LANL "The contract between the University of California and the Manhattan District of the Corps of Engineers (MED) to operate Project Y, Los Alamos Laboratory, was not signed until April 15, 1943, after the project was already under way. It was the first such contract between them. A rudimentary agreement was first laid out in a letter from Irwin Stewart on Jan. 23, 1943, and called for an Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) contract with the University of California for "certain investigations to be directed by Dr. J. R. Oppenheimer," at a cost of $150,000 covering the period Jan. 1, 1943, to July 31, 1943. Such contracts had been the standard means of mobilizing university researchers to work in installations such as the radiation laboratory at the University of California, its namesake at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago's metallurgical laboratory. Several such contracts had been established between the University of California and the OSRD. Robert M. Underhill, the secretary of the regents of the University of California, understood that the contract would be similar to the other OSRD contracts at Berkeley and, on that basis, agreed with UC President Robert Gordon Sproul to accept the letter of intent on Feb. 10, 1943...."

LANL "...Siegfried S. Hecker is the Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos New Mexico, a position he has held since January 1986. Joining the Los Alamos National Laboratory as a technical staff member in the Physical Metallurgy Group in 1973, he has served as Chairman of the Center for Materials Science and Division Leader of the Materials Science and Technology Division prior to becoming Director. Dr. Hecker began his professional career as a senior research metallurgist with the General Motors Research Laboratories in 1970 after two years as a postdoctoral appointee at Los Alamos...."

9/26/97 LANL Freeper Stand Watch Listen "....John C. Browne, a physicist with extensive experience in scientific and administrative leadership at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, is the choice of University of California President Richard C. Atkinson to become the laboratory's next director. Atkinson will recommend Browne's appointment as soon as possible to the UC Board of Regents. The Regents, under the university's contract with the DOE to manage the Los Alamos laboratory, are responsible for appointing the laboratory director. A determination of Browne's acceptability by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is pending, as provided in the contract. The appointment will be effective one month from the date of action by the Regents at a yet to be scheduled meeting. The laboratory's current director, Siegfried S. Hecker, who had planned to step down on Oct. 1, has agreed to stay on until the effective date of Browne's appointment to provide for an efficient transition. Atkinson chose to make his recommendation of Browne known now in response to growing interest among laboratory employees and regional communities as to the transition of leadership at the laboratory. The transition period, Atkinson said, will give Browne the opportunity to talk informally with employees and others outside the laboratory about its future....."

Press Release Los Alamos National Lab 6/6/97 "...Los Alamos National Laboratory has merged two programs, the office of Energy Technology and the Industrial Partnership Office, into a single program called the Civilian Industrial Technology Office, to enhance the Laboratory's technology transfer and role in civilian federal programs such as fossil fuel and energy technologies, according to Charryl Berger, director of the new office..... In April, Motorola and the Laboratory signed an agreement that will lead to technical advances in computing power and semiconductor design. Los Alamos will benefit from Motorola's expertise in electronics and communications technologies to help the Laboratory incorporate specialized software into a variety of operating systems for its national security mission. Motorola will benefit from the Laboratory's expertise in computer simulations and modeling for the design of future-generation semiconductor chips...... "

Los Alamos 11/12/96 "...The Department of Energy, in cooperation with its three national security laboratories - Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia - announced today the formation of a multimillion-dollar, multi-year program to create university centers of excellence. These centers will assist the DOE laboratories in developing the technology needed for large-scale computer simulation that supports the Administration's nuclear test ban objectives. Recently President Clinton announced major purchases of computers by the DOE laboratories capable of performing multi-trillion operations per second. Initial deliveries of these systems are under way. These systems were designed to operate in both the classified and unclassified environments. Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary, in highlighting the importance of DOE's supercomputing initiative, stated that "These new computers will assure the safety and reliability of our nuclear arsenal without underground testing and address major scientific challenges in medicine, transportation safety and weather and earthquake prediction."...."

Los Alamos 2/9/99 "...Sue Goff of the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory has been re-elected to the board of directors of the Geothermal Resources Council and elected to the board of directors of the International Geothermal Association. Both organizations advocate geothermal energy research, exploration and development; offer educational opportunities for the worldwide geothermal community; and provide a forum for interaction on geothermal development issues....... Her work has taken her to Honduras, Guatemala, Russia, China and other places worldwide on behalf of Los Alamos and other institutions. ..."

Associated Press, Nando Media 6/26/99 "...Scientists have postponed indefinitely a planned open-air release of bacteria that would have been used Monday to test biowarfare detectors intended for battlefield use. The planned tests at Los Alamos National Laboratory have raised questions about the lab's openness with the public as scientists expand their research into identifying and defending against biowarfare agents. Homeowners in nearby White Rock complained to senior lab managers. Lab officials did not reveal the exact nature of the concerns in White Rock but agreed last week to postpone the tests indefinitely.... Scientists had planned to release about an ounce of Bacillus globigii spores six times Monday night. The brownish-yellow clouds of bacteria spores were to have been released near the end of Frijoles Mesa...."

FoxNews 7/8/99 AP "…Unable to ease public fears, Los Alamos National Laboratory canceled plans Thursday to release a common strain of bacteria into the atmosphere to test new biowarfare detectors. Many residents who attended a public meeting Wednesday night in White Rock, about 10 miles downwind from the test site, said they were worried about the possible dangers. White Rock has a population of about 6,500. Don Cobb, the lab's associate director for threat reduction, said Thursday that the tests were "provably safe with a high degree of scientific certainty,'' but that he decided to cancel them because "maintaining the trust and confidence of our neighbors is essential.'' The government said the bacterium, Bacillus globigii, is a harmless organism found in root vegetables such as potatoes and carrots. It was intended to serve as a stand-in for deadly bacteria such as anthrax in a test of the toaster-size detectors…."

Reuters 3/21/99 Freeper Brian Mosely "…Energy Secretary Bill Richardson Sunday defended security for U.S. nuclear arms research, describing some reports about Chinese spying as unfounded hysteria…."

MSNBC Web 3/9/99 Jonathan Broder "…As the Clinton administration grapples with the fallout from China's suspected theft of American nuclear secrets, other countries are openly trying to squeeze classified military data from the United States by linking the inclusion of that data to their purchases of major weapons systems. …IN THE MOST dramatic example of this new kind of squeeze play, the United Arab Emirates is now demanding that top-secret source codes be included in its order for 80 sophisticated F-16 warplanes from Lockheed-Martin in Fort Worth, Texas. …"

(Asian) Wall Street Jornal 3/12/99 Craig Smith, Matt Forney Eduardo lachica "…While no one suggests shrugging off allegations Beijing may have stolen critical U.S. nuclear weapons technology, the timing of the controversy is all too familiar to old China hands. One reason for the seasonal assault, they say, is the politically charged annual debate over whether to renew China's most-favored-nation (now called Normal Trade Relations) trading status when it comes up for review in June. "Those of us who live and work in the world of U.S.-China relations understand that every spring, something serious is likely to arise," says Robert Kapp, head of the U.S.-China Business Council….This year's expected $67 billion U.S. trade deficit with China could also make it harder for Congress to agree on any deal to admit China into the World Trade Organization without substantial trade concessions…."

FoxNews AP 3/31/99 "… The government's disarmament agency is going out of business after a 38-year run that included the negotiation of international agreements aimed at controlling nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. The Arms Control and Disarmament Agency will got out of business at midnight, its functions being taken over by the State Department. John Holum, who has served as ACDA director since 1993, is due to become the first undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs, once he is confirmed by the Senate. …."

Fox News Wire 4/11/99 Marcia Dumb "...A $250 million missile-warning satellite that was left stranded in a useless orbit had the Air Force scrambling Sunday in an attempt to rescue it. "They haven't given up,'' said Patsy Bomhoff, a spokeswoman at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado. "They're working around the clock.'' The Defense Support Program satellite was launched Friday aboard an Air Force Titan rocket. It was the first flight of a Titan IV since a spy satellite was destroyed in a $1 billion explosion shortly after liftoff last August.....The satellite was intended for a 22,300-mile-high orbit, where it was to have joined other Defense Support Program spacecraft in detecting missile and rocket launches as well as nuclear detonations...."

AP 4/15/99 "The Pentagon on Wednesday rejected a merger between defense giants General Dynamics Corp. and Newport News Shipbuilding that would have created a single shipbuilder for all nuclear submarines. ...."

Chicago Sun-Times 7/12/99 Robert Novak "…Jack Kemp last Wednesday released a startling document that was quickly consigned to oblivion. An experienced weapons scientist found that the Cox Report erred in claiming Chinese espionage penetrated U.S. weapons laboratories while failing to recognize Clinton administration culpability. As much as President Clinton would rather not hear this, Republicans like it even less…. A scientist and no politician, Prather takes 26 pages to demolish the impressions left by the bipartisan report of the select House committee headed by Republican Rep. Christopher Cox of California. He declares that Clinton's nuclear disarmament opened the nation's nuclear secrets to the world, while the post-Cox Report tightening of security actually enlarged the true menace of Russian nuclear proliferation by ending cooperation with Moscow. There goes the Clinton administration's credibility. There goes the GOP's Chinese peril. No wonder nobody likes it. Prather for many years had access to national secrets, but not in preparing this analysis. He relied on the Cox committee's report and, significantly, the widely ignored findings by government technical experts... "

Associated Press 3/17/99 H. Josef Hebert, "… Richardson said he was directing a formal inquiry into allegations that a senior department counterintelligence officer had been prevented from disclosing to Congress his concerns about the security breach at Los Alamos. According to published reports, Notra Trulock, a senior intelligence officer at the department, had said he had been prevented from sharing information with Congress about the Los Alamos investigation by Elizabeth Moler, then deputy energy secretary …."

USA TODAY 4/6/99 Barbara Slavin "… Los Alamos National Laboratory, under fire in connection with alleged spying by China, faces charges over nuclear-related exports to Russia, lab officials say. The Commerce Department notified the lab in New Mexico in January that it was preparing civil charges over unlicensed exports of nuclear detectors and a computer router. They were provided from 1994-96 in a program to help Russia safeguard vast reserves of nuclear materials. Lab director John Browne said the issue involves bureaucratic procedures more than national security. "It's one of those gray areas of interpretation. At the time, the interpretation made here was that a license was not required." But Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., head of a special committee looking into high-tech transfers to China, said the case was indicative of security problems at U.S. nuclear labs. "I would hope the Department of Energy and Los Alamos would use this as an example of what will no longer be tolerated," he said. Commerce Department regulations on the books since 1990 forbid exports without a license to organizations involved in the development, design, manufacturing, testing or maintenance of nuclear weapons. Penalties include fines and a loss of export privileges…."

www.newsweek.com 5/10/99 "...What Sen. Don Nickles last week called possibly "the most serious case of espionage in U.S. history" may not result in spying charges against a man suspected of sharing secrets with the Chinese. A top administration official told NEWSWEEK that the most serious charge the government may be able to bring against Wen Ho Lee, a scientist at Los Alamos nuclear laboratory, may be "unauthorized disclosure" of classified information. Sources say extensive FBI searches of Lee's computers and papers have so far turned up "no smoking gun," and last year, when the bureau ran a "false flag" sting against him, Lee didn't take the bait. Says John Lewis, former head of the FBI's national-security division, "There was some smoke, but we had no conclusive evidence. There were many doubts on the part of all of us" that Lee was a spy...."

