Page 18 - Customs Today Winter1984-OCR

By Dennis Murphy
Computer's Return is a Lan
On Nov. 9, 1983, West German Customs officers in the port of Hamburg raced their patrol boat in front of a
freighter preparing to sail for Sweden. German Customs officers on the pier
boarded the vessel soon thereafter and removed three shipping containers from the ship. In these containers were 15 tons of highly sophisticated computer equip ment, most importantly a Digital VAX 11/782, made in the United States and in the process of being diverted to the Soviet Union.
More computer equipment also be
ing diverted was found two days later in containers at the Swedish port of Hel-
singborg. The events which followed these two seizures caught the attention of
millions on both sides of the Atlantic and made Operation Exodus a household
word.
The computer equipment was subse
quently returned to the United States by the German and Swedish governments,
marking the first time that a foreign
government has seized and returned diverted American technology. The sig
nificance of the event was underscored at a
joint press conference held in Washington on Dec. 19, 1983, by Treasury Secretary
Donald T. Regan and Defense Secretary
Caspar Weinberger.
These pictures, taken by Customs
photographer Bill Mason, help to capture the flavor and importance of the events
surrounding this landmark Exodus seizure.
Dennis Murphy is Director, Office of Public Affairs, U.S. Customs Service Headquarters.
Computer equipment seized by West Germany on be
half of U S. Customs is seen here being unloaded after it was returned to Andrews Air Force Base, Mary
land, aboard a C-141 military cargo plane. The sen sitive cargo was escorted back to the United States by a
Special Agent assigned to the U.S. Customs Attache in Bonn, Germany.
Operation Exodus
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