Fixed width COPY

Does anybody know of a good way to COPY a file into a table if the data is
based on fixed width format? Do I just have to write some code with
scanf(Ick)? For example (Sorry about the poor ASCII art formatting):

|     FIELD DESCRIPTION                LENGTH   POSITION|
 |_______________________________________________________|
 | 1.  Action (E=eff, D=del, P=pend eff)              1          1
 | 2.  Action Date (mmddyy)                              6           2-7
 | 3.  Country Code                                        3            8-10
 | 4.  filler                                             1            11
 5.  Paired Code                                  3            12-14
 | 6.  filler                                                     1        15
 | 7.  Country Name                                       65        16-80
 | 8.  Footnote code  (LERGINFO, Sec 1.1)       1         81
 | 9.  filler                                                      9    82-90