[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 81 (Wednesday, June 9, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1185]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                      WEAPONS LABORATORY SECURITY

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. DOUG BEREUTER

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 9, 1999

  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, this Member would ask his colleagues to 
consider carefully the following editorial from the June 2, 1999, 
edition of the Omaha World-Herald, entitled ``A Price For Lost 
Secrets.'' It speaks to the need to establish accountability for the 
intolerable security which has prevailed at Department of Energy 
weapons laboratory facilities.

                [From Omaha World-Herald, June 2, 1999]

                        A Price For Lost Secrets

       Clinton administration official Bill Richardson said 
     recently it was time to stop ``looking for heads to roll'' in 
     response to the administration's failure to combat Chinese 
     spying at U.S. nuclear facilities. He is wrong. For too long, 
     the administration has been hiding behind the bromide that 
     it's petty, mean-spirited and counterproductive to assess 
     blame for the illegal distribution of FBI files, the 
     reception of illegal foreign campaign donations, and other 
     mess-ups in this administration.
       Richardson is secretary of the Energy Department which 
     supervises nuclear research laboratories. Several years ago a 
     career Energy intelligence officer began warning his Clinton-
     appointed supervisors that tax security, especially at the 
     Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, was allowing 
     China to steal nuclear secrets. The warning, initially 
     dismissed by the Clintonites as alarmist nonsense, eventually 
     was conveyed up the chain of command to key Cabinet members 
     and the president. Still there was no meaningful response.
       The Justice Department rejected the FBI's request for 
     permission to conduct electronic surveillance of a scientist 
     who now stands accused of transferring to China more than 
     1,000 classified files of nuclear secrets. Attorney General 
     Janet Reno now is pointing fingers at subordinates, saying 
     she was given bad advice.
       It's good to see that pressure is building to the point 
     that the attorney general is compelled to do the sort of 
     scapegoating that Richardson wants to squelch. Reno ought to 
     feel severe heat. If deputies did blow it and made Reno look 
     bad, then they, too, ought to be seared in the crucible of 
     public scrutiny.
       The campaign for accountability ought to be applied across 
     party lines. The current intelligence director at Energy said 
     recently that Republican Richard Shelby, chairman of the 
     Senate Intelligence Committee, never responded to the FBI's 
     1997 proposal for $12.5 billion worth of changes to fight 
     nuclear spying. Shelby said that the committee already had 
     begun working on counterintelligence measures in 1996 but 
     that Energy ignored the Committee's recommendations.
       Let debate continue on that and all other arguments about 
     Chinese nuclear spying on American soil. This administration 
     has bungled the most important duty of government--
     safeguarding the security of the nation. The people 
     responsible ought to be exposed.
       The Clinton administration, through the Democratic National 
     Committee, received millions of illegal campaign dollars from 
     Chinese sources while refusing to act on information that 
     China was raiding the nuclear store. Corporations, that were 
     major donors to the DNC were allowed to share prohibited 
     technology with Chinese businesses as part of lucrative 
     deals. And then there was Reno's thwarting of the FBI's 
     pursuit of the suspected mole at Los Alamos. When will the 
     president offer an explanation to rebut the evidence that 
     something caused his administration to go out of its way to 
     accommodate China?
       Bring out the political guillotine.

       

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