* AEP Completes Y2K Nerc Drill
* Oregon plant explosion injures five
* Nuclear Fight Cuts Class Lines Wyoming Waste Issue Uniting Elite, Others
* Intelligence Council report details threats U.S. forces face . . .
* CIA Wary on N. Korea, Iran Missiles (2)
* Missile defense talks on Alaska likely site for new network (Anchorage)
* Alaska May Be Missile Defense Site (AP)
* U.S. may put anti-missile interceptors in Alaska (Reuters)
* Veto Urged For Energy Revamp; State Attorneys General, Democrats Oppose Plan
* Los Alamos Cited By DOE
* Proposal to polygraph Los Alamos workers fuels union drive
* A vote for nuclear war?

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COLUMBUS, Ohio, Sept. 9 1999 /PRNewswire
Company Press Release, SOURCE: American Electric Power
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/990909/oh_amer_el_1.html

American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP - news) tested several of its Year 2000 contingency plans overnight in preparation for the rollover to Jan. 1.

Workers at power plants, transmission and distribution centers were asked to respond to mock emergencies using an 800 MHz radio, satellite telephones and cellular telephones as backup telecommunications. The exercise was designed to gauge how quickly workers could handle emergencies, such as outages at major power plants, and included functions involving the entire AEP bulk power system.

The drill began Wednesday and continued until 2 a.m. today. All power plants and substations containing major interconnections across the AEP system participated in 10 drill scenarios. An additional 200 workers supplemented normal staffing to enable AEP to successfully complete the drill.

One scenario simulated the loss of communications in the System Operation control room, which is responsible for controlling generation dispatch and monitoring the extra-high voltage transmission system.

Duties normally performed by the control room were temporarily transferred to a backup control center. The backup center was required to manually record information received from power plants and distribution centers.

``Overall, there were no major surprises during the drill,'' said Michael H. Knapp, AEP's manager of transmission security. ``This was our dress rehearsal for the Dec. 31 rollover, and we wanted to know where we needed improvements in our emergency operating plan.

``We identified minor problems and changes that need to be made prior to the rollover, such as some communications problems. Between now and Dec. 31, changes in procedures and processes will be made to eliminate any of the minor problems identified in the drill,'' Knapp said.

The drill was organized by the North American Electric Reliability Council to give electric utilities in North America an opportunity to test how workers would respond in emergency situations, such as an outage at a major power plant or loss of the normal communications system. NERC is an independent group requested by the U.S. Department of Energy to monitor electric utilities' Y2K readiness.

Y2K refers to disruptions that could occur if computer systems cannot distinguish between the years 1900 and 2000. In order to save space, earlier computers were programmed to read only the last two digits of a date, such as ``99'' for 1999. When the calendar changes to 2000, computer systems could believe it is 1900 and malfunction or even shut down.

Systems critical for keeping electricity flowing to customers on Jan. 1 have been tested and are Y2K ready. Two mission-critical systems yet to be completed include a gas measurements system at Louisiana Intrastate Gas, a 2,000-mile intrastate pipeline owned by AEP; and a meteorological reporting system at Cook Nuclear Plant in Bridgman, Mich. Both systems are scheduled to be Y2K ready later this year.

AEP, a global energy company, is one of the United States' largest investor-owned utilities, providing energy to 3 million customers in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. AEP has holdings in the United States, the United Kingdom, China and Australia. Wholly owned subsidiaries provide power engineering, energy consulting and energy management services around the world. The company is based in Columbus, Ohio. On Dec. 22, 1997, AEP announced a definitive merger agreement for a tax-free, stock-for-stock transaction with Central and South West Corp., a public utility holding company based in Dallas.

News releases and other information about AEP can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.aep.com.

This is a Year 2000 readiness disclosure. This material is provided to help you understand the Y2K issue and AEP's response to it. It is not intended as a specific representation or warranty with respect to AEP's Y2K readiness.

SOURCE: American Electric Power

More Quotes and News: American Electric Power Co Inc (NYSE:AEP http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=aep&d=t

- news)

http://biz.yahoo.com/n/a/aep.html

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USA Today (Nation), September 9, 1999
http://usatoday.com/news/digest/nd1.htm

ALBANY, Ore. - An explosion at a titanium manufacturing plant that was so powerful it was felt 10 miles away left one worker critically burned and four others injured. Tuesday night's blast at the Oremet-Wah Chang plant, about 65 miles south of Portland, occurred during the titanium melting process in one of the plant's buildings, said fire department spokeswoman Wanda Omdahl. It was apparently sparked when water seeped into a containment vessel and came in contact with the molten metal. No toxic chemicals were released, Omdahl said. One worker was in critical condition at Legacy Emanuel Hospital in Portland, and the others were treated at Albany General Hospital, Albany General spokeswoman Kim Sass said.