New York Post 4/29/99 STEVE DUNLEAVY "....Can anyone with the IQ of room temperature tell me why Wen Ho Lee is not behind bars right now? Wen has sold us down a river of no return, government officials say. I mean, literally millions of coded lines just sent out to anyone who wants to pick it up. And those coded lines, millions of them, were of secrets of our nuclear capability from Los Alamos. Those secrets were not about how good we are but how good somebody else could be if they just looked over our shoulder and copied our test paper. Madness..... "

Bill Gertz Washington Times 7/31/98 "Government officials scrambling to meet the Clinton administration's deadline for the bulk release of classified documents have inadvertently disclosed nuclear weapons data that could help terrorists or foreign states, according to papers obtained by The Washington Times. Energy Department surveys, conducted earlier this year of defense documents scheduled for automatic public release in 2000 without individual review, found at least 11 instances in which highly sensitive nuclear weapons information was misfiled or declassified improperly.The compromised data included a State Department document identifying the locations of overseas nuclear weapons storage facilities -- information that was mistakenly declassified and posted on the Internet before being withdrawn.Also revealed were improperly declassified Marine Corps documents that contained secret information about nuclear weapons yields. A U.S. official said Japanese authorities were able to copy the documents, which were stored improperly in an open area.The Energy Department determined that in both cases, the risk to U.S. national security was "serious," according to one department document."

Associated Press 7/19/99 John Diamond "...Republican lawmakers are struggling to free up the annual bill for the CIA and other espionage agencies amid disagreement on reorganizing the Energy Department following security lapses at U.S. nuclear weapons labs. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has hinted he can accept the GOP-sponsored bill, but some Senate Democrats are still leery of redesigning the agency responsible for researching and developing nuclear weapons and protecting nuclear secrets from spies. In May, Republicans were unable to break a Democratic filibuster on the issue when it was attached to Pentagon legislation ....The legislation, offered as an amendment to the intelligence authorization bill, would establish a semiautonomous "Agency for Nuclear Stewardship'' that would oversee all nuclear weapons related activities, including research, development, security and counterintelligence. An undersecretary at the head of the agency would report directly to the secretary of energy. No other Energy Department officials would have any power over the new organization. ..."

The Times 7/18/99 Jonathan Leake "...Brookhaven National Laboratories (BNL), one of the American government's foremost research bodies, has spent eight years building its Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) on Long Island in New York state. A successful test-firing was held on Friday and the first nuclear collisions will take place in the autumn, building up to full power around the time of the millennium. Last week, however, John Marburger, Brookhaven's director, set up a committee of physicists to investigate whether the project could go disastrously wrong. It followed warnings by other physicists that there was a tiny but real risk that the machine, the most powerful of its kind in the world, had the power to create "strangelets" - a new type of matter made up of sub-atomic particles called "strange quarks". The committee is to examine the possibility that, once formed, strangelets might start an uncontrollable chain reaction that could convert anything they touched into more strange matter. The committee will also consider an alternative, although less likely, possibility that the colliding particles could achieve such a high density that they would form a mini black hole. In space, black holes are believed to generate intense gravitational fields that suck in all surrounding matter. The creation of one on Earth could be disastrous...."

The American Spectator 8/99 Kenneth R. Timmerman "...China first tested a radiation-enhanced warhead on September 29, 1988. According to Nicholas Efftimiades, who published a book on Chinese Intelligence Operations in 1994, the FBI launched a counter-intelligence investigation after that first test, and determined that Chinese agents had succeeded in stealing critical design information from the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Lab for the W-70 (neutron bomb) warhead, by coopting U.S. scientists during visits to the lab by Chinese officials. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has used the neutron bomb case to support his assertion that Republican administrations were equally guilty of allowing Chinese nuclear spies to penetrate U.S. nuclear labs, and did nothing about it. But the Cox report states (page 87) that a more recent theft of classified neutron bomb- related design information was reported by the intelligence community in 1996. Until now, neither Richardson nor the FBI has acknowledged taking any corrective measures relating to that theft. ..."

Washington Post 7/20/99 Walter Pincus "…The Department of Energy has taken initial steps to tighten security in the wake of alleged Chinese spying, but it faces substantial stumbling blocks that almost certainly will delay counterespionage measures, according to an internal report made available to The Washington Post….. The report says, however, that some administrators at the nation's three main nuclear weapons laboratories believe that "it will be necessary to change current contract language" before the department can require the so-called lie detector tests at the national labs, which are operated under contract with the University of California and Lockheed Martin Corp….. the report says, the FBI has not yet taken over the job of conducting background investigations of laboratory personnel who require security clearances…. The report also calls for speeding up the establishment of a new system to keep track of foreign visitors to the labs and foreign scientists working in the labs on assignment.…. "

Sacramento Bee 7/21/99 Michael Doyle "...Some angry lawmakers want to strip the University of California from its management of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, even as the lab is getting credit for improving security. While investigators praised the nuclear-weapons lab Tuesday for upgrading its security program, cries continue on Capitol Hill for some heads to roll. Foremost among these, some believe, should be the university that's run Lawrence Livermore for half a century..... "

The Center For Security Policy 7/21/99 "... Why was President Clinton's Rose Garden statement yesterday -- in which he urged Senate hearings this fall and final action on the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty -- all but ignored today by the Nation's leading newspapers?.... Whatever the reason, the White House press corps' failure to publicize these presidential remarks does not bode well for the power-play that anti-nuclear activists within and outside the Clinton-Gore Administration hope to unleash in the next few weeks in a bid to secure Senate advice and consent to this controversial and fatally flawed accord....The following were among the more egregious misrepresentations in Mr. Clinton's statement: "We have, today, a robust nuclear force." The fact is that we are not sure whether today's U.S. deterrent is "robust." In the interval since 1992, when the United States unilaterally suspended its underground nuclear test program, officials at the national laboratories responsible for certifying the stockpile have been reduced to making informed guesses about the actual condition of our arsenal.... "Nuclear experts affirm that we can maintain a safe and reliable deterrent without nuclear tests." Actually, some do; some don't. In fact, until Mr. Clinton's first Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary blackmailed the U.S. nuclear laboratories into agreeing to support the CTBT, virtually no one in positions of responsibility for the American deterrent believed that it could be safely and reliably maintained in the absence of periodic underground testing... "If our Senate fails to act, the treaty cannot enter into force for any country." The implication is that if, on the other hand, the Senate does act, the CTBT will come into force. This is not the case. Unless and until all other nuclear powers -- including North Korea, which has shown no interest in joining the treaty regime -- become state parties, the Comprehensive Test Ban cannot, by its own terms, come into force.... He declared: "The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will strengthen our national security by constraining the development of more advanced and more destructive nuclear weapons, and by limited the possibilities for more countries to acquire nuclear weapons. It will also enhance our ability to detect suspicious activities by other nations." In fact, due to the inherent unverifiability of a "zero-yield" Comprehensive Test Ban, there is no way to say for certain whether other nations are exploiting the ability to conduct undetectable low-yield and/or de-coupled tests to develop "more advanced and more destructive nuclear weapons." .....More to the point, there is now an active world market for nuclear weapons-related know-how and technology. Nations no longer need to test their own nuclear devices; they can buy tested ones from the likes of Russia and China..... "

Washington Weekly 7/26/99 Rep Bereuter House of Representatives 7/19/99 "…Mr. Speaker, following the public release of the Final Report of the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China, more commonly referred to as the Cox Committee report, there have been attempts to discredit the work of the select committee. As one of the nine members of the select committee, this Member would like to reemphasize the truly bipartisan nature of the select committee and underscore that every finding made by the Cox committee in its report is fully corroborated with evidence detailed either in the public report itself or in the classified version. The Cox committee report is not and has never claimed to be a comprehensive report, nor was it ever meant to be one…..In the course of our investigation, far more disturbing information came to light that took us into unanticipated directions. Even as we were trying to close the select committee's operations, new revelations kept being brought to our attention by whistleblowers. It became clear that a very deep institutional problem had existed for some time in some of our Federal agencies and particularly the Department of Energy and its national laboratories, there at least since the late 1970s. I believe that these lapses of security at the DOE weapons laboratories taken together resulted in the most serious espionage loss and counterintelligence failure in American history. Moreover, these lapses facilitated the most serious theft ever of sensitive U.S. technology and information. Clearly, what the select committee revealed is very disturbing. Americans should be angry that their own government's lax security, indifference, naivete and incompetence resulted in such serious damage to our national security. The loss of sensitive nuclear weapons information to China is a national embarrassment and an incredibly important loss…."

The most recent distortion circulated in Washington and in the national media is a document written by Dr. James Gordon Prather entitled 'A Technical Reassessment of the Conclusions and Implications of the Cox Committee Report.' It was released personally by the Honorable Jack Kemp after Empower America, the organization to which Mr. Kemp belongs and which sponsored Dr. Prather's research, refused to endorse the final document. The Prather document was also the subject of a Wall Street Journal article and one of Robert Novak's columns last week. Dr. Prather claims that our select committee erred in finding that Chinese espionage penetrated U.S. weapons labs. Indeed he claims there was no evidence of Chinese espionage, that the real culprit is the Clinton administration's policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament and opening up the Nation's nuclear secrets to the world. That is pure nonsense. Of course there was espionage…… For example, the Prather document essentially dismisses the charge that China stole design information for the neutron bomb with the help of Taiwan-born Peter Lee. This dismissal is based on a deliberately selective reading of our report, faulty assumptions and a disregard for other information which is still classified. The Prather document called this theft charge (quote) 'ridiculous' (unquote) and opined that the Cox Committee, in its zeal to be bipartisan, claimed the Chinese stole neutron bomb information (quote), 'because the alleged spying happened on Reagan's watch, not Clinton's watch.' (unquote). Notwithstanding Dr. Prather's interpretations, Peter Lee pled guilty to willfully passing classified U.S. defense information to PRC scientists and to providing false statements to a U.S. government agency…."

Sunday Times of London 7/25/99 Matthew Campbell "…AMERICAN officials believe Russia may have stolen some of the nation's most sensitive military secrets, including weapons guidance systems and naval intelligence codes, in a concerted espionage offensive that investigators have called operation Moonlight Maze. The intelligence heist, that could cause damage to America in excess of that caused by Chinese espionage in nuclear laboratories, involved computer hacking over the past six months. This was so sophisticated and well co-ordinated that security experts trying to build ramparts against further incursions believe America may be losing the world's first "cyber war". Investigators suspect Russia is behind the series of "hits" against American computer systems since January. In one case, a technician trying to track a computer intruder watched in amazement as a secret document from a naval facility was "hijacked" to Moscow from under his nose….. Besides military computer systems, private research and development institutes have been plundered in the same operation. Such institutes are reluctant to discuss losses, which experts claim may amount to hundreds of millions of dollars….. Dozens of infiltrations ensued at other military facilities and even at the Pentagon in Washington. When research laboratories also reported incursions using the internet technique, officials realised that a "cyber invasion" was under way….. Even top secret military installations whose expertise is intelligence security have been breached. At the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (Spawar), a unit in San Diego, California, that specialises in safeguarding naval intelligence codes, Ron Broersma, an engineer, was alerted to the problem when a computer print job took an unusually long time…."

Associated Press 7/16/99 Michael J. Sniffen "…Critics of the FBI crime lab are disappointed that the Justice Department has proposed ``minimal'' discipline -- censure of just two bureau employees -- despite a scathing inspector general report a year ago. Four lab supervisors also would have been disciplined but they have retired, according to a June 30 Justice memorandum obtained by The Associated Press. Five lab examiners criticized in the report avoided discipline because of either the ``staleness'' of their alleged misconduct, disputes over scientific issues, or the ``consistent and often spirited FBI opposition to any conclusion that its employees have engaged in misconduct or performed poorly,'' wrote Assistant Attorney General Stephen R. Colgate, who issued the disciplinary rulings….. Indeed, Colgate endorsed the inspector general's lab policy recommendations and added three more of his own designed to ensure that FBI lab examiners testify in court ``in an accurate and objective manner and limit their testimony to their documented scientific findings and areas of technical expertise.'' The slap on the wrist disappointed two lab critics: Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of a Senate subcommittee that supervises the FBI, and the Justice Department's inspector general, Michael Bromwich….."

