Editing 79-10-A3 (section)

= Soviet Trade =

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=== Transcript ===
Some years back the Russians built a gigantic truck factory know as the Kama
River TrUck plant. I say they built it - they couldn't have done more than dig a hole
for the foundation without help from the U.S. We gave them a package that included
everything from the money they needed to the machinery and technology they didn't
have.

Of course this was done with the hope that if they began to have the things
free enterprise has provided for us they might become a friend and neighbor. We
were careful to point out that a truck plant wasn't like selling them something they
could use against us in event of hostilities.

Now we've learned that motors made in the Kama plant are winding up in armored
personnel carriers and assault vehicles.

Several weeks ago a Commerce Department official whose job is to monitor the sale
of advanced technology to the Soviet Union so as to guard against giving them something
that could be used militarily, blew the whistle on his own department. He said our
system of export controls is a "total shambles."

In testimony to a closed meeting of the House Armed Services subcommittee on
research and development, Lawrence Brady, director of the Office of Export administration,
revealed that the Commerce department had not been candid with Congress. He said the
system for approving sales to Moscow is in bad shape. This was in direct contradiction
to the testimony of his immediate superior, Stanley Marcus, Senior Deputy Assistant
Secretary for Industry and Trade. Mr. Marcus had told the committee our precautions
"are sufficient to insure our national security."

A controversy is taking place in the administration brought on by a debate in
Congress over moves to make it easier to sell advanced American products to the Soviets.

Senior administration aides including the Secretary of State favor increased trade.
Understandably, aides in the Defense department and the National Security Council
are opposed. Maybe we should remember World War II when a former trading partner
returned tons of our scrap iron in the form of shrapnel that killed our young men.

What we are talking about today isn't scrap iron. Mr. Brady says that last year
only a few hundred of the 7,000 requests to sell our products to the Soviet-bloc
nations were turned down. We are supposed to insure that nothing we sell can be
diverted to military use but that is virtually impossible to do. Truck motors turning
up in assault vehicles is proof of that.

SALT II will concern itself with Russia's SS-18 missiles which carry 10 separate
nuclear warheads each. Ours carry three. We didn't think they were within years of
learning how to equal us in that department. Then we sold them technology for making
infinitely small and precisely engineered ball bearings -- just the kind needed for
multiple warheads on nuclear missiles. 

This is Ronald Reagan.

Thanks for listening.
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=== Details ===
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<TR><TD WIDTH="150">Batch Number</TD><TD WIDTH="150">{{PAGENAME}}</TD></TR>
<TD>Production Date</TD><TD>07/09/[[Radio1979|1979]]</TD></TR>
<TD>Book/Page</TD><TD>[[Radio_Commentary_Books#Reagan:_In_His_Own_Hand|RihoH-73]]</TD></TR>
<TD>Audio</TD><TD></TD></TR>
<TD>Youtube?</TD><TD>No</TD></TR>
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===Added Notes===
* [[nyt:1974/03/05/archives/soviet-truck-project-spurs-u-s-business.html|Kama River Truck Factory]]
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