Commerce Department has no leverage with our trading partners in terms of national security. Consequently, when they say something in the Commerce Department about national security, no one pays any attention to it. So it's not just a question of management, it's a question of leadership. That leadership has to come from the most concerned party, which is the Defense Department. Monitor: One of the NAS report's main conclusions was that the extraterritoriality of U.S. export controls unnecessarily increases the costs of controls to the economy and also threatens allied unity by compromising the allies' national sovereignty. How do you respond to this assertion? Bryen: That argument is a canard. Basically, the allies don't like extra-territoriality because it makes them obey the rules. The real leverage we have over the allies is on the licensing of technology of commercial interest, which they don't want to see inhibited. Consequently, in order to get their hands on that technology, they would have to play ball to a certain extent. You take away any tangible leverage and you take away the program. I don't think that zeroing in on extraterritoriality is really the problem. It doesn't have very much to do with the export controls, in my view. The National Academy of Sciences is trying to weaken the export control program, and that is one of the ways to weaken it. They want to weaken it so American companies can dump more goods to questionable Third World countries. I think that is the name of the game. What they really are unhappy about is that the Defense Department is able to stop sales to Iran and other places which U.S. companies, or at least some U.S. companies, want to sell to. Monitor: Do you think the U.S. companies lobbying for fewer restrictions on trade with the East are indifferent to national security interests? Bryen: Companies are not set up to recognize national security interests. In fairness to companies, they are set up to make a profit. They're competing against others who do sell to some of these questionable countries. They are looking to be able to sell equally. Consequently, they don't like anything that interferes with that. The Defense Department doesn't like sales to Iran and Libya and places like that. So what they are trying to do is get the Defense Department out of the process of reviewing those kinds of cases. That is what this whole discussion is really about. The way they are trying to do it is to get the National Academy and others to express views for lessening the role of the Defense Department as much as possible, so they will be able to export to these places. Some of them want to export to the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc, but I think that they are in the minority. By and large they are aiming themselves at what I call a gray area market in the Third World. Monitor: In 1985 there occurred some reshuffling on the White House staff responsible for East-West trade policy. While the older advisory group, the SeniorInterdepartmental Group for International Economic Policy (SIG-IEP), included DoD, the NSC and the CIA as full members, the new advisory group, the Economic Policy Council (EPC), is run by the Commerce and Treasury departments. How did this change affect policy formulation? Bryen: That doesn't affect export controls. That oversight group is not the group that looks at export controls; they look at other trade issues. I don't think the change has affected trade very much. First of all, while the Defense Department is not an official member of that (newer) organization, it has attended all the meetings and played in the process. Any really important issue there is taken out of that group and brought up to the President, if necessary. I don't think the reorganization has mattered very much. Monitor: What is your attitude toward the ongoing Soviet economic and political reforms? Should we support these recent efforts as being in the interests of the United States? Bryen: I think they are in the interests of the Soviet Union. They have nothing to do with the United States. The internal affairs of the Soviet Union are not a part of our relationship with them. As far as the economic structure is concerned, that is their business. I don't know why we should encourage the reforms, because to the extent they are successful they make the Soviet Union stronger. I don't see where that helps us out. Monitor: Do you support the legislation introduced by Reps. Jack Kemp, R-N.Y. and Toby Roth, R-Wisc., to push fora multilateral initiative restricting untied loans to the Soviet Union and the East bloc? Bryen: We are against untied loans to the Soviet bloc. In principle, we support the Kemp-Roth bill. Monitor: Do you support C. William Verity's appointment to replace Malcolm Baldrige as Secretary of Commerce? Do you think his past activities in promoting U.S.-Soviet trade mean he will seek an expansion of such trade above current levels? Bryen: He says that he will not promote the expansion of strategic trade, that he will do his best to prevent it. We have to take him at his word. Monitor: Is Mr. Verity's definition of strategic trade different from yours? Bryen: I don't know. That remains to be seen. Monitor: Will a Washington summit and the signing of an intermediate nuclear force (INF) agreement affect U.S.-Soviet trade? Bryen: I don't think it will. It'll affect the arms control process. Obviously, it will improve relations between the two countries, but I think by itself it will not be enough to buy anything for the Russians as far as trade is concerned. I don't see where the Russians are making any giant concessions. Monitor: Is there room for liberalization of U.S. export control policy based on the foreign availability of certain technologyand equipment subject to U.S. controls? Bryen: There is always room, but I think the foreign availability argument is a fraud. It has been mishandled badly by the people in the Commerce Department with responsibility for determining foreign availability. It is being used as a way of trying to decontrol some of the most sensitive equipment. It is sending the wrong signals to our allies. It's been handled in a dishonest way, in my view. That's not the way to decontrol items. There are ways to streamline and improve the COCOM list so we make sure we don't deliver anything to the Russians which will enhance their military ability. Monitor: What examples are there of technology being decontrolled on the basis of foreign availability, which you think are not justifiable? Bryen: The Commerce Department has several projects underway to decontrol semiconductor manufacturing equipment, supercomputers and hydroacoustic equipment for submarine detection, to name just a few. I think this is outrageous. Monitor: What do you think of Rep. Bonker's recommendations for export control reform? Bryen: Anything that Bonker is for, I am usually against. I'm right so he must be wrong. I don't know why he is running for the Senate, because if his views on the subject are going to become more of a topic in Washington state, I don't think people are going to like him very much. Monitor: At one time American companies enjoyed a substantial share of the Soviet market for oil and gas technology and equipment. Unilateral U.S. sanctions on these items caused a drop in the U.S. suppliers' share of the market. Given that the administration has made a strong effort to restrict Soviet development of theiroil and gas sector, why were these controls lifted in January? Bryen: Well, first of all I don't think it is true that the controls did cause substantial harm to American suppliers. The gas pipeline controls only dealt with compressors made by European licensees of General Electric. The compressors were shipped by the Europeans, so we didn't lose any business anyhow. The licenses to the Soviets for oil and gas equipment from 1984 to 1986 constituted well over half of the validated licenses. In 1985 they constituted 85 percent of all validated licenses to the Soviet Union. They were getting a huge number of licenses approved. The number one high-tech export was oil and gas equipment. About all the sanctions did in the end was to allow the Commerce and Defense departments to look at the licenses, but they were still being approved. After the sanctions were dropped in 1987, the only difference was that we didn't look at the licenses anymore. As for why the sanctions were lifted, it was felt that they were no longer useful. They were imposed after the imposition of martial law in Poland, and were used to try and get concessions in human rights policy from the Soviets. The State Department felt it was time to remove the restrictions, but we didn't agree. We tried to keep them in place, but we lost that battle.