AP 7/23/99 "…The Energy Department's Sandia National Laboratory last week bought back a supercomputer it had sold as surplus to Korber Jiang, a Chinese citizen who is the principle of EHI Group USA and exports American goods to his home country. Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., called Friday for Energy Secretary Bill Richardson's resignation, saying that the computer could have been used "to design nuclear weapons.'' "He's going around the country saying there are no problems in the Department of Energy, that everything is under control,'' Weldon said in a telephone interview. "If there are no problems, then how can this happen?'' Neal Singer, a spokeswoman for Sandia National Laboratories, said that the New Mexico facility sold the Intel Paragon XPS to Korber's one-man company for $30,000 in October. After discovering Korber's nationality, Singer said, the department bought back the computer for $88,000 last week and stored it under guard at Sandia. The spokesman said the difference in cost may have been due to shipping costs incurred by Korber…."

Washington Post 7/24/99 Walter Pincus "…To mollify Congress, the Department of Energy is preparing to give polygraph tests to thousands of nuclear scientists. But at the same time, a Senate panel has asked the CIA and FBI to explore alternatives to polygraphing because of the "potential unreliability" of the so-called lie-detector exams. …. Concern about the unreliability of the standard polygraph is also growing at the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons labs. In a recent letter in the Los Alamos National Laboratory's employee newsletter, one scientist noted that the expected rate of false positives--tests indicating someone is lying when that person is not--is about 2 percent. "In our situation, that's 100 innocent people out of 5,000 whose reputations and careers would be blemished," wrote the scientist, John D. Fowler Jr. And what will happen if a prominent weapons designer or the leader of a research team fails a polygraph? That is a question many lab employees are now posing, according to one Energy Department official….. Two of the main nuclear weapons labs, Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore, are run by the University of California under contract with the Energy Department. The third big research center, Sandia Laboratories, is run by Lockheed Martin Corp. Since the labs are in the private sector, employees cannot be required to take polygraphs as a condition of employment…."

WorldNet Daily 7/27/99 Jon Dougherty "...As if this should surprise us, the London Times reported this past weekend that Russian computer hackers had stolen enough U.S. weapon systems data to make China's nuclear weapons theft seem like honest bargaining. That's a pretty remarkable feat, to say the least, but it also proves what critics of this administration's pitiful security record have repeatedly said -- that there is no security for the nation's most advanced weapons and computer systems. The Times reported that U.S. officials have uncovered a Moscow-based intelligence operation known as "Moonlight Maze," a continual cyberattack "so sophisticated and well coordinated that security experts trying to build ramparts against further incursions believe America may be losing the first 'cyber war.'" The computer systems of U.S. corporations and think tanks have also been 'attacked' and have had large amounts of data stolen.....Gee whiz, if we don't figure out how to stop these cyber-thefts, our weapons technology will eventually be used against us and then there won't be anyone left to give a tax cut to. Nothing -- not government or private industry secrets -- will be immune from hacking nor safe from cyberattack. Cyberattacks can also be used to disrupt information systems or destroy them, as well as extract information from them...."

7/23/99 to Louis Freeh FBI from Rep Weldon "...I am writing to convey my strong concern about a serious breach of United States national security. According to Insight Magazine, in October Sandia National Laboratory officials sold as surplus an Intel Paragon XPS supercomputer with a capability between 150,000 and 200,000 million theoretical operations per second (MTOPS) -- one of the United States' most capable supercomputers operating today. The potential national security ramifications of this sale are disastrous. As I understand it, we remain unaware of the current location of this supercomputer -- it may even have already been transferred out of the country. If, in fact, this computer is or has been successfully transported out of the United States, the capability it will provide to the Chinese in their efforts to improve their nuclear weapons capability is enormous. In my opinion, this could be one of the most significant breaches of our national security. The problem is magnified because we do not know what the computer was used for at Sandia National Laboratory. There is a very real possibility that nuclear secrets may be stored on the system's hard drive. Even with a "wipe" of the supercomputers memory, much of the information that was stored on the system can be retrieved using advanced techniques. There also exists the very real possibility that the Chinese have reassembled the supercomputer and are utilizing the system's capabilities right here in the United States. The possibility also exists that the Chinese may attempt to reverse-engineer the machine. ....As I understand it, the Department of Energy -- once alerted by the Intel Corporation of efforts by the buyer to obtain key components to reassemble the supercomputer -- attempted to reacquire the supercomputer by offering $2.5 million for its return. It had been sold to the Chinese national at the bargain basement price of $30,000. This appears to me as an attempt by DOE to quietly cover up the diversion...."

New York Times 7/30/99 James Risen "...Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has ordered a one-day stand-down next week of many of the Energy Department's research and defense-related operations for counter-espionage and security training in the wake of charges that China had stolen nuclear secrets from a government weapons laboratory. Richardson ordered the department's defense-related facilities, except its three nuclear weapons laboratories, shut down on Aug. 3 for mandatory security training, including sessions on computer security. The government's nuclear weapons labs -- Los Alamos, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore -- had already completed security-related stand-downs and are not covered by the new order..... Next week's stand-down at the defense-related sites had been recommended by the Energy Department's new security chief, Eugene Habiger, a retired Air Force general and former chief of the U.S. Strategic Command. He had urged Richardson to extend the computer and security training already mandated for the nuclear weapons labs to defense-related facilities that handle classified information but which had not yet been subject to intensive review. "The security problems at DOE extend to sites beyond the nuclear weapons labs," Richardson said in an interview. "We've had problems with safeguards and security at some of the non-weapons sites, some of which have received low security ratings. We are sending a signal to the employees that security is a top priority."...."

AP 7/29/99 John Diamond "...The Energy Department is ordering an expansion in its campaign against espionage, moving the focus beyond the nuclear weapons labs and into the research and manufacturing centers that handle classified security-related information. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson is ordering today a one-day suspension of operations at Energy Department research and defense-related sites next week for training on espionage prevention and other national security issues. Richardson accepted the recommendation of his newly installed security chief that a stand-down occur department-wide at defense-related work sites that have not yet had their counterespionage and information security systems reviewed. The main point of the stand-down, scheduled for Aug. 3, is to give employees an entire mandatory day of training on information security...."

Drudge 7/29/99 "...60 MINUTES is set to air the first interview with Dr. Wen Ho Lee since the Los Alamos nuke scientist was accused of passing on America's most prized nuclear secrets to the Chinese. .... In the interview, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned, Lee explains one of the biggest charges against him -- that he downloaded sensitive classified computer information --- into an unclassified machine. Lee called that transfer a "routine" part of his job -- that other people at the Lab also have also done. Lee: "The reason I downloaded the computer code from a classified machine to an unclassified machine, is part of my job -- to protect my code. A lot of people do that routinely to protect. Plus, when I downloaded into unclassified machines I have three levels of passwords -- sometime I have even had hard time to break in myself." ..."

New York Times 8/1/99 William Broad "...In the wake of the Chinese spy scandal, support is growing in the United States for ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, a global accord meant to end the development of new kinds of nuclear arms. The process of treaty deliberation and approval had been moribund for nearly two years, but is now showing signs of life.... Backers of the test ban see it as a way of blocking any nation from making new kinds of nuclear weapons and the world from engaging in new arms races. Such a ban is possible because makers of nuclear arms in most cases must detonate new designs in fiery blasts to spot flaws and insure potency. So the absence of explosive testing acts as a brake on nuclear arms development.... "We may never know whether Chinese nuclear weapons development benefited significantly from espionage," the signers added. But the treaty, they said, would help keep any lost secrets from speeding the development of deadly arms. The letter quoted Harold Agnew, a former director of the federal center for the design of nuclear arms at Los Alamos, N.M. "If China doesn't resume testing," he said, "no harm will possibly have been done other than to our egos." ..."

Capitol Hill Blue 8/2/99 "...``The truth is I'm innocent,'' Wen Ho Lee said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS' 60 Minutes. ``Suddenly, they told me I'm a traitor. ... I just don't understand this.'' But Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said on the program that it was ``wrong and improper'' for Lee to have moved the information at the Energy Department's nuclear weapons laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M., to an unsecured computer. That would make it easier for the Chinese and others to gain access to the information. ``He violated our national security procedure at Los Alamos as a government employee of the United States,'' Richardson said. ``This is something that we are not going to tolerate.''....He called the transfers of data a common practice by scientists at the lab. Asked why he was singled out for the espionage investigation, Lee suggested that authorities needed a scapegoat and as a Chinese person born in Taiwan ``they think I'm perfect for them.'' Richardson denied that Lee, a U.S. citizen since 1974, was being made a scapegoat. ``This man massively violated our security procedures at Los Alamos,'' he said, referring to improper contacts with Chinese officials and violations of security rules by his transfer of secret data to unclassified computers..."

Los Angles Times 8/1/99 William Rempel "...Attorneys for Wen Ho Lee have made a spirited last-ditch effort to head off indictment of the fired nuclear weapon scientist, arguing in a confidential report to the Department of Justice and in recent private meetings with prosecutors that Lee "used considerable care" to protect the security of secret nuclear codes when he transferred data to an unclassified computer system. The transfers were made for "a good reason," the attorneys asserted, explaining that it was easier to work with the data outside the classified system and because the extra file provided a backup in case the computers crashed. The attorneys called Lee a victim of political hysteria and "a scapegoat for the scandalous lack of security" at the national weapon laboratories, which are run by the Department of Energy....In another case much like Lee's, defense lawyers said that a Los Alamos scientist downloaded from a classified computer to an unclassified system material from the lab's "green book," a secret assessment of the status, maintenance needs and vulnerabilities of some of the nation's most sophisticated weapons. "The scientist was fined and suspended but kept his job and was not criminally prosecuted," the brief says. "Given the numerous individuals who have mishandled classified information but have not been prosecuted, the discriminatory effect of charging Dr. Lee is clear," it says...."

Associated Press 8/3/99 Josef Herbert "...Energy Secretary Bill Richardson today accused former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee of using his race to depict himself as a victim after he "massively violated our security system." Richardson was asked by reporters about Lee's recent television comments that he was targeted because of his Asian descent, and his denial that he ever provided nuclear secrets to China.... "I have little sympathy for him," Richardson said of Lee, who has not been charged with any crime....Lee admitted that he "routinely" shifted thousands of secret files from a highly secured computer system at the Los Alamos weapons lab to his unsecured office computer, but claimed such transfers were a "very common practice" among nuclear weapons designers. Richardson called that assertion "pure bunk" and said any such transfers are considered serious security violations. "This 'everybody does it business' is just a sorry excuse," he said...."

http://www.senate.gov/~thompson/wen-ho.html 8/6/99 Senator Fred Thompson and Joseph Lieberman "... In 1995, the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) independently acquired certain information indicating that the People's Republic of China (PRC) may have acquired certain highly-sensitive information on several U.S. nuclear weapons, including design information on the W-88 warhead Although this new information indicated the possible compromise of several warheads, DOE's initial investigation focused exclusively upon the W-88. The DOE team apparently failed to look into the theft of information on the other warheads at all.

http://www.senate.gov/~thompson/wen-ho.html 8/6/99 Senator Fred Thompson and Joseph Lieberman "... The DOE completed its administrative inquiry on May 28, 1996. It was forwarded to the FBI, which began its own full-scale field investigation at the direction of the FBI's "Agent A." The FBI already knew of Wen-Ho Lee, having investigated him not only for the abovementioned 1982-84 matter, but also on account of a separate FBI investigative lead This third FBI look at Wen-Ho Lee -- this time in connection the W-88 matter -- began only two days after DOE's inquiry report had arrived. The Bureau's Albuquerque Division field office took primary responsibility for the investigation, assigning it principally to "Agent D" and his supervisor, "Agent C."

