
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 19, 1990                   TAG: 9006190104
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: TOKYO                                LENGTH: Medium

JAPANESE FIRMS BUY MISSILE-TRACKING SYSTEM

Three major Japanese companies, including the country's two largest defense contractors, said Monday that they each had purchased software for tracking rockets and missiles from an American executive who was arrested last week on charges of selling military technology without an export license.

The three are Nissan Motor, which has a growing aerospace business; Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Japan's largest defense contractor; and Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries, another major defense contractor and the manufacturer of Japan's jet engines and rockets.

All three said they had received import licenses from the Japanese government before buying the software, and seemed taken aback by suggestions that the programs involved sensitive technology intended for the Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars.

When news of the purchases appeared in the Japanese press this past weekend, all three companies denied having bought the software. But Monday, one by one, each reversed itself, and by day's end it was still unclear whether the Japanese concerns were victims of a mix-up or knew what they were buying.

All three said they purchased a software system module called Contam, to study missile exhausts and contaminants, from Ronald Hoffman, a 51-year-old executive from Beverly Hills, Calif., who appeared to be running a concern called Plume Technology Inc.

Hoffman was arrested Friday in Los Angeles by a federal agent posing as a buyer for South Africa. Federal prosecutors said the software required an export license from the State Department.

Missile exhausts have been a key point of study for the Star Wars project because the exhaust "signature" can be used to discriminate one type of missile from another and to predict its flight path. The software system is used in conjunction with a surveillance satellite.

One of the more intriguing questions raised by the purchase is why Japan, a country that has no surveillance satellites, was interested in the package at all.

The companies said Monday that they used the Contam software for entirely non-military purposes.

Mitsubishi and Ishikawajima-Harima said they were using it to develop a Japanese-built space laboratory that is scheduled to be attached to the American space station in the late 1990s.

by CNB