Wrong Address

Somehow, Norway seems to have a lot of trouble with classified material. In 1971 the Norwegian Ministry of Defense inadvertently auctioned away some documents dealing with the missile air defense system for Oslo. Last year there was another auction of some old cabinets. They contained, among other things, detailed drawings from one of NATO's most important bases for maritime air intelligence in northern Norway. Last week embarrassed Norwegian officials admitted that for the past eight months, mail from the Joint Norwegian Military High Command and other military units intended for the West German embassy in Oslo had been going to the East German embassy.

Sleepy Clerk. The letters had been correctly addressed to the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, but the street address was that of the East German embassy--"German Democratic Republic." The only explanation blushing officials could give was that a sleepy clerk had taken the information from the Oslo telephone book, which lists the two countries one above the other, and got mixed up.

Vice Admiral Reidar Godoe, chief of staff for the joint command outside the Norwegian capital, called the incident "very regrettable." But, he added, "this is the kind of accident that can well happen with the amount of mail the military sends out every day." Godoe insisted that no classified material was ever sent to the East Germans, because secret documents are always hand-delivered by messenger. He professed not to know, however, whether the address list was used for registered mail, which sometimes contains confidential and restricted information. Nonetheless, the Chief of Defense issued a command to all units last week to please check their mailing lists.

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