http://www.senate.gov/~thompson/wen-ho.html 8/6/99 Senator Fred Thompson and Joseph Lieberman "... Not long into its investigation, FBI officials at the Albuquerque field office decided that it would be important to gain access to Wen-Ho Lee's office computer. In November 1996, the FBI's "Agent D" contacted Terry Craig, team leader for counterintelligence at LANL, regarding the possibility of searching Lee's computer. ..... To begin with, their discussions -- and subsequent dealings between FBI and LANL -- showed a remarkable degree of confusion between the idea of computer "search" and computer "monitoring."...Though he had apparently failed to ask Craig for information directly relevant to a full computer "search," "Agent D" advised FBI headquarters that he would provide the Bureau's National Security Law Unit (NSLU) with any documentation he received from LANL in this regard. This documentation, it was hoped, would permit the FBI to determine whether it had the authority to monitor the suspect's activities without having to apply for a search or electronic surveillance warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) In response to this request, Craig consulted certain officials at Los Alamos and then advised "Agent D" that while LANL was implementing a new computer training program that involved signing a waiver form, employees at LANL's weapons division -- including Wen-Ho Lee -- had yet to complete this process. Craig also provided "Agent D" with three documents describing current computer policies at LANL...While it was apparently true that employees of the weapons division had not signed this "training waiver," Craig's inquiries around the laboratory failed to disclose that Wen-Ho Lee (and other LANL employees) had in fact signed different consent-to-monitoring waivers with regard to both classified and unclassified laboratory computers in April 1995 Craig, however, never looked further into this matter, and did not learn of the 1995 waiver until 1999 Craig's failure to supply the FBI with accurate information was critical. It is still unclear whether Lee's computer waiver actually would have permitted the FBI searches desired This said, however, if the Bureau had known of the 1995 waiver, it might have been possible to access Lee's computer much earlier. In turn, had investigators thus discovered the classified file transfers that Lee was actually undertaking with his computer, there would likely have been little dispute with the Department of Justice over the existence of probable cause for FISA surveillance of the Lees.

http://www.senate.gov/~thompson/wen-ho.html 8/6/99 Senator Fred Thompson and Joseph Lieberman "... To make matters worse, Craig had also assumed, on the basis of his own experience elsewhere in the laboratory, that LANL's weapons division did not employ security "banners" to persons using unclassified e-mail accounts. He did not discuss this issue with anyone at this division, however, and thus failed to learn that some computers -- apparently including the one Wen-Ho Lee used -- did indeed display such banners. Thus unaware of the facts, Craig informed "Agent D" that no banners were used in the division. (Craig did not discover this mistake until 1999. It is uncertain precisely what banners were used in the weapons division at that time, but had Craig pursued this matter further, it would at least have been possible for NSLU to make an informed decision on whether or not FISA authority was required.

http://www.senate.gov/~thompson/wen-ho.html 8/6/99 Senator Fred Thompson and Joseph Lieberman "... Given that the FBI believed that probable cause existed to mount FISA surveillance against Wen-Ho Lee and viewed this espionage case as an extremely important national security matter -- one important enough to provoke the first-ever appeal of a FISA denial within the Justice Department -- it is remarkable that Director Freeh at no point contacted the Attorney General about this issue. As even OIPR's then-Acting Counsel agreed, the vast "significance of the case" was not "lost on any of us." Apart from Lewis' effort to raise the matter with the Attorney General, however, the Bureau was apparently content to take "no" for an answer. It is equally remarkable that no Justice Department official apparently felt that this matter deserved any serious personal attention from the Attorney General.

http://www.senate.gov/~thompson/wen-ho.html 8/6/99 Senator Fred Thompson and Joseph Lieberman "...After Seikaly's decision, the FBI was frustrated that "the FISA review had been turned down again" and discouraged about its ability to mount electronic surveillance against the Lees. Indeed, FBI Director Louis Freeh met with Deputy Energy Secretary Elizabeth Moler to tell her that there was no longer any investigatory reason to keep Lee in place at LANL, and that DOE should feel free to remove him in order to protect against further disclosures of classified information. In October 1997, Freeh delivered the same message to Energy Secretary Frederico Peña that he had given to Moler.

http://www.senate.gov/~thompson/wen-ho.html 8/6/99 Senator Fred Thompson and Joseph Lieberman "...Freeh took this step out of concern that DOE might be using the investigation as an excuse to avoid making necessary security reforms at the nation's nuclear laboratories. An FBI report in April 1997 had identified major security problems at the laboratories, but thus far DOE had taken no action. DOE officials, in fact, were apparently resisting these changes, ostensibly on the ground that they did not wish to interfere with the FBI's "ongoing investigation" by alerting Lee in some fashion. Freeh's messages to senior DOE leadership were intended to help remove the grounds for this excuse and help prompt the Energy Department to take action, though the recent report on security at the DOE laboratories suggests that Freeh's hopes were apparently in vain.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette 8/8/99 Meredith Oakley "...Surmising that things are a mess today within the Department of Justice doesn't require any great stretch of the imagination. Things were a mess there from the get-go. Or should one say Waco? If we could reconstitute the combined genius of Peter Sellers and Blake Edwards, we still couldn't do justice--excuse the pun--to the Clinton administration's Justice Department under Janet Reno in one feature-length film. It would require more sequels than Rocky, more installments than "The Perils of Pauline." Take, for instance, the latest episode involving Chinese pilfering of America's nuclear secrets. According to a report just released by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, the U.S. government's three-year inquiry into Chinese espionage at several U.S. nuclear weapons labs was a major fiasco, flawed from beginning to end. "The government's investigation was not a comedy of errors, but a tragedy of errors," said the ever-eloquent Joe Lieberman, Democratic senator from Connecticut.....But here's the kicker: Los Alamos officials told the FBI back in November 1996 that Lee had signed a privacy waiver allowing his computer to be searched, which would have avoided all the squabbling. For its part, the FBI says it did not search the computer until recently because it did not learn until this year that the waiver had been signed...."

AP 8/8/99 "...The White House hasn't decided whether to veto a proposal that would create a semiautonomous agency to protect nuclear weapons programs and laboratories, Chief of Staff John Podesta said Sunday. "We're looking at it right now,'' Podesta said on NBC's "Meet the Press.'' The Clinton administration has some problems with the proposal, he said, "but whether it rises to the level that we're going to have to veto'' remains unclear..... The National Nuclear Security Administration would remain under the energy secretary but largely would control its own budget. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has said he would go along with a new agency but only one that does not sap the authority of the energy secretary and place security and counterintelligence responsibilities outside the agency...."

Washington Post 8/7/99 Walter Pincus "...Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has "a lot of problems" with a congressional plan to create a separately administered agency inside his department to tighten security at the plants and laboratories that design, build and maintain nuclear weapons, a spokeswoman said yesterday....The plan to establish a National Nuclear Security Administration was reached Thursday night by a Republican-dominated conference committee set up to hammer out differences between the House and Senate versions of the $289 billion defense authorization bill. .... The plan approved this week by the House-Senate conference committee, however, differs significantly from the Senate plan that Richardson endorsed. In particular, Anderson said, it deprives the energy secretary of direct authority over employees of the new agency. The secretary could exercise control through the agency's administrator, who would also be an undersecretary of energy and thus a subordinate. But under the current wording of the legislation, the secretary "can't fire, hire or directly order" employees of the new agency, Anderson said...."

New York Times 8/7/99 James Risen "... The Energy Department has sought a delay in the Government's decision on seeking an indictment against a former Los Alamos scientist in connection with the mishandling of nuclear secrets, officials said on Friday. More time is needed, the officials added, to decide whether to release highly classified information for use as evidence. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has the legal authority to decide what classified information can be released. Officials said Richardson was waiting for a recommendation from the department's new security czar, a former Air Force General, Eugene Habiger. Habiger has to weigh whether the risks of exposing additional classified nuclear data outweigh the need for the prosecution of the scientist, Wen Ho Lee. Justice Department officials are mulling how to handle the case, and some reportedly believe that the case is too weak to prosecute...."

Associated Press 8/12/99 H. Josef Hebert "...Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, citing a ``total breakdown in the system,'' recommended disciplinary action Thursday against a senior official and two other employees of the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory because of failures in the China espionage investigation. Richardson did not identify the three but said that their ``responsibilities were clear and that they failed to meet their responsibilities'' in the investigation of alleged spying by a Los Alamos scientist, Wen Ho Lee

Inside The Pentagon 8/12/99 "...Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said yesterday that he will "most likely recommend" that President Clinton veto the fiscal year 2000 defense authorization bill over language establishing a semi-autonomous agency in the Energy Department to manage the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. Richardson, speaking at a breakfast meeting with reporters, said the proposed reorganization could undermine his authority as secretary and may prove to be unconstitutional. The defense bill, reported out of conference last week, creates a National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to oversee nuclear weapons-related activities, and establishes a new under secretary of nuclear security position within DOE to serve as NNSA administrator. "The mission of the administration would be to enhance . . . national security through the military application of nuclear energy and to reduce global danger from weapons of mass destruction, and to promote international nuclear safety," according to the conference report. "The administrator [shall] ensure that all operations and activities of the administration are consistent with the principles of environmental protection and the safety and health of the public and the administration's workforce," it adds. The legislation also establishes three deputy administrator positions within the NNSA: one for defense programs, another for defense nuclear nonproliferation and the last for naval reactors. The NNSA will have its own general counsel's office and a full compliment of administrative staff, including public affairs, legislative affairs and liaison officers to work with other federal agencies...."

Investors Business Daily 8/15/99 "...ENERGY SECRETARY BILL RICHARDSON has promised since spring that heads would roll over the espionage at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. But when the results of a department probe came in, all he did was urge "appropriate action" be taken against three employees. Doesn't he get it? When the extent of the treachery at Los Alamos was revealed, Richardson talked tough. It was a welcome change in tone from the White House's blase evasions and excuses. He kept up the tough talk even as his department's inspector general began to look into the matter. The IG identified three lab employees who fouled up, and still Richardson sounded tough. "There was a total breakdown in the system, and there's plenty of blame to go around." So, does Richardson take tough action? Hardly..... To us, jail time sounds appropriate. Or if nothing criminal or treasonous can be probed, dismissal sounds appropriate. If these three workers are responsible in part for the hemorrhage of our nuclear secrets tough punishment is called for. But all Richardson can find the political courage to do is call for "appropriate" action. It's true that Richardson can't fire the three workers. They are paid by the University of California, which runs the lab. But his word would carry a lot of weight with the UC authorities. If Richardson said, "Fire them" they would get the ax.

Yet, Richardson has hidden behind the pabulum of appropriateness. By doing so, he has given officials a pass to do what bureaucrats do best: obfuscate the issues and duck responsibility. And by all appearances, the bureaucrats are going to take that pass. "I will consider what actions to take, consistent with the policies and procedures of the laboratory and the University of California," said lab director John Browne...."

Washington Post 8/13/99 Vernon Loeb "...Attempting to bring an end to the Chinese espionage scandal that has plagued his department for months, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson yesterday recommended disciplinary action against two former counterintelligence officials and the former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Richardson's announcement came as he released the findings of a sharply critical report by the Department of Energy's own inspector general and issued a statement acknowledging that both "political and career management" failed to pay enough attention to security. As a result of "systemic" management lapses, the inspector general concluded, the government's chief espionage suspect, former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee, was able to keep his security clearance and sensitive work assignment for at least 18 months longer than necessary..... Richardson declined to name the three officials he recommended for disciplinary action and said it would be up to Los Alamos Director John C. Browne to determine the proper punishment, which could range from letters of reprimand to dismissal. But officials familiar with Richardson's recommendation identified the three as Sig Hecker, who served as Los Alamos's director from January 1986 to October 1997 and still works as a senior scientist at the facility; Robert S. Vrooman, the lab's former counterintelligence chief, who is now retired and serves as a part-time consultant to a lab subcontractor; and Terry Craig, a former counterintelligence team leader now working in another section of the lab...... Senior Energy Department officials also said that former Energy Secretary Federico Pena and two former deputy secretaries, Elizabeth A. Moler and Victor H. Reis, might have been subject to disciplinary action for failing to adequately pursue espionage allegations, if they were still employed by the department. However, the Energy Department's inspector general, Gregory Friedman, determined that there was insufficient evidence to substantiate a charge by Notra Trulock, the DOE counterintelligence official who targeted Lee as a suspect, that Moler tried to prevent Trulock from testifying to Congress...."

