SLAVE LABOR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201800013-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: July 11, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-
AATICL3 APP
ON PAGE
WASHINGTON TIMES
11 July 1985
I 1-hin
Slave labor
The United States does not
have conclusive evidence to
prove items imported from the
Soviet Union have been made in
forced labor camps, a Senate
panel was told yesterday. William
Von Raab, the Customs commis-
sioner who last year unsuccess-
fully tried to get enforcement of
the ban on importation of slave
labor-made items that has been
on the books since the 1930s, said
the ~JA was "unable to obtain
sufficient facts to make a solid
case that any articu ar goo we
receive from t e Soviet union is
made with orce a or. Some
million people work in Soviet
forced labor camps, according to
testimony before the Senate
Finance International Trade Sub-
committee. It is believed that
about 10,000 of those people are
political prisoners. A Helsinki
Commission report found
that nearly $140 million in
imports in 1982 from the U.S.S.R.
are believed to have been made
in Soviet labor camps. The Wash-
ington Legal Foundation is repre
senting more than 30 members
of Congress in a lawsuit against
the Reagan administration seek-
ing enforcement of the slave-
labor import ban.
- John Elvin
This column includes staff and
wire service reports.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201800013-0