In the first-order moving average model, we present the exact likelihood equations as function of variance, correlation and parameters of coefficients in the orthogonally transformed model. Existence of maximum likelihood estimates for these unknowns are studied and a computational method is provided. (Because of the limited space Ive do not present the computer program which is written in FORTRAN.) 40 sets of generated data and economic data are used to demonstrate, and few of them are presented in the Appendix. A numerical comparison of MLE with the efficient estimate proposed by Durbin is presented in the particular case.