Capitil Hill Blue 8/13/99 Dan Thomasson "...If one were inclined to believe in government conspiracies, the failure of the FBI and the Justice Department to properly investigate the loss of U.S. nuclear technology to the Chinese would be an excellent candidate. As Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Government Affairs Committee, put it, there is enough blame to go around in the "poor handling" of what may turn out to be the biggest case of successful espionage ever perpetrated against this country. Not just a "comedy of errors but a tragedy of errors," echoed Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., the committee's ranking minority member, all the while shaking off the conspiracy theory. In fact, the bungling among the FBI, the Justice Department and the Energy Department may be every bit as historic in its dimensions as the stealing of our nuclear warhead design. Oddly, in 13 hours of closed-door hearings, the committee failed to find out why all the ineptitude by the nation's key counterintelligence agency and its bosses. How, then, one must ask, could there be such monumental missteps unless they were deliberate? Two possibilities come to mind...."

National Review 8/9/99 Ramesh Ponnuru and John J. Miller "...He keeps switching, and switching, and switching. First Energy Secretary Bill Richardson opposed a Senate proposal to reorganize create a semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration within DoE. Then, when passageappeared imminent, he endorsed the plan. It passed the Senate with only one "no" vote. Now he wants President Clinton to veto it. By all accounts, Richardson is desperate to become Al Gore's running mate next year, and perhaps he thinks this series of flip-flops makes him look vice-presidential. But he's letting his own personal ambitions get in the way of his better judgment. Richardson doesn't want to share the credit for reforming the Energy Department with anybody, least of all Congressional Republicans...."

FoxNews 8/10/99 Reuters "...The Clinton administration will soon announce what disciplinary actions will be taken against government workers for lax security at the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said Monday. The Energy Department lab at Los Alamos, New Mexico, is at the center of the alleged Chinese spying campaign that a congressional report said allowed China to obtain secret information on U.S. nuclear warheads and the neutron bomb. China has denied any wrongdoing. Richardson said he has received an internal report on who should be held responsible for lax security at Los Alamos and a handful of other DOE nuclear laboratories. The Energy Department's independent inspector general prepared the report at the request of Richardson after he questioned an earlier report that placed most of the blame for security problems on lab employees rather than on officials at the department's Washington headquarters...."

USIA 8/13/99 "...According to Richardson, the Inspector General's review: -- Could not establish with any certainty allegations that DOE official(s) knowingly improperly delayed, prohibited or interfered with briefings about potential espionage at the labs to Congress or former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Federico Pena. -- Determined that a counterintelligence official at the Los Alamos lab deprived the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) of relevant and potentially vital information concerning possible espionage at the laboratory by not carrying out an adequate search of lab records. -- Identified, but did not assign blame to, 19 officials at the DOE and the Los Alamos lab who bear responsibility in varying degrees for failures in management, leadership or follow through regarding the investigation at the lab. Richardson called for the Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory to take disciplinary actions against a senior lab official, a former counterintelligence official (now working at the lab in a different capacity), and the counterintelligence official who failed to conduct a diligent records search for the FBI...."

Fox News 8/17/99 AP Chris Roberts "….A list ranking journalists, politicians and others as for, against or neutral in their statements about alleged espionage at Los Alamos National Laboratory was never used, the lab's suspended public relations director said Tuesday. The list was created by a well-meaning but naive junior employee, said Sylvia J. Brucchi, who is on paid leave while the incident is being investigated. Los Alamos has been under scrutiny after accusations that nuclear secrets were leaked from the lab. She said the project was only to compile a list of people who were making public statements on the alleged espionage and who were knowledgeable on the subject. Officials from the Energy Department and the University of California, which has operated the lab under a government contract since 1943, condemned any effort to create a list of people for and against the lab….."

Albuquerque Journal 8/17/99 Ian Hoffman "…Buffeted by accusations of leaking nuclear secrets, public-affairs staff at Los Alamos National Laboratory began sizing up influential government officials, media and academics as "pro," "con" or "neutral" to the laboratory. In what might be called the strange bedfellows list, the lab rated environmentalists, reporters for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times and most Senate Republicans as "cons": Their statements on China's supposed nuclear thefts were bad for LANL and its image. Former Los Alamos scientist Peter Lee, who pleaded guilty in 1997 to divulging classified information to China, is "neutral" in the lab's database: He didn't say anything negative about the lab and espionage. Other "neutrals": Mark Holscher, defense attorney for FBI spy suspect Wen Ho Lee, and U.S. Attorney John J. Kelly, who is leading the Wen Ho Lee investigation. Lab public affairs director Sylvia Brucchi said she ordered subordinates to create the "key players" database in March to help lab executives navigate an increasingly complicated political landscape. Brucchi last week defended the database as a useful opinion-tracking device and said she knew nothing of the pro-con designations. On Friday, following Albuquerque Journal inquiries on the database, Brucchi was suspended with pay, pending an investigation of the creation of the database and her use of extensive outside public-relations consultants. …"

NewsEdge Reuters 8/17/99 "…Robert Vrooman also told the Washington Post he does not believe China obtained top-secret information about U.S. nuclear warheads from Los Alamos or any other laboratory belonging to the U.S. Energy Department. Any such stolen data, he said, could have come from documents distributed to ``hundreds of locations throughout the U.S. government'' as well as to private contractors. While ``details of this investigation are still classified,'' he added, ``it can be said at this time that Mr. Lee's ethnicity was a major factor.'' Vrooman is the first high-ranking participant in the investigation to state that Lee's ethnic background played a key role in his emergence as the government's prime suspect….. In a separate statement faxed to the Post, Vrooman said Lee was identified by the Energy Department's Office of Counterintelligence ``as the prime suspect based on, at best, cursory investigation'' of only Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Vrooman said he had personally counted 13 Caucasians at Los Alamos who were ``left out of the investigation'' although like Lee, they had visited China and met officials at a physics institute there…."
The Wall Street Journal 8/19/99 Edward Jay Epstein "…According to Mr. Vrooman, Mr. Lee, who had worked at Los Alamos for 20 years, was only one of many scientists who had access to the design information of the miniature W-88 nuclear warhead--in fact, the data were "distributed to 548 different addresses at the Defense Department, Energy Department, various defense firms, the armed services and even the National Guard." Mr. Lee, it seems, was targeted for investigation because of his Chinese ethnicity. But the full story does not end there. There are, to begin with, reasons to doubt Mr. Vrooman, who was fired because of his putative mishandling of security at Los Alamos and so has an interest in exonerating Mr. Lee. A search of Mr. Lee's computer files found that he had downloaded classified design information on his own backup computer, evidence of a security lapse (for which he was fired), though not of actual espionage. …"

New York Post 8/20/99 Editorial "…

Reuters 8/20/99 "…A physicist suspected of passing nuclear secrets to China is talking with U.S. Justice Department officials in an effort to avoid prosecution, the scientist's attorney said Friday. Wen Ho Lee was fired in March from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the center of the U.S. government nuclear weapons research, for security violations and is suspected of giving classified nuclear information to China. The scientist has not been charged with any crime and U.S. officials have said espionage charges are unlikely because of a lack of evidence to convict him. But other charges are possible…."

Newsweek 8/22/99 Newsire "…Internal Security chief John Dion has urged his superiors at the Justice Department not to proceed with a case of mishandling information against Wen Ho Lee, the Los Alamos scientist suspected of leaking nuclear secrets to China, sources tell Newsweek in the current issue. Lee was fired from his job but investigators have already conceded that they don't have the evidence to convict Lee as a spy. Agents instead are focusing on Lee's admission that he transferred nuclear codes onto his unsecured office computer. Insiders say that even if they decide against indicting Lee, prosecutors may never admit they went too far in publicly fingering him, reports Washington Correspondent Daniel Klaidman in the August 30 issue (on newsstands Monday, August 23)…."

3/11/99 "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 11, 1999 …. Secretary Richardson Names New Chairman,

Appoints Two New Members to Secretary of Energy Advisory Board Energy Secretary Bill Richardson named a new Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) Chairman and appointed two leaders from industry and government to serve as new members, bringing the board's total membership to thirty-five. The SEAB's newly named chairman is board member Andrew Athy, a partner in the Washington D.C. law firm of O'Neill, Athy and Casey. Mr. Athy previously served as counsel to the U.S. House of Representative Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power and was appointed to SEAB by Secretary Richardson in December 1998. Joining Mr. Athy and the other SEAB members are Gilberto OcaÒas, Chief Executive Officer of OcaÒas Group in Austin, Texas, a firm specializing in Hispanic public affairs and business development; and the Honorable Mike Espy, former Secretary of Agriculture and U.S. Representative, who practices law in the Jackson, Mississippi, firm of Butler, Snow, O'Mara, Stevens and Canada, PLLC…."

NY Times 8/26/99 James Bamford "…The investigation into China's suspected theft of top nuclear secrets has become so partisan that it's hard to know where the politics ends and the truth begins…. In recent days, critics of the way the Wen Ho Lee case has been handled have compared his case with that of John Deutch, the former Director of Central Intelligence. Mr. Deutch was stripped of his security clearance last week because, as head of the C.I.A., he transferred more than a dozen top-secret "codeword" documents, dealing with topics from international terrorism to Iraq, to an unclassified computer at his home. The C.I.A. had reportedly been aware of this for two and a half years but took action only recently. …. There was a time when espionage wasn't such a partisan game. The Reagan years were the worst on record for espionage. Jonathan Pollard walked out of Navy intelligence offices with suitcases stuffed with documents for his Israeli controllers. Aldrich Ames met with Soviet intelligence officials and sold out his country. Members of the Walker family were taking secret documents and codes off Navy ships by the boxload. Larry Wu-Tai Chin, a C.I.A. analyst, passed secrets to the Chinese Government. What was missing in those cases, however, was heated Congressional rhetoric, hearings to investigate dark conspiracies, shrill accusations of Reagan Administration bungling and leaks of damning information by committee staffers. Spies were caught, prosecuted and sent to jail. Period. It was more or less understood that espionage happens in every Administration. In that same era, hundreds of people were investigated for security violations. None, however, were thrown into the political circus as quickly and cruelly as Mr. Lee was. …"

Christian Science Monitor 8/26/99 Peter Grier "…Washington's China spy case is falling apart faster than John Le Carré can say, "Who swallowed that microfilm dot?" Charges that Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist Wen Ho Lee passed US nuclear data to Beijing have roiled the national security establishment for months. They've caused Congress to approve a sweeping rejiggering of A-bomb development, and may force bureaucrats to reinspect 600 million pages of declassified material for inadvertent leakage of secrets. But now top officials say publicly that Mr. Lee became a security target largely because he is Chinese-American, and that they do not have a shred of direct evidence against him. The official who led the first probe into Lee's activities has resigned, and the whole affair is calling into question lawmaker assertions that China has penetrated the highest levels of US security and may be America's new cold-war adversary. "If Lee is not charged, then we are really back to square one," says Jonathan Pollack, a Rand Corp. senior adviser for international policy. …Then it turned out that a recent CIA director, John Deutch, had kept secret material on his unsecured home computer. In the atmosphere of the Lee case, the government had no choice but to strip Mr. Deutch of his security clearance. "The national security part of the community in Washington has been utterly convulsed by [the Lee case] for over a year," says John Pike, a Federation for American Scientists intelligence expert. But wait. If the respected former head of the CIA did some of the same things Lee did, does that mean...? Oops. Never mind. So far Lee has not been charged with espionage, and it now appears he never will be. A recent bipartisan report by the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs concluded that if nothing else, the Lee probe was hopelessly bungled. Investigators didn't bother to look at other suspects and fought over things such as whether to search Lee's computer…."

