Readers Report

SOUNDS LIKE A JOB FOR THE CIA

Here's something the CIA could do that would serve the public interest in a changed world ("The new CIA: I spy--for business," Washington Outlook, Oct. 17).

The CIA used to track the Soviet gulag camps for goods being made for export. Now an even greater threat has arisen. The Chinese laoqai forced labor factories to use 20 million workers to produce all sorts of goods for export. Even though it's against the law to import such goods into the U.S., the Customs Service is hampered by the Chinese secrecy and refusal to allow these factories, which number in the hundreds, to be inspected. The CIA could do double duty by using its spy network to stop the modern-day slave-made-goods trade.

Carl Olson

Northridge, Calif.