Business Notes: Oct. 20, 1986

ESPIONAGE Stealing Star Wars

The crime was shrouded in secrecy and intrigue. Pentagon officials said only that it was one of the worst cases ever involving the diversion of Western computer technology to the Communist world. Clearly, though, the U.S. had been severely stung by East-bloc espionage agents, who had managed to place in Moscow's hands some $11 million worth of high-tech hardware that could be used in space-based missile defenses.

The theft, which took place last year but was disclosed only last week, involved, among other things, some 40 advanced computer work stations manufactured by Tektronix, a small, specialized firm based in Beaverton, Ore., along with an unspecified number of computer disk drives produced by Control Data of Minneapolis. Tektronix salesmen apparently believed they had sold the equipment to a West German unit of Ford Motors through a Munich-based middleman named Wolfgang Lachmann. After the equipment was sent to Munich, it was allegedly shipped to a warehouse in Vienna; from there it disappeared.

Western security agents learned of the diversion scheme last July and managed to catch up with some of the less important gear, packaged as burglar-alarm equipment bound for Turkey. Officials who tailed the hot computer hardware are virtually certain the remainder of the equipment is now in East Germany or the Soviet Union.

A decision by a federal judge last week closed the book on a long-gone era in which flirting with airline passengers came perilously close to being considered a stewardess's duty. During the 1960s, United Airlines, like its competitors, preferred young, single women as flight attendants, reasoning that they made the skies, well, friendlier. In 1970 a class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of 1,720 women who had been forced to quit United when they married. Last week U.S. District Judge James Moran approved a $37 million settlement in the marathon case.

Under the deal, United will reinstate 475 flight attendants, in addition to 400 it has already rehired. Each will receive between $9,000 and $22,000 in back pay and benefits. Some 890 other plaintiffs who will not return may also receive part of the payout. Said Thomas Meites, an attorney for the flight attendants: "It's a terrific settlement. It's too bad it took so long to get it."

Flying Tigers, an air-cargo carrier founded by World War II fighter pilots and ground crewmen in 1945, may be waging its last competitive battle. The world's largest cargo line (1985 revenues: $1.1 billion) may fold unless the labor unions that represent 2,790 of its 6,334 employees grant major wage and benefit concessions. Since 1983 the Los Angeles-based carrier has lost $95 million in price wars with competitors like Japan's Nippon Cargo Airlines.

At week's end the unions had not responded to the company's talk of givebacks. Senior Vice President Lawrence Nagin warned that the dispute "must be resolved quickly or it will be unable to be resolved."