Associated Press 8/27/99 Michelle Locke "…The intent is to catch spies. But the effect of polygraph tests at Energy Department weapons labs will be to scare off new researchers and demoralize those who remain, scientists there say. "I don't think you'll find very many people who are in favor of polygraphing,'' says Betty Gunther, who works in the computing division of Los Alamos in New Mexico. "What we're talking about is destroying a very good research institution.'' The tests are proposed as part of a new spy-fighting initiative prompted by allegations that a Los Alamos scientist passed nuclear secrets to China. The investigation, which found the man had downloaded thousands of files of super-secret codes into his unclassified computer, brought accusations the labs aren't doing a good job of keeping nuclear secrets…."

Sacramento Bee 8/22/99 AP "…The Department of Energy has proposed moving some of its nuclear weapons projects from Los Alamos National Laboratory to other nuclear labs and test sites around the nation, including the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The proposed moves are necessary because the workload at Los Alamos was "exhausting" weapons designers responsible for maintaining the nation's nuclear stockpile, said Energy Department Deputy Assistant Secretary Gil Weigand, who is in charge of weapons research and development. The proposal, dubbed "Mega Strategy," would balance the workload at the department's major research and testing sites and increase the number of experienced U.S. weapons workers, Weigand said. A decision on the proposal is expected by February. The plan moves some work from Los Alamos to the Nevada Test Site, shifts a large amount of plutonium and weapons maintenance to the Livermore lab and creates a new research complex at Sandia National Laboratories outside Albuquerque…."

National Review - Washington Bulletin 8/25/99 Ramesh Ponnuru "…The backlash to the Chinese spy scandal is in full flower. The former head of counterintelligence at Los Alamos, Robert S. Vrooman, told the Washington Post that not only is suspected spy Wen Ho Lee innocent, he is the victim of racist scapegoating, the high-tech equivalent of Driving While Black: Call it Researching While Asian. (Bear in mind that Vrooman, who has been humiliated, has an interest in minimizing security lapses that occurred on his watch.) Meanwhile, Notra Trulock, the Energy Department security official who a few months ago was a hero for breaking the spy scandal, has resigned from the department, accused of targeting Lee unfairly. The idea that China spied at all-instead of picking up information from the Internet or other open sources-is now in doubt, making the whole fuss seem a creation of the fevered imagination of a few paranoid white males. But not so fast. Wen Ho Lee may or may not be guilty of passing to the Chinese design information for the W-88, America's most advanced warhead. But there was a legitimate reason to suspect him. In the early 1980s, Wen Ho Lee reportedly told another U.S. scientist under suspicion for giving the Chinese neutron-bomb secrets, "I can help you-I can tell who ratted on you"; he failed to inform security officials of his various contacts with PRC scientists; he agreed to meet with an FBI agent posing as a Chinese official; he failed two lie-detector tests; and, of course, he downloaded massive amounts of material from a classified to an unclassified computer. His defenders seem to want affirmative action for security risks: Minorities can meet lower security standards to ensure that no minority pressure group will ever have reason to cry "racism." (Foreign intelligence agencies will no doubt be impressed by our commitment to diversity.) …"

National Review Online 8/25/99 Kenneth R Timmerman "…1. What do you make of Notra Trulock's sudden departure? I don't know whether Trulock was forced out or not. But at the very least, it's clear he felt he had no mandate to continue actively pursuing foreign-intelligence penetration of the Department of Energy and our nuclear-weapons establishments. 2. Several people from within the energy department have now charged Trulock with singling out Wen Ho Lee because he is Asian. What do you make of the charge? And, is giving extra scrutiny to Chinese-Americans legitimate? The charge is both unfortunate, and inevitable. Mr. Lee first attracted the attention of DoE counterintelligence in the mid-1980s, when he accompanied his wife on a speaking engagement to Communist China. By all accounts, the Chinese were more interested in his knowledge of U.S. nuclear weapons, than in his wife. Any normal employee in a government national-security agency would have accepted such an invitation with great trepidation and reserve. It was common knowledge that Chinese intelligence was actively seeking to recruit people with access to U.S. weapons secrets from what they called the "overseas Chinese" community. Despite this, as far as we know from the published accounts, Mr. Lee did not submit a report on his contacts in China. So by his own actions, he invited scrutiny by DoE counter-intelligence. If I had been in Mr. Lee's position, I never would have gone to China, in the same way that many American Jews, working in senior government positions, refuse to deal with Middle Eastern issues in their official capacities. Is that fair? No. But they aren't bus drivers, either. We are talking about people who are handling our most dangerous and valuable secrets. They must be like Caesar's wife, free from even the suspicion of blame…."

San Jose Mercury News 9/3/99 Dan Stober "...In the wake of a spy scandal, the federal government has moved to tighten security at the nations' nuclear weapons laboratories. But physicists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are grumbling that the new rules make them feel like criminals, prompting some to leave or seriously consider it. ....New security measures include widespread lie detector tests, computer restrictions, e-mail monitoring, even mandatory reporting of sex with certain foreigners -- it's practically taken the fun out of designing hydrogen bombs. One veteran weapons designer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, physicist Tom Thomson, says he may quit -- after 30 years -- rather than submit to a polygraph examination. ``I don't know if I'll agree or not,'' he said. ``I may just leave.'' ....Security has even been tightened around the most sensitive facility at Livermore -- the ``Superblock'' where radioactive plutonium is kept. The complex, surrounded by high fences topped with razor-sharp wire and constantly monitored by cameras and other devices, has now been assigned a 24-hour SWAT unit. .....Badges must be worn at all times. A yellow badge indicates a low-level security clearance. The outside truck driver delivering bottled water may have a yellow badge. The more common blue badge comes with a top-secret ``Q Clearance.'' A blue badge, however, does not automatically grant access to hydrogen bomb secrets. ...... "

AP 9/1/99 "…The U.S. Department of Energy is asking its employees to kiss and tell. A notice sent out last month requires 67,000 workers cleared to handle defense secrets to tell counterintelligence officers about any romantic or sexual liaisons with people from countries thought to be developing nuclear weapons, Those countries include all former Soviet republics, China, Israel, India, North Korea, Cuba and Taiwan. Employees also are expected to report friendships or professional relationships with any foreign national if they spend "private time'' together - even on the Internet - or if either one shares information about their personal or professional lives…."

FOXNEWS.COM 8/29/99 Mary Gabriel "…The man who headed the initial probe into China's alleged theft of U.S. nuclear secrets said Sunday he was blocked from briefing Congress by a Clinton administration appointee out of partisan political concerns. "One of the senior officials told me directly that the reason that she did not allow me to brief the (Capitol) Hill on this case was that congressional Republicans...were only interested in hurting the president on his China policy," former Energy Department investigator Notra Trulock told Fox News Sunday. Trulock said he understood from Deputy Secretary of Energy Elizabeth Moler, who has since resigned, that she wanted to keep him from talking with Florida Republican Rep. Porter Goss, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence…… Trulock said the "last straw" was an Energy Department Inspector General's report that found no conclusive evidence to support this charge that higher-ups sought to block his investigation. "For the inspector general to trivialize such serious and important issues and do what essentially became a he said/she said...I think it's time to leave at that point," he said….."

Washington Post 8/31/99 Walter Pincus Vernon Loeb "…It may be weeks or even months before the director of Los Alamos National Laboratory takes disciplinary action against three employees for their alleged mishandling of a suspected Chinese spy, officials said yesterday. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson recommended two weeks ago that the laboratory impose some form of discipline, which could range from mandatory counseling to dismissal, against key employees involved in the case of Wen Ho Lee. But because the lab is managed by the University of California, officials said, personnel actions must follow the university's procedures, which include a fact-finding process, rights of appeal and possible arbitration. Los Alamos Lab Director John C. Browne said that he and University of California President Richard Atkinson decided last week to establish a panel of three "highly respected and independent" national security experts "to advise us on what actions would be appropriate." …."

FOX NEWSWIRE 8/31/99 "….The director of an installation intended to house the world's most powerful lasers has resigned amid questions about his education, The New York Times reported today. E. Michael Campbell, associate director for lasers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., left his job Friday after a series of anonymous faxes to his bosses revealed he does not have a Ph.D., the Times reported. One of the world's leading authorities on ultra-high-energy lasers, Campbell remains an employee on leave from the lab, a spokesman said…."

ABC AP 9/3/99 "…The Energy Department admitted to serious problems Friday in a program to build the world's largest laser, including mismanagement that will add hundreds of millions of dollars to its original $1.2 billion price tag. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, who said he was assured the project was on target as recently as June, ordered an overhaul of the program at the Lawrence Livermore weapons laboratory and an investigation into why the cost overruns were not revealed earlier. The massive laser, which was supposed to have been completed by 2003, is being built at the California research lab in a project to monitor and maintain America's nuclear warheads without testing nuclear bombs. Energy Department officials said mismanagement may cause the project's cost to soar as much as $350 million above the originally projected $1.2 billion and delay completion by as much as two years. Richardson's announcement came a week after an embarrassing disclosure about the former project director's academic credentials. Edward Campbell resigned after it became known that he had for years implied he held a doctorate in electrical engineering when he never in fact completed his Ph.D. dissertation at Princeton University. …."

CNN.com 9/12/99 "....Labor advocates are using the prospect of a government-imposed lie detector test to build support for the formation of a union at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. About 7,300 employees work at the nuclear weapons lab, which is run by the University of California. The U.S. Department of Energy is holding public hearings through October 4 on its proposal to subject Los Alamos lab workers to polygraph tests. .... "Almost all employees have already had a 'Q' clearance (and) investigation done on them, (but) they still don't trust us," said Gilbert Merriman, who rates procedures at the lab where scientist Wen Ho Lee was fired for transferring secret nuclear codes to an unclassified computer system. "And I think it's primarily Congress that doesn't trust us." A "Q" clearance is the highest rating relating to nuclear weapons. ...."

Nando Media 9/15/99 Josef Hebert AP "….Attempting to set an example, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson answered a series of espionage-related questions in a polygraph test this week - and said nuclear weapons scientists should do the same without worry. Richardson took the test Tuesday. While no results were provided, he presumably passed…."

AP 9/10/99 H Josef Hebert "...Three officials of the Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab, including a former director, were disciplined Friday for their part in the China espionage investigation. The University of California which runs the lab and announced the disciplinary actions, refused to identify the three individuals, citing privacy concerns. Two sources, knowledgeable about the cases, said the former lab director, Siegfried ``Sig'' Hecker, was given a letter of reprimand, but no additional action was taken against him. Hecker, who headed the lab from 1986 to 1997, continues as a Los Alamos lab researcher. The most severe action was taken against Terry Craig, a former counterintelligence officer at the lab, who received a letter of reprimand, had his salary frozen and unspecified restrictions placed on his job. Robert Vrooman, a former chief of the lab's counterintelligence office, who has been a part-time consultant to the lab since his retirement, was barred from doing consulting services for at least five years. ....."

Charlotte Observer 9/12/99 "...In the midst of all this, perhaps it is useful to recap what is not seriously in dispute. Senior government officials in the mid-'90s believed that espionage had taken place and that security in general was awful in the American nuclear program. They said so quite pointedly. The White House was officially advised in 1996 that a spy could still be working in the nuclear program. A briefing prepared for Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, when he took over in the summer of 1998, said security lapses were widespread and critical. ``There has been an alarming increase of instances where nuclear weapons design, intelligence and other national defense information has been either compromised or placed at risk,'' the briefing said. The Department of Energy requested 19 FBI investigations that year alone. Attempts at investigation and remedy were characterized by bungling and foot-dragging on a grand scale. The Energy Department and the FBI worked at cross-purposes. A man seriously believed to be a spy was left in place for years at the Los Alamos weapons lab. Widespread possibilities for information leaks elsewhere were ignored. And the White House was in good rhythm with all of it. The president didn't formally order reforms until February 1998 -- nearly two years after the first warning. Even then, another nine months passed before the Department of Energy began to respond. Crucial points in this are not obscured by the weakness of the case against one suspect, or by mixed possibilities for the source of Chinese success in nuclear weaponry: Serious security breaches in the American nuclear weapons program are not only credible, they are likely. The evidence is everywhere. The government was spectacularly inept in pinpointing problems and mounting remedy. The known record suggests no improvement to this day. The mess here is genuine, and alarming. ..."

