Too Much

Cementing a deal

The episode smacked of suspense fiction: forgery, smuggling, government agents, state-of-the-art electronics, a Moscow address. But it also had an all-American punch line.

Last January, Teledyne Geotech Inc. got an order for one of its $114,000 seismometers, which are used to measure the force of nuclear blasts. Officials made a routine check of the number on the export license submitted by the would-be buyer, a Colorado company that wanted to ship the device to West Germany. U.S. Customs in Washington confirmed that the document was a fake. Agents began watching the officers of the Denver concern, Norman Cormerford and Bruce Adamski, who had ordered a $54,000 krypton laser from another manufacturer. That device, used to etch computer microchips, was also bound for West Germany.

Customs agents suspected the real buyer: the Soviets. Aided by West German customs officials, they found a manifest for the laser with a most incriminating address: a physics lab in Moscow. Cormerford and Adamski, charged last week, each face up to seven years in prison. Prankish federal agents decided to send along the Soviet-bound parcels--sort of. They filled the crates with 700 Ibs. of concrete and, inside one, tucked a two-word note, in plainest English: "F-- you!"