[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 77 (Monday, June 19, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5321-S5323]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   SECURITY BREACHES AT NATIONAL LABS

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, one of the reasons we have time today is to 
discuss the breach of security at the National Laboratories. I want to 
address that subject for a moment this afternoon.
  We are all aware of what happened in the last couple of weeks 
regarding the lost computer disks at the Los Alamos National Lab, and 
the news that those disks have now been found. But the questions remain 
about what happened to them during the time they were gone--whether or 
not they were copied and whether or not in any event our National 
Laboratories are, in fact, secure.
  Let me go back in time to about a year ago when we were debating the 
Defense authorization bill of last year. One of the portions of that 
bill was an amendment that I offered, along with Senators Domenici and 
Murkowski, to create a new semiautonomous agency at the Department of 
Energy, the Department of Energy Reorganization Act. That was in 
response to the recommendation of one of the President's own 
commissions, a group called the President's Forward Intelligence 
Advisory Board, or the so-called PFIAB Act.
  Former Senator Rudman chaired the President's Foreign Intelligence 
Advisory Board and made some recommendations concerning the creation of 
this semiautonomous agency in response to the effect of the theft of 
some of our most sensitive nuclear secrets from the Los Alamos Lab a 
few years ago.
  We discovered that the Chinese Government had possession of what 
were, in effect, the blueprints for some of our Nation's most 
sophisticated nuclear weapons ever built. We didn't know how those 
blueprints were obtained by the Chinese Government, but we believe they 
had to have been obtained from the Los Alamos nuclear lab. We 
determined that we needed to make some changes in security practices at 
the laboratory.
  It was believed that a scientist there by the name of Wen Ho Lee had 
taken charge of these documents and had somehow gotten them to someone 
representing the Chinese Government--a matter that has not yet been 
proven. We wanted to get to the bottom of it, and to make sure there 
would never again be a security breach at our National Laboratories.
  By way of background, these National Laboratories, two of them--
Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos--are technically run by the 
University of California at Berkeley. But they do their weapons work 
under the auspices of the Department of Energy.
  The PFIAB reports found that the culture of the laboratories to 
promote good science and develop all of these new technologies relating 
to nuclear weapons was such that it would be very difficult to reform 
from within, for either the Department of Energy or the laboratories 
themselves to put into place the security measures necessary to protect 
these secrets.
  As a result, the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board recommended the 
creation of an autonomous agency, totally separate and apart from the 
Department of Energy, under which this work is done, or, at a minimum, 
the creation of a semiautonomous agency within the Department of Energy 
for this weapons work to be done. Some called it a stovepipe; in other 
words, an organization within the Department of Energy that was totally 
enclosed, that would be run by an Under Secretary, and would be very 
much focused on security at the labs.
  The Secretary of Energy, Bill Richardson, didn't like this idea. He 
wanted to remain in charge. On the debate just about a year ago, my 
colleagues on both the Democrat and Republican sides of the aisle 
concluded that the President's own Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board 
was correct, that we should create a semiautonomous agency and take 
that out of the Secretary's direct control. The Secretary was so much 
opposed, he tried to get the President to veto the bill over that, 
because we passed it in the Senate and the House of Representatives 
passed it. It became part of the Defense authorization bill for last 
year. The President signed the bill, and it became the law.
  The Secretary continued to fight it, maintaining he should maintain 
the jurisdiction over this nuclear weapons program, that he could do 
the job. As a result, the President did not send up the name of this 
Under Secretary to head this new, semiautonomous agency, and Secretary 
Richardson did not implement the new law. He did virtually nothing to 
see that the new law was put into place. He kept maintaining that he 
was in charge and that so

[[Page S5322]]

long as there was not an Under Secretary, he would still personally be 
in charge.
  In fact, he testified last October before the Congress that he would 
remain in charge until a new person was put in charge. He specifically 
said: The buck stops with me. He said: The President has asked me to 
remain in charge until there is a new Under Secretary, and the 
President will hold me accountable, and I intend to be held 
accountable.
  Senator Fitzgerald asked him a specific question as he said: The buck 
stops with me. Senator Fitzgerald asked the Secretary: If, God forbid, 
there should be a security breach at one of the laboratories, you would 
assume full responsibility, is that correct? And Secretary Richardson 
said: Yes, I will assume full responsibility.
  Now, that was then and this is now. We know there was not an Under 
Secretary appointed, that Secretary Richardson continued to maintain 
control over the situation, to take the responsibility for it, to 
assure the American people that our weapons labs were safe and secure. 
In fact, he said last year: I can assure the American people that our 
nuclear laboratories are safe and secure. Because he was in charge.
  But what we now know is this past April and May, or presumably during 
that period, sometime in April, at the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory, 
two hard drive disks containing some very sensitive information 
relating to both U.S. and other countries' nuclear weapons were taken 
from the vault, from a portion of Division X of the nuclear program at 
Los Alamos. They were missing. They were missing for several weeks. 
They were believed to have been found in the last few days behind a 
copy machine in Division X. But the FBI has not yet disclosed its 
findings with respect to how the disks were removed, how they were 
returned, and what might have happened to them in the interim.
  The Secretary said he believes an employee was trying to cover up the 
fact that he had the disks and that there is no evidence they have been 
copied. The fact is there is no evidence either way. It is very 
difficult for the FBI to determine whether or not these hard drive 
disks were, in fact, copied. We may know more about that in the next 
several days. Whether they were, whether someone also has that 
sensitive information or not, there was still a significant security 
breach and lapse at the laboratories, revealing that they are still not 
safe and secure; there are still problems. We have to figure out what 
to do about it.
  What would happen if that information had been obtained by someone 
else? In addition to telling that person or country a lot about our 
nuclear weapons and how they work, it would have provided an 
opportunity for them to understand how we intended to dismantle or 
disable a nuclear weapon because these disks were in the possession of 
the team we have put in charge of disarming a terrorist nuclear weapon. 
There is a special kit prepared, and these disks are part of that kit. 
If we find that there is a nuclear device somewhere in the country, 
these experts will immediately take that kit to the site and begin to 
try to dismantle the weapon. The hard drives contain information which 
is helpful to them in determining how to dismantle the weapon. 
Obviously, if you have that, you have some ideas about how to prevent 
the dismantling and how to boobytrap it if you are a terrorist. It is 
an important piece of information.
  What happened from the time Secretary Richardson maintained he was in 
charge until now?
  Finally, last month, the President sent up the name of Gen. John 
Gordon to become the Under Secretary and head up this agency. But the 
Senate still hadn't confirmed General Gordon until last month. Why? 
Because Democrats were still trying to change the underlying law, at 
Secretary Richardson's request.
  A member of the Senate minority had held up the confirmation vote on 
General Gordon for several weeks, almost a month, trying to get us to 
make changes in the law that were acceptable to Secretary Richardson. 
It wasn't until the embarrassment of last week that they finally agreed 
to have a vote. Of course, when we took the vote, his confirmation was 
approved 97-0. Presumably, he is on the job as of today. I have a great 
deal of confidence in General Gordon, if Secretary Richardson will 
allow him to do his job. That remains the question.
  I summarize in the following way: It is clear we still have problems 
at our national labs. It is clear that General Gordon and his new 
semiautonomous agency needs to be allowed to get to the bottom of the 
situation and to put into place protections that will prevent further 
security breaches at our national labs.
  I believe Secretary Richardson should step down from his position for 
two reasons. First, it was his choice to maintain personal 
responsibility over this for the last year. We afforded him the 
opportunity to put somebody else in charge. At one point I said to him: 
Mr. Secretary, cooperate with us. Let's get an Under Secretary 
nominated and put into place and let that expert run this 
semiautonomous agency and give him the responsibility for this. 
Secretary Richardson, in effect, said: No, I will remain personally 
responsible because I want to do it my way.
  Because he wanted to take personal responsibility, contrary to the 
law that had been then signed by the President, and because he said he 
would accept full responsibility, it seems to me we should now take him 
at his word and allow him to assume full responsibility by taking the 
blame, rather than passing it on to other people.
  The second reason he should step down is that I don't have confidence 
in him allowing General Gordon to do the job even now. He has ``dual-
hatted'' several employees in the Department of Energy, asking that 
current people be allowed to fill positions we created under this new 
law, positions we intended to be part of this separate, semiautonomous 
agency, not employees of the Department of Energy who would wear two 
hats--their regular Department of Energy hat and fulfill the 
responsibilities under this new law.
  We don't think you can do both. Secretary Richardson didn't want to 
have separate employees. He wants to use his own employees under his 
control, and therefore he has been dual-hatting these employees. To 
this day, I don't know whether he will allow separate employees to be 
hired, whether he will allow General Gordon to bring his own team, or 
allow him to do the job as he sees fit, or whether Secretary Richardson 
will continue to maintain the fixation for personal control of the 
situation. I have no confidence in that. I call for him to step down 
and allow General Gordon to do the job. That is what the law provides. 
That is why the President signed the law. I think the American people 
want to know that our nuclear weapons laboratories will be secure. This 
is the only way they will be secure.
  Finally, I heard a colleague on television yesterday say, back in his 
day, President Bush issued a regulation which changed some of the 
security procedures at the laboratories, as if somehow that had 
something to do with what has recently occurred. The point is this: If 
Secretary Richardson was in charge, then he had the full authority to 
change anything he didn't like, including any directives President Bush 
may have put into place. But Secretary Richardson's bent is to blame 
other people rather than accept the responsibility himself. So if he 
thought there was something wrong with the way President Bush did it, 
he could have corrected it since. Remember, he was in charge.

  My purpose here is not just to point the finger at Secretary 
Richardson for political purposes but to say that until he steps aside, 
I don't have any confidence the situation is going to get any better 
because he has had a year now to correct the situation, and all he has 
found time to do is to criticize others when he himself had accepted 
the responsibility.
  I am hoping, A, that the FBI will in the next few days get to the 
bottom of it, tell us exactly what occurred, and hopefully be able to 
assure us that no secrets have gone to an unauthorized party; B, that 
the people responsible for the breach in security will be found and 
will be properly punished; and, C, that General Gordon will be allowed 
to do his job, as Senator Rudman's commission, the President's advisory 
commission, and the Congress hoped when we passed the legislation 
creating his position and this new semiautonomous agency.

[[Page S5323]]

  The American people deserve to know that our most important nuclear 
secrets can be kept safe and secure. Especially with the terrorist 
threat that confronts this country, we need to know we can disarm a 
terrorist nuclear weapon if we should ever be faced with that 
particular kind of threat. We need to know our ability to do it has not 
been compromised.
  For that reason, I hope that the Secretary will step down, that 
General Gordon will be able to do his job, and that from now on our 
nuclear laboratories can operate in a way that protects the vital 
information they have been able to develop over these many years.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kyl). Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. THOMAS. I thank the Chair.

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