From: utzoo!decvax!cca!mclure@SRI-UNIX@sri-unix Newsgroups: net.chess Title: AP: a very harmless device Article-I.D.: sri-unix.1698 Posted: Thu Jun 10 02:56:20 1982 Received: Fri Jun 11 01:27:40 1982 a033 0209 10 Jun 82 PM-Lights,380 On The Light Side NEW YORK (AP) - A chess-playing computer is back home after spending a month in the hands of U.S. Customs agents who thought it might leak strategic secrets to the Soviets. ''Belle,'' a computer about the size of a camper-refrigerator and worth about $6,000, was seized at Kennedy International Airport in a government crackdown on the export of defense-related technology to the Soviet Union. ''A very harmless device,'' said Godfrey K. Preiser Jr., a lawyer for Bell Laboratories, after Belle's return to company headquarters in Murray Hill, N.J., earlier this week. Scientist Kenneth Thompson, who programmed Belle to play chess and was taking it to Moscow for a demonstration, said about the only military application for the computer would be to drop it out of an airplane. ap-ny-06-10 0509EDT **********