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By Todd Wilkinson The Christian Science Monitor J A C K S O N, Wyo., Sept. 8 1999
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/nuclearfight990908.html
http://www2.nando.net/noframes/story/0,2107,90832-143777-1002923-0,00.html

To some, it seemed more like an old-fashioned religious revival than a town meeting.

In a packed orchestra hall here late last month, ski bums and service workers, members of the social elite and corporate power brokers joined hands and opened wallets to fight a proposed nuclear-waste incinerator on the other side of the Grand Teton mountains.

Within a matter of minutes, Gerry Spence, the local lawyer who represented Karen Silkwood, had roused the crowd into an emotional frenzy and raised a half-million dollars to serve as a war chest against the facility.

United by the 'Downwind'

For Jackson, Wyo., where a chasm separates rich and poor, the uncommon coming together offers perhaps a new chapter in the struggle of "downwinders" people who find themselves in the same neighborhood as nuclear material.

Their decades-old struggle often has centered on "environmental justice," in which poor neighborhoods on the wrong side of the tracks lie near toxic smokestacks or have contaminated barrels buried in their backyards. But here in one of America's most affluent and politically connected communities, many observers see what could be the beginning of heightened grass-roots activism among the well-to-do.

When citizens take on government, "usually they cannot win because they lack the resources," says Spence, known for wearing frilly buckskin jackets in court. "This is one situation where there is enough money around so that the people have a fighting chance."

No Comments, Please?

The uproar began in June after citizens learned that Idaho was closing a public comment period on the nuclear incinerator. Few people in Wyoming were aware that there had even been one, says Berte Hirschfield with Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free.

Together with a few friends, Hirschfield, the wife of a former Hollywood studio executive, asked Idaho officials to extend the comment period. Idaho refused, she says, contending that it didn't have to involve citizens beyond the state boundaries even though air currents respect no border.

Later, Spence agreed to become involved with the case, and box-office star Harrison Ford, who owns a ranch here, pledged $50,000. A dozen business executives connected with Fortune 500 companies followed suit.

At last month's rally in the concert hall where the Grand Teton Symphony normally performs, the same people who clean the homes of the rich and famous also contributed parts of their meager paychecks.

Waste Expert Impressed

The outpouring of money impressed even Arjun Makhijani, an expert on the problems of storing nuclear waste and president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park, Md.

"I have never been to a public meeting in which a community raised half a million dollars on the spot," Makhijani says. "It was quite something to witness. Front-running presidential candidates would be hard-pressed to duplicate what happened in that room."

One reason for concern among many citizens here is that the site for the new facility the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) has had pollution problems in the past.

Radioactive waste stored underground has leaked into the aquifer on the Snake River plain. Now, to clean it up, the US Department of Energy which oversees INEEL wants to have an incinerator built to burn off toxic material in the waste. But Spence notes that a half dozen filter failures have occurred at another INEEL incinerator.

Contractor Has Spotty Reputation

Moreover, critics complain, the Department of Energy (DOE) has signed a contract with British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. to build and run the facility. In the words of activist Marv Hoyt, British Nuclear Fuels has "a bad track record for safety." "They are here to turn this into a for-profit venture and foremost to make money for their stockholders, not to hold public safety up as their top priority," says Hoyt of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a conservation group.

Corporate officials have said on numerous occasions that they will be responsible managers, despite intense scrutiny of the company in the United Kingdom.

Although proposals to burn waste in Colorado and New Mexico were stopped by outcries over alleged risks to public health, the DOE maintains that the process is safe.

Degrees of Potential Exposure

"We don't dismiss people's concerns," says Brad Bugger, spokesman for the Department of Energy. "But let's put it in perspective. Because of nuclear testing and fallout around the world, there is plutonium in the atmosphere.... You are exposed to more [natural] radioactivity on a flight from New York to Los Angeles."

Yet that assessment provides no solace to citizens in Jackson Hole, who say a history of secrecy in the DOE makes its promises suspect. Spence, whose evidence in the Silkwood case focused on the cover-up of information related to radioactive exposure and contamination of citizens, is not impressed.

