American Notes CALIFORNIA

Sweeping into the Air France storeroom at Los Angeles International Airport, U.S. Customs agents recently seized $50,000 in gold and 15 tons of merchandise, mostly small shipments of videocassette recorders, lawn chairs, cameras and even a video-game system. The intended destination: Viet Nam, which since 1975 has been on the U.S. embargo list for all but humanitarian goods. Yet no one was arrested. The raid, said a Customs spokesman, was meant only to "send a message to those who would blatantly violate the law."

The incident was a reminder of the schizoid U.S. trade policy toward Viet Nam, perhaps intended as an overture to its former enemy. Actually, there are two policies, says William Cassidy, former Customs service consultant: "One is the policy they tell the American people . . . the embargo. The second . . . pursued in secret, ((is)) the lack of enforcement." While Customs has turned a blind eye, Vietnamese refugees in the U.S. have shipped up to $200 million a year in currency and goods to their homeland. "People assumed that it was O.K.," says Mai Cong, president of the Vietnamese Community Center of Orange County. Now the signal from Customs seems to be that toleration has its limits.