AP 9/19/99 "….Despite finding marked improvements in security at the government's three nuclear weapons labs, investigators still were able to penetrate some sensitive areas of the labs' computer systems, according to a top-level Energy Department review. However, a team of security experts was unable to penetrate the top-secret computer network used for nuclear weapon design during the intense security review conducted over the summer. But one official said at two of the labs Sandia and Lawrence Livermore the security specialists were able obtain from the outside ''sensitive'' though not secret information on unclassified computer systems ''without a whole lot of difficulty.'' …..The security review at the Los Alamos lab in New Mexico was conducted in two stages in August, officials said. It found the lab had beefed up computer security, improved protection of classified material, improved accountability of nuclear materials, added additional guards and put in additional alarm sensors. More important, said a veteran DOE security official familiar with the review, there was ''a marked change in attitude'' about security among Los Alamos scientists and managers…."

http://www.newsday.com/ap/rnmpwh17.htm AP 9/22/99 H Josef Hebert "...Responding to months of uproar over allegations of Chinese espionage, Congress today overwhelmingly agreed to create a new nuclear weapons agency in the most dramatic reorganization of the Energy Department in 22 years. The reorganization was included in a widely popular $288.9 billion defense bill that includes a military pay raise and a 4.4 percent across-the-board increase in Pentagon spending, including more money for military housing and hardware. The Senate approved the defense measure 93-5, following House approval of the bill last week by a likewise veto-proof 375-45 vote. The administration has indicated a possible veto because of concerns about the nuclear weapons agency, but lawmakers said a veto would be politically difficult given the defense bill's overwhelming bipartisan support. While some Democrats voiced concern about the new weapons agency within the Energy Department, they said the defense measure was too important to have it sidetracked on the reorganization issue. Although the new agency will not be totally independent, the legislation insulates the department's nuclear weapons programs and consolidate authority over the government's three nuclear weapons labs. The reorganization marks the most far reaching fallout yet to months of controversy about lax security at the Energy Department and the alleged theft by China of nuclear warhead secrets from U.S. weapons labs, dating back 20 years. Supporters of the measure say the new National Nuclear Security Administration within the department would streamline control over nuclear weapons programs and provide increased accountability for security and counterintelligence efforts....."

Congressional Record, http://thomas.loc.gov 9/22/99 Rep Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) "....For those who do not understand, we have laboratories where we have developed these weapons of mass destruction that can either be used to protect freedom and preserve the peace or if that technology gets into the hands of monsters like Hitler or the militaristic Japanese or the Communist Chinese regime in Beijing, those weapons would threaten humankind. Because China has to be told that they are our strategic partner, we had a policy of letting these scientists from the People's Republic of China do their experiments in our laboratories, in our weapons laboratories. Over and over again, we have found during this investigation, we have found that those people who sounded the alarm, career civil servants, civil service people, were repressed by this administration, were told to shut up or get out. We have had hearings on this and documented this over and over again. Now, what has this resulted in? What are we talking about here? We are talking about missile technology, and we are talking about technology that has permitted them to build weapons that can kill millions of Americans, probably the size of that little desk down there, that little table right there, put into a Chinese rocket that can kill millions of Americans, or millions of Tibetans or millions of Japanese or millions of South Koreans...... We will pay dearly for this nonsense. Our young people will face a threat that they should not have to face because of this indefensible, totally indefensible policy....."

AFP 9/24/99 "….The Federal Bureau of Investigation is studying "new things" in the allegations of Chinese theft of US nuclear secrets, Republican Senator Orrin Hatch said Friday. Hatch spoke to reporters as he left a meeting with Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI director Louis Freeh. "They indicated there are some new things that they were looking into," said the Utah senator. But Hatch, who chairs the Senate's Judiciary Committee, refused to reveal what new items the FBI was looking at. On Wednesday the FBI said it was expanding its investigation into allegations of Chinese spying on American nuclear laboratories. According to reports, FBI investigators were ordered to widen their probe after the Justice Department and FBI director Louis Freeh determined that the scope of their investigation was too narrow. Asked by reporters what justified expanding the investigation, Hatch said he had no details. "I haven't heard any adequate explanation to this day ... except that Director Freeh said that he felt that they needed to do what they were doing," he said. Reno said Thursday that she thought there might be new evidence in the case. "I think there may have been new facts brought to the attention of the FBI," she said….."

Associated Press 9/27/99 Michael Sniffen ".....The Justice Department hired its first chief science adviser Monday -- Donald Prosnitz, a physicist from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Prosnitz will be on a two-year detail as the department's chief science and technology adviser from the lab where he was the chief scientist for the Nonproliferation, Arms Control and International Security Directorate. ``This newly created post enables us to consolidate the responsibility for technology policy in one position,'' Attorney General Janet Reno said. Prosnitz is the second physicist drawn from the Energy Department's nuclear weapons laboratories to take a top Justice Department job. By coincidence, the laboratories currently are a focus of an FBI investigation into whether China stole secrets about U.S. nuclear warheads in recent years. In October 1997, Donald M. Kerr Jr., a physicist-engineer who spent six years as chief of the government's Los Alamos National Laboratory, where nuclear weapons were designed, became assistant FBI director in charge of the bureau's crime laboratory. In a brief interview, Prosnitz said ``familiarity with the government'' might be the reason Justice has twice turned to the national laboratories for a scientist. ....."

CNSNews.com 10/5/99 Justin Torres "....President Bill Clinton signed a bill Tuesday that transfers responsibility for nuclear weapons from the Energy Department to a new nuclear agency, a step recommended by the Cox Committee in its report on Chinese espionage. The bill, which was passed by large margins in the House and Senate, creates the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which will immediately take responsibility for American nuclear secrets from the Department of Energy. In a statement released to CNSNews.com, House Policy Committee spokesperson Paul Wilkinson called the signing of the bill "the most significant Cabinet department restructuring in two decades." ...."

New York Times 10/4/99 Michael Gordon Judith Miller ".....U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson proposed that United States experts visit Novaya Zemlya islands in Northern Russia to conduct seismic experiments that would enhance the American ability to distinguish between a nuclear test and, say, an earthquake. The need for such measures was evident in August 1997, when the CIA informed the White House that the Russians might have conducted an underground test at Novaya Zemlya. After seismic experts challenged that assessment, the C.I.A. said that it was wrong and that the tremor was an undersea earthquake....."

AP 9/28/99 "....A 21-year FBI veteran with a background in counterintelligence will head the task force conducting the bureau's newly broadened investigation into the alleged Chinese theft of secrets about a sophisticated nuclear warhead. The FBI announced Tuesday that Stephen W. Dillard, currently head of its Jackson, Miss., office, has been selected as inspector in charge of the task force. The bureau said it is still deciding how many agents should be assigned to the probe of whether data about the miniature W-88 warhead and other weapons was taken from U.S. nuclear laboratories. Dillard, who has a law degree from Mississippi College School of Law, has served in the FBI's national security division at headquarters where he managed all foreign counterintelligence and counterespionage operations as chief of the global section. He also has served as assistant chief of the counterterrorism section, unit chief of the Russian section and unit chief of the counterterrorism section of that division......Attorney General Janet Reno said the expansion ``is in response to questions that have been raised in terms of new evidence. I think there may have been new facts brought to the attention of the FBI.'' ...... "

Capitol Hill Blue 9/28/99 "....Justice officials are quietly gloating that the FBI's being forced to return to square one on the investigation into alleged Chinese espionage at U.S. nuclear labs. They feel it proves that they were right all along when they kept telling the bureau they didn't have enough to proceed with a secret surveillance warrant on Wen Ho Lee. But if the FBI was able to diss Justice all over Capitol Hill, they weren't able to fool former Sen. Warren Rudman and his inquiry, which you may recall raised substantial questions about whether the FBI (and the Energy Department) had focused too early on Lee to the exclusion of other possibilities...... '

Society of Professional Scientists and Engineers 9/22/99 Drew Richardson PREPARED STATEMENT OF DREW C. RICHARDSON BEFORE THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY ON ITS PROPOSED RULE "POLYGRAPH EXAMINATION REGULATION" ....My name is Dr. Drew Richardson. I'm a Supervisory Special Agent of the FBI and a scientist in the FBI Laboratory..... I too, however, must express strong reservations about polygraph screening and recommend as strongly as I possibly can that you do not implement such a program. My concerns regarding polygraph screening run the gamut covering the lack of theoretical foundation, a lack of scientific control, a lack of validity as a diagnostic tool, to general concerns about the ethics of common practice to the potential lack of due process and fairness to polygraph examinees as it relates to the use of polygraph results. I believe that the assertions and opinions that I have just offered are in line with vast majority opinion of the relevant scientific community of psychophysiology. Furthermore I believe they parallel the formal and publicly stated positions of the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association, both of which have gone on record as opposing the use of polygraph examinations for generalized screening purposes....."

Washington Post 10/16/99 Walter Pincus "….Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, under pressure from scientists and members of Congress, has sharply reduced the number of federal employees who will be required to take polygraph examinations about their handling of nuclear secrets. Instead of imposing the "lie detector" tests on more than 5,000 scientists and other employees at the nation's three nuclear weapons laboratories, the Department of Energy will limit the testing to several hundred people per lab, or a total of about 1,000 employees, DOE officials said. ….. They will be asked four questions during the tests: whether they have committed espionage, engaged in sabotage, made unauthorized disclosures of classified information or failed to report contact with people from sensitive countries….."

AP 10/20/99 Michelle Locke "....Investigators from the General Accounting Office arrived at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on Monday and a team from the University of California, which manages the lab under contract to the Department of Energy, visited Tuesday and Wednesday...... The inquiries were prompted by the announcement last month that the project had run into trouble and could be $300 million over budget and two years late. That was an unpleasant surprise for officials who had been told in June that the project, part of the effort to test nuclear weapons through computer simulations, was in good shape. In response, the House Committee on Armed Services has asked the GAO to investigate....... The super laser, called the National Ignition Facility, NIF for short, is a football-stadium sized machine described as a cornerstone of efforts to test nuclear weapons for reliability without actually blowing anything up. With its 192 laser beams, the device will shoot a target the size of a BB to simulate temperatures and pressures similar to those inside a nuclear explosion or at the sun's core. ....."

Christian Science Monitor 10/17/99 James Thurman "....It seemed like a fairly straightforward idea: Make thousands of key scientists who run the Energy Department's top-secret nuclear labs take a lie-detector test to deter espionage. ..... But Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has decided to scale back a plan to give a polygraph test to as many as 12,000 DOE scientists and contractors starting in January. The sweeping measure was proposed by DOE counterintelligence as part of an effort to beef up security in the wake of the Chinese espionage scandal. Under the new plan, the Energy Department will instead test only a few hundred employees from three main labs...... ``They should have been doing it all along,'' believes a member of the intelligence community who submits to a polygraph every five years and asked that his name not be used. Proponents of the polygraph program and DOE counterintelligence experts dismiss concerns that tests would result in ruined careers. They point to similar screenings by the Department of Defense, which last year polygraphed almost 8,000 employees and contractors. According to Ed Curran, an FBI agent directing the DOE's current antispying plan, fewer than 400 Defense Department employees raised red flags. Of those, only eight could not clear the test. ....."

Washington Post 10/19/99 Walter Pincus "....Senate Republicans may attempt to cut off the salaries of top officials in the Department of Energy if the department undermines the establishment of a separate agency to run nuclear weapons programs, a Senate aide warned yesterday. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson is expected to face sharp questioning today from senators who contend that the Clinton administration is violating the spirit and possibly the letter of a law passed last month that set up the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Republican legislators, who drafted the measure as a response to allegations that China had stolen nuclear secrets from U.S. weapons laboratories, say they intended to create a "separately organized agency" whose administrator would report to the secretary of energy but would have a high degree of autonomy....... On Oct. 5, President Clinton signed the fiscal 2000 Defense Authorization Act, which set up the agency. But at the same time, he directed Richardson to assume all the duties of the NNSA administrator, who has the title of undersecretary of energy for nuclear security. Richardson also was authorized to assign his top subordinates, such as the directors of security and counterintelligence at the DOE, to serve concurrently in parallel posts at the NNSA...."