"The issue is not about an objection to nuclear-waste disposal, because it has to be gotten rid of," he says. "What is objectionable is that the government itself admits a higher risk of death ... by burning nuclear waste as opposed to other methods of waste disposal."

For Chuck Broscious, who has tracked INEEL for 15 years as director the Environmental Defense Institute in Troy, Idaho, Jackson's stand could become an important national touchstone. He says it could bring other affluent communities which often are removed from controversies like this into taking a fresh view of the ubiquitous problem of nuclear waste.

"Idaho is a relatively poor state, like most other downwinder states, but the DOE never expected that standing behind Idaho were the millionaires and billionaires of Jackson Hole," says Broscious. "They have elevated the debate to a whole different level."

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By Bob Drogin LOS ANGELES TIMES,
The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 10, 1999
http://www.phillynews.com/programs/aprint

WASHINGTON - The U.S. intelligence community warned yesterday that proliferation of medium-range ballistic missiles, driven primarily by sales from North Korea, presented an "immediate, serious and growing threat" to U.S. forces and allies and had "significantly altered" the strategic balances in the Middle East and Asia.

The unexpectedly dire assessment by the National Intelligence Council also warns for the first time that rogue nations developing ballistic missiles will seek to build systems to jam, evade or overwhelm potential U.S. antimissile defense systems. The report adds that Russia and China "probably" will sell their own counter-measure technology to other countries.

The report thus provides strong ammunition to both sides in the contentious political debate over whether the United States should build national or regional antimissile systems.

Missile-defense supporters cite the threat from North Korea as justification, while critics predict the systems will never work and could spark a new arms race.

Although the number of nuclear-armed missiles capable of striking the United States has decreased since the Cold War, the report says the world has grown less secure because missile technology has spread to unpredictable regimes such as North Korea and Iran. Such states may threaten to use missiles as a means of diplomatic blackmail, rather than for warfare.

"It feels more dangerous because there are so many more factors," a senior intelligence official said during a briefing at CIA headquarters, where a 16-page unclassified version of the report was released yesterday.

He said the probability that a missile armed with a nuclear, chemical or biological weapon will be used against U.S. forces or interests is "higher today than during most of the Cold War."

The report concludes that the United States will most likely face ballistic missile threats over the next 15 years from Russia, China and North Korea, probably from Iran, and possibly from Iraq.

It said Russia, which has about 1,000 strategic ballistic missiles and 4,500 nuclear warheads, "will continue to be the most robust and lethal" threat. But it said Russia's nuclear force was expected to decrease dramatically, far below limitations set by arms-control treaties, due to severe budgetary constraints.

China, which has about 20 intercontinental ballistic missiles, is expected to have "tens of missiles" capable of targeting the United States by 2015.

The intelligence official said there was no evidence, including China's first test last month of the solid-fueled, mobile DF-31 intercontinental missile, that Beijing was seeking a first-strike capability.

Chinese policy calls for a nuclear force that could survive a nuclear strike and launch a counterattack, thus serving as a deterrent.

The report said Iran could test a missile able to deliver a payload of several hundred kilograms to the United States in the last half of the next decade using Russian technology and assistance, but most analysts believe it could test a less powerful, less accurate missile in the next few years.

The Stalinist regime in North Korea, however, remains the greatest concern. Pakistan and Iran have tested new missiles in the last year that were based on North Korean designs, assistance or technology.

The report concedes that North Korea's launch of a three-stage rocket that flew over Japan in August 1998 was "completely unexpected" by U.S. intelligence agencies. The rocket, which failed to put a satellite into orbit, could easily be modified to carry a warhead. More immediately, U.S. negotiators attending talks this week in Berlin are trying to persuade North Korea not to test a new intercontinental ballistic missile, called the Taepodong 2, that is deemed ready for launch.

Washington wants North Korea to freeze or phase out its ballistic missile development, testing and sales.

Overall, the report is more alarmist in tone than the last official intelligence assessment of the ballistic missile threat to the United States, issued in March 1998.

Four months later, a bipartisan congressional panel led by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned that North Korea and Iran could strike U.S. territory with "little or no warning" and criticized the intelligence community for being too complacent.

The new report follows Rumsfeld's lead, for the first time presenting ominous scenarios of what potential enemies could do over the next 15 years, as opposed to only offering what analysts deem them most likely to do.

The report also warns that the United States is highly vulnerable to attacks by short-range missiles, if a terrorist or hostile nation launches one from an offshore ship or from an aircraft outside U.S. airspace.

