[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 153 (Thursday, September 28, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14563-S14564]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  INVESTIGATION OF CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT TRAFFICKING--CORRECTION OF THE 
                                 RECORD

 Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, this Senator would always wish to 
correct the record of any proceedings of the 

[[Page S 14564]]
Senate, or any of the committees of the Congress, when failure to do so 
might do an injustice.
  Today it is appropriate to correct such a record, having to do with 
information presented to the Subcommittee on National Security 
Economics of the Joint Economic Committee, meeting at 10 a.m. on 
Wednesday, December 21, 1988. The record of the hearing was published 
in a collection of hearings of subcommittees of the Joint Economic 
Committee, Senate Hearing 100-1059 beginning at page 559.
  The hearing in question concerned trafficking in classified documents 
of the Department of Defense, and how the Department of Defense and the 
Department of Justice dealt with those problems during the period 1983-
88.
  A staff report prepared by the staff of the Joint Economic Committee 
Subcommittee on National Security Economics and the investigative staff 
of my office was included in the hearing. The staff report contains 
some information, supplied by officials of the Defense Criminal 
Investigative Service, which is not correct.
  It has been brought to my attention that some of that information may 
have cast an undeserved cloud upon one of the persons named in the 
report. Two individuals are named in this information, on page 2 of the 
staff report, in the following paragraph:

       The Ohio investigation revealed evidence of widespread 
     trafficking in classified documents, involving at least ten 
     contractors and 30 Pentagon officials, including high level 
     civilian and military officials. The investigation resulted 
     in the indictments of two officials, John McCarthy, who was 
     then director of NASA Lewis Research Center, and James R. 
     Atchison, an Air Force employee at the Wright-Patterson Base 
     in Dayton, Ohio. McCarthy plead guilty in 1983 to a charge of 
     filing false claims in connection with travel to Washington, 
     D.C. Atchison resigned from the government and was not 
     brought to trial.

  Mr. President, I would like to correct several of the statements 
about Mr. James R. Atchison.
  Mr. Atchison has never been indicted on any charges. This is 
confirmed in a letter to the Joint Economic Committee of October 6, 
1992, from Mr. Derek J. Vander Schaaf, Deputy Inspector General of DOD.
  Mr. Vander Schaaf notes that the focus of the investigative effort 
that led to Mr. Atchison was the unauthorized trafficking in classified 
documents. But there was no evidence resulting from any DOD or NASA 
investigation involving Mr. Atchison in any wrongdoing relating to 
classified documents. The Air Force took an adverse employee action 
against Mr. Atchison for other reasons.
  Mr. Atchison has asked that the statements about him be corrected in 
the record, to the extent possible. I agree, Mr. President, that the 
record must be corrected, and that is what I have attempted to do here 
today. 

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