AP 10/29/99 "…..A new government handbook allows administrators and law enforcement officials to analyze a school's vulnerability to violence and suggests technologies to deter problems. The guide, developed at the Energy Department's nuclear weapons laboratory in Sandia, N.M., will be available on the Internet beginning Monday. It provides practical tips on protecting buildings and grounds and gives advice on purchase of equipment for video surveillance, weapons detection, entry control and duress alarms….."

Philadelphia Inquirer 10/27/99 AP "….Scientists in "sensitive" countries such as China or Iran are to be barred from connecting with Energy Department computers that contain even unclassified information beneficial to a nuclear weapons programs, department officials said yesterday…..Some members of the House panel said they were skeptical of contentions by Energy Department officials of progress toward solving security problems at the labs. Some foreign scientists, including some from 25 "sensitive" countries, have been cleared to access unclassified computer systems at the Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories, said Brad Peterson, an Energy Department computer security expert. One scientist from Iran, for example, has access to the unclassified system at Los Alamos, Peterson said. The department does not disclose the 25 "sensitive" countries except for China, Iran and Russia….."

AP 10/26/99 "....Scientists in ``sensitive'' countries such as China or Iran are to be barred from connecting with Energy Department computers that contain even unclassified information beneficial to a nuclear weapons programs, department officials said Tuesday. ``We will have a policy out within the next five days that will greatly tighten foreign access'' to computers at the department's weapons laboratories, department security director Eugene Habiger told a House Commerce subcommittee. That policy is part of broad plans to tighten security at the nuclear weapons labs after security lapses allegedly allowed China to obtain nuclear secrets at a New Mexico lab.....Officials worry that a spy working inside a lab could put classified information on an unclassified network to be retrieved by foreign agents. The classified and unclassified networks are separate, department officials said, and the labs are working on ways to prevent people from moving classified information onto unclassified computers....."

Los Angeles Times - Business Section 10/25/99 Gary Chapman "…..The argument of the Clinton administration, which supported ratification, was that advanced supercomputers will allow "virtual testing" of nuclear warheads through computer simulations, replacing the need to conduct explosive underground nuclear tests. The U.S. Department of Energy is currently implementing the largest computer research and development program in the world, the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI), to develop supercomputers and software programs that can conduct such virtual testing. This argument was a "huge mistake," said Dr. Chris Payne, a senior researcher at the National Resources Defense Council in Washington and a former nuclear weapons expert for the Senate. Payne called the administration's strategy for defending the treaty "a shot in the foot, a self-inflicted wound." …. Payne said President Clinton was convinced by advisors from the Department of Energy that advanced computer simulations must replace underground explosive testing to guarantee the reliability and safety of U.S. nuclear weapons. The problem is that the Department of Energy's radically ambitious ASCI program could take 10 to 15 years to complete. When DOE officials told senators about this timetable during the treaty ratification hearings, even the Republican moderates backed off supporting the treaty, Payne said. …."

Washington Post 12/2/99 Roberto Suro "….Plans to protect the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories from foreign espionage have fallen behind schedule because Congress failed to appropriate enough money for security measures, the Energy Department's new "security czar" said yesterday. Even if Congress now approves a request for emergency supplemental funding, plans to have a new security program fully in place by next September are off-track. "I'm not going to be able to do it," said retired Air Force Gen. Eugene E. Habiger, who heads the department's Office of Security and Emergency Operations. While he had expected to be hiring new personnel and buying new computer hardware by now, Habiger said, emergency money will not be available until April or May, meaning at least a six- or seven-month delay and even longer if Congress declines to provide the extra funds. …."

Washington Post 11/25/99 Vernon Loeb "…..Were it not for the uproar over Chinese nuclear espionage, Feng Gai might still be working at Los Alamos National Laboratory, burnishing his reputation as a budding star in the field of laser spectroscopy. Feng's work is not secret and has nothing to do with nuclear weapons; he studies the unfolding of human proteins, research critical to understanding Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases...."

Drudge Report 12/11/99 Matt Drudge "…. A day after indicting Los Alamos scientist Weh Ho Lee, senior government officials tell the NEW YORK TIMES on Sunday that Lee "jeopardized virtually every nuclear warhead in the American arsenal through unauthorized computer transfers of many of the country's most sensitive nuclear secrets." TIMES hotshot James Risen reports that much of the data is still missing -- vital information that Lee put on 10 portable computer disks from 1993 to 1997. Only 3 of these disks have so far been recovered! …..On the disks, Risen writes, "were thousands of pages of nuclear-related documents." In 1997 Lee placed on one disk the "'complete source code for the current version' of the government's most advanced primary weapon design, which is an atomic bomb that acts as the trigger to explode a hydrogen bomb." ….."

Matt Drudge 12/9/99 UPI "....Ten workers were injured on Wednesday in a chemical explosion at a Department of Energy nuclear weapons plant in Tennessee. Officials said seven workers were treated at the Oak Ridge Y-12 nuclear weapons plant and three workers were hospitalized. Authorities believe the explosion occurred after a volatile sodium- potassium mixture used as a cooling agent in the casting of nuclear warheads spilled into the bottom of a furnace. ...."

National Review 12/6/99 National Review ".....According to the National Review magazine, Trent Lott agreed with the Democrats to hold hearings for Clinton judicial nominees Richard Paez and Marsha Berzon by March 15. It's likely that they will be confirmed, given the habit of the GOP withering under Tom Daschle's race hustling. He also agreed to try to clear the other nominees and block any filibusters. For these concessions, the crafty Trent won the confirmation of a Mississippian to the Tennesee Valley Authority. ...."

Cox News Service 12/8/99 John Harmon ".....Agreeing to turn plowshares into swords, so to speak, the Tennessee Valley Authority directors Wednesday voted to approve a contract to manufacture a key component for atomic bombs at the Watts Bar nuclear power plant in southwest Tennessee. It will be the first time in U.S. history that a commercial reactor will be used to produce material for nuclear bombs. Tritium, the ``H'' in H-bombs, is ahydrogen isotope that greatly enhances the explosive power of bombs. TVA officials defended their agreement to provide the material to the U.S. Department of Energy as nothing more than a continuation of the federal utility's long history of assisting in U.S. defense projects....."

12/15/99 ABC Kathleene Parker "....People in this isolated town known for top-secret nuclear weapons work are angry after the arrest of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee. They're also scared. Their fear is based on a complicated web of the turbulent recent history of race and employee relations at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, on partisan politics and on a certain level of general distrust that is perhaps inevitable in a town that does nuclear weapons work. "It is frightening to me that people at the lab will not even give their names [to reporters] because they are afraid of retaliation," said Jo Starling, a former elementary school teacher, who, as a retiree, said she can speak out without fear of losing her livelihood....."

Washington Post 1/9/00 Bradley Graham "…..One of the nation's leading defense laboratories sold one of the world's 100 fastest computers at a bargain-basement price to a U.S. firm controlled by a Chinese citizen in late 1998. Ten months later, fearing that the supercomputer's parts could end up in China, lab officials hurriedly repurchased the machine at nearly three times the sale price. In a detailed report released last week, the Energy Department's inspector general faults officials at Sandia National Laboratories for ignoring risks to national security in the botched deal…... Those involved in the deal treated the computer as just another item of surplus equipment, neglected to apply controls required for potential exports and failed to review operating manuals and data storage disks sent with the computer, the report says. Soon after the sale, the report reveals, lab officials dismissed suspicions voiced by the computer's manufacturer, Intel Corp., that the buyer might transfer some parts to China. Only when press reports last summer called attention to the sale and highlighted the buyer's Chinese citizenship did Sandia officials reclaim the computer….."

Washington Post 1/24/2000 Walter Pincus "…. n numerous occasions in 1994, someone on the campus of the University of California at Los Angeles used Wen Ho Lee's password to enter Los Alamos National Laboratory's computer system via the Internet. ee's attorneys say it was his daughter, Alberta, playing a computer game. But federal prosecutors, who are continuing to investigate the log-ins, are not so sure. They are trying to determine whether someone else at UCLA may have gained access to the U.S. nuclear secrets that Lee transferred from the classified, highly secure computer network at Los Alamos to a less secure, unclassified network. Over a period of a year, Lee's password was used about 70 times to log in to the unclassified Los Alamos network from the UCLA campus. Investigators are examining whether it was merely a coincidence that three of those sessions took place within hours after Lee downloaded fresh batches of secrets to the unclassified computer….."

The Associated Press 1/19/2000 H Joseph Hebert "…..A six-month Energy Department investigation has found evidence of racial profiling and an ``atmosphere of distrust and suspicion'' toward Asian Americans at nuclear weapons labs because of the uproar over alleged Chinese espionage. But Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, vowing to stamp out such profiling, insisted Wednesday that Taiwan-born scientist Wen Ho Lee was never singled out or fired from his job at the Los Alamos National Laboratory because of his race. Nevertheless, Asian-American scientists widely believe they have been unfairly targeted because of their race since Lee's dismissal last March for security violations, according to a task force report on racial profiling in the department……"

New York Times 1/11/2000 James Glanz "….The laser, called the National Ignition Facility and known by the acronym NIF, would create conditions similar to those in nuclear weapons, allowing scientists to study the properties of such weapons without exploding them... Although the project was originally expected to cost $1.2 billion and to be finished by 2003, Mr. Richardson angrily announced in September that he had been informed of the overruns [to $4.5 billion] by laser officials. The project also suffered other setbacks, including the resignation of its director, E. Michael Campbell, amid questions about his academic credentials. The panel that Mr. Richardson appointed to investigate the problems, led by Dr. John McTague, a former vice president for technical affairs at the Ford Motor Company, released a draft report today. The panel, which is formally a subcommittee of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, said that "no one gets a passing grade on NIF management," criticizing an absence of clear lines of accountability at the Energy Department, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where the laser is under construction, and elsewhere. The report reserved its most scathing language for Dr. Victor H. Reis, who until July was the assistant secretary of energy for defense programs…."

New York Times 1/20/2000 "…..Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said today that he would seek an additional $10 million to $15 million in next year's budget as part of an effort to recruit more scientists, particularly Asian-American ones, for the government's national laboratories. The proposed budget increase is part of a broader effort by Mr. Richardson to respond to charges of discrimination against Asian-American scientists at the nuclear weapons laboratories since the firing last March and subsequent arrest of Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwanese-born scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, in connection with the government's investigation of evidence that China had stolen American nuclear secrets. In addition, Mr. Richardson appointed a new ombudsman, Jeremy S. Wu, former deputy director for civil rights at the Department of Agriculture, to investigate accusations of discrimination throughout the Department of Energy…."

Sandia National Laboratories 1/27/2000 John German "….Sandia and other Department of Energy national laboratories will venture further into the truly tiny realm of atomic and molecular maneuvering following an announcement of a "National Nanotechnology Initiative" by President Clinton today from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena. The initiative would increase overall federal funding for nanoscience and nanotechnology R&D by 84 percent to $497 million beginning in fiscal year 2001. It would increase the funding at DOE from $58 million to $96 million in fiscal year 2001 (66 percent more than in 2000). Nanotechnology refers to the manipulation or self-assembly of individual atoms, molecules, or molecular clusters into structures with dimensions in the 1- to 100-nanometer range to create materials and devices with new or vastly different properties. For comparison, a human hair is about 10,000 nanometers thick. Scientists believe the ability to move and combine individual atoms and molecules will revolutionize the production of virtually every human-made object and usher in a new technology revolution at least as significant as the silicon revolution of the 20th century……"

AP 1/25/2000 "….A longtime employee of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory resigned Monday, saying his bosses retaliated against him for reporting safety vi