It said the likelihood is increasing of a deadly terrorist attack involving chemical weapons.

The annual report on the foreign missile developments and the ballistic missile threat to the United States was mandated by Congress.

Briefings on the classified intelligence report are to begin today on Capitol Hill.

-----------

By Robert Burns AP Military Writer Thursday, September 9, 1999; 4:00 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990909/V000196-090999-idx.html
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsthu05.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Missile-Threat.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- North Korea and Iran are likely to join established nuclear powers Russia and China as long-range missile threats to the United States over the next 15 years, the CIA said today.

These emerging missile forces ``potentially can kill tens of thousands, or even millions, of Americans, depending on the type of warhead, the accuracy and the intended target,'' the intelligence agency said.

In an intelligence report with major implications for the Pentagon's efforts to develop defenses against ballistic missiles, the CIA said Iraq posed an additional -- though somewhat more distant -- threat. It said it was questionable whether Iraq could test a missile with enough range to reach the United States before 2015, although the likelihood depends heavily on how much foreign assistance Iraq gets.

The report characterized the prospect of North Korea acquiring a long-range missile by 2015 as ``most likely,'' Iran's prospect was judged to be ``probable'' and Iraq was labeled a ``possible'' threat.

Russia has long posed a major nuclear threat to the United States, although Washington and Moscow are attempting to implement a second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty to greatly reduce the size of their arsenals. Defense Secretary William Cohen is traveling to Moscow next week to discuss the prospects for going even further in nuclear weapons cuts, and to discuss future missile defenses.

``The Russian threat, although significantly reduced, will continue to be the most robust and lethal, considerably more so than that posed by China, and orders of magnitude more than that potentially posed by other nations,'' the CIA report said.

It said China, which now has about 20 long-range nuclear missiles, is likely to increase its arsenal by ``a few tens'' of missiles, including some with warheads ``influenced'' in part by U.S. technology gained through espionage.

The report is a summary of a classified National Intelligence Estimate, the first the CIA has done on ballistic missile threats since 1995. In an October 1998 update of its assessment, the CIA told Congress that the United States was facing a growing threat from the spread of ballistic missiles.

---

By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, September 10, 1999; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/10/067l-091099-idx.html

Iran and Iraq may join North Korea in presenting a ballistic missile threat to the mainland United States within the next 10 years, according to a declassified version of a new national intelligence estimate released yesterday.

In the next few years, Iran "could" test an ICBM capable of delivering a small, nonnuclear payload to the United States using technology and assistance it has received from Russia, according to the report by the CIA and other members of the U.S. intelligence community. "In the last half of the next decade," the report adds, Tehran could test a ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear-weapon-sized payload to most of the United States.

Iraq, according to the report, could test a North Korean-type ICBM that could hit the United States in the next 10 years, "depending on the level of foreign assistance." Analysts differ, however, on whether it would take 10 or 15 years before the Iraqis could test an ICBM that could carry a nuclear warhead.

The report is an outgrowth of a controversy that developed two years ago, when Congress criticized a national intelligence estimate that appeared to underestimate the ballistic missile threats facing the United States.

In July 1998, a commission headed by former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld criticized the earlier analyses and forced a revision in analytical approach. The intelligence community was further embarrassed several months later after North Korea launched an unexpected three-stage missile, called the Taepo Dong-1, which unsuccessfully attempted to put a payload in space.

North Korea was described in the report released yesterday as being able to convert the Taepo Dong-1 to an intercontinental missile, but the experts said it was more likely a larger model, the Taepo Dong-2, would be used to carry a warhead to the United States. The analysts wrote that the North Koreans could test the larger missile "at any time," but it could be delayed "for political reasons." U.S., Japanese and South Korean officials are attempting to get Pyongyang to delay its testing in return for financial and agricultural aid.

The ballistic missile report, which is mandated by Congress, could increase support for calls for President Clinton to approve next year building a limited missile defense to protect the United States against an attack. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott went to Moscow this week for talks with the Russian government about a U.S. plan for building a 100-missile defense site in Alaska--a deployment that would require changes in the 1972 ABM Treaty.

The intelligence analysts concluded that North Korea, Iran and Iraq are building their ICBM forces mainly for "coercive diplomacy" and to deter preemptive U.S. use of its far larger nuclear missile forces against them.

A senior intelligence official who participated in the study said yesterday that the spread of medium-range missiles "has created an immediate, serious and growing threat to U.S. forces."

The report noted that Russian forces will "decrease dramatically--well below arms control limits--primarily because of budget restraints."

By 2015, according to the report, China "will likely have tens of missiles targeted against the United States" with small nuclear warheads "in part influenced by U.S. technology gained through espionage."

-----------

Anchorage Daily News wire services , September 9, 1999
http://www.adn.com/stories/T99090932.html

WASHINGTON - The Clinton administration has begun negotiations with Russia on treaty amendments that could allow it to place missiles in Alaska for its proposed anti-ballistic-missile defense network.

State Department spokesman James Rubin announced the decision Wednesday, adding that the administration won't decide whether to deploy a missile defense until next summer. He spoke as U.S. and Russian officials in Moscow opened two days of negotiations on the terms under which a missile defense in Alaska and elsewhere could be established.

Rejecting calls from Republican lawmakers to overhaul the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty all at once, President Clinton decided to ask Russia to agree initially to relatively modest changes in the 27-year-old agreement, administration officials told The Washington Post.

The first set of changes sought by the administration would permit the United States to place 100 interceptor missiles in Alaska, which is the Pentagon's latest plan for defending the country against, at a bare minimum, a few incoming warheads from a state like North Korea, Iraq or Iran, according to the Post.

Planning for deployment of a system is under way in Alaska, where potential sites have been narrowed to two: Clear Air Station near Anderson, south of Fairbanks, and Fort Greely, near Delta Junction. Another such system is under consideration for North Dakota.

As the threat of attack is perceived to grow and as U.S. technologies improve, the United States would seek further treaty amendments to permit more than 200 interceptors, at least two launching sites, advances in radar and the use of space-based sensors, the Post reported.

Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, the administration's top Russia expert, flew to Moscow Tuesday to begin discussions on the phased negotiation plan and on reducing nuclear stockpiles. Other high-level exchanges are due next week when Defense Secretary William Cohen visits Moscow and Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister, Georgi Mamedov, comes to Washington.

Russia, hard pressed financially to create its own anti-missile defense, has been reluctant to make the change. But the United States wants to modify the treaty so it can build a limited defense against attack by rogue states, such as North Korea.

"The president has made some decisions that will enable us to begin engaging Russia now on changes on the ABM treaty that would be necessary if we seek to deploy a limited national missile-defense system," Rubin said.

President Boris Yeltsin agreed in June to discuss ABM modifications, but Russian officials continue to insist that an anti-missile defense system in the United States would tilt the strategic balance and start a new arms race.

The decision by the administration to move forward follows months of debate within the administration over whether to seek wholesale changes in the treaty immediately or take a two-step approach as the United States attempts to build a nationwide system of defense against incoming missiles.

The decision to focus on Alaska drew praise from officials in Delta Junction and Anderson, the communities closest to proposed sites at Fort Greely and Clear Air Force Station.

Fort Greely is slated for closure, and locals hope a missile system will replace some of the 500-plus jobs the community is expected to lose.

"For the economy of Delta Junction it would be a real boost," said Dick Anderson, the transition coordinator for the realignment of the base. "The stable employment would hopefully end the boom and bust cycles that we've seen here."

The missile-defense system would likely bring a wave of construction spending followed by a permanent work force of about 300, Anderson said.

Delta Junction Mayor Richard Gilbertson said the community has been strongly supportive of the proposal, despite worries that the defense system could be an early target in a strike against the United States.

While Clinton has yet to approve the deployment of any national missile-defense system, he has come closer in the past year to a decision to build one under pressure from Republican lawmakers and amid evidence that a growing number of nations are acquiring ballistic missiles.

In January, Clinton pledged $6.6 billion over the next six years for construction of a network of radars and interceptor missiles. The administration also announced at that time that it would ask Russia to renegotiate the ABM treaty to permit a limited system of missile defenses. Months of debate then ensued over how to structure the talks.

The ABM Treaty, signed by Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev, strictly limits the number, type and placement of missiles that Washington or Moscow can deploy to shoot down incoming missiles. Its fundamental premise, which held throughout the Cold War, was that limiting missile defense would discourage development of more offensive nuclear weapons and make each side confident that it had a credible deterrent against attack.

---

By Pauline Jelinek Associated Press Writer Wednesday, September 8, 1999; 5:35 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990908/V000351-090899-idx.html
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/19990908/pl/us_russia_missile_defense_1.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Clinton administration has selected Alaska as the likely first site for its proposed anti-ballistic missile defense network.

State Department spokesman James Rubin, who announced the decision Wednesday, said the administration won't decide whether to deploy a missile defense until next summer.

Rubin spoke as U.S. and Russian officials in Moscow opened two days of negotiations on the terms under which a missile defense could be established.

In 1972, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed in the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty not to construct a national defense against such missiles. The theory was that leaving both sides vulnerable deterred nuclear attacks because either country would face deadly retaliation.

Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott on Wednesday began two days of talks with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov on reducing nuclear stockpiles and possibly changing the treaty. Defense Secretary William Cohen also is expected to discuss the issue with his Russian counterpart on a trip to Moscow next Monday and Tuesday.

Russia, hard pressed financially to create its own anti-missile defense, is reluctant to make the change.

But the United States wants to modify the treaty so it can build a limited defense against attack by rogue states, such as North Korea.

``The president has made some decisions that will enable us to begin engaging Russia now on changes on the ABM treaty that would be necessary if we seek to deploy a limited national missile defense system,'' Rubin said.

President Boris Yeltsin agreed in June to discuss ABM modifications, but Russian officials continue to insist that an anti-missile defense system in the United States would tilt the strategic balance and start a new arms race.

Washington argues the system would not upset strategic stability because it would not be effective against a massive attack of the kind Russia is capable of launching.

---

07:36 p.m Sep 08, 1999 Eastern By Carol Giacomo
http://www.dogpile.com - search Infoseek

WASHINGTON, Sept 8 (Reuters) - The United States has drafted plans to permit stationing 100 missiles in Alaska to intercept potential attacks by rogue states as part of an anti-ballistic missile system, officials said on Wednesday.

This was included in a proposal Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott took to Moscow this week for arms control talks with the Russian government, the officials said.

The proposal contains the first concrete decisions to be presented to the Russians on the shape of a proposed U.S. nationwide anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system and the changes such a system would require in the ABM treaty, signed in 1972 between the United States and the Soviet Union.

President Clinton is not due to make a final determination on whether and when to deploy an ABM system until next summer.

But his Democratic administration has been under heavy pressure from opposition Republicans to move rapidly forward both in deploying a missile defence system and in substantively altering, or ditching, the treaty altogether.

``We anticipate that any initial national missile defence deployment would be Alaska-based and we have made no decisions regarding the location of a second site,'' State Department spokesman James Rubin told reporters.

US WANTS SECOND ABM SITE

In the long term, the U.S. goal is to establish a second ABM site, along with additional interceptors and radars, he said.

Other officials said plans are to station 100 interceptors in Alaska as a first phase system to defend against incoming enemy missiles from rogue state's like Iran, Iraq or North Korea.

If the missile threat is seen to grow, then the United States would seek further amendments in the ABM treaty to permit more than 200 interceptors, at least two launching sites, advances in radar and the use of space-based sensors, officials said, confirming a story that first appeared in the Washington Post.

Russia regards the ABM treaty as a cornerstone of world disarmament and has resisted U.S. efforts to make amendments.

Although Russia agreed to exploratory talks, they raised the stakes on the issue this week by saying Moscow had the technology to develop a missile to breach any U.S. defences.

Rubin said the ABM Treaty ``remains a cornerstone of strategic stability, and the United States is committed to continued efforts to strengthen that treaty.'' But he also said the U.S. is committed to developing a limited system.

``With this in mind, the president (Clinton) has made some decisions that will enable us to begin engaging Russia now on changes on the ABM treaty that would be necessary if we seek to deploy a limited national missile defence system,'' he said.

``We haven't taken a decision on deployment,'' he stressed.

But for deployment to occur, ``we do believe that changes will be required to the ABM treaty and we're now becoming more specific on the kind of programme and what changes would be necessary,'' he said.

The implication was that the administration had decided to seek limited changes to the treaty rather than a broader negotiation that some officials and outside critics preferred.

TREATY BANS PROTECTION OF WHOLE NATION

The treaty allows a single site for protecting either a set of strategic missiles or a nation's capital but bans a system to protect all national territory.

The United States in the 1970s picked Grand Forks, N.D. as the site. It now intends to substitute Alaska but not dismantle Grand Forks so as to keep its options open for the future.

U.S. officials stressed that one aspect of the U.S. programme will be to emphasise the myriad ways Russia could benefit from working cooperatively with Washington on anti-missile defences.

They declined to say specifically if the United States would offer Russia protection from the Alaska site.

In January, Clinton pledged $6.6 billion over the next six years to establish a network of radars and interceptor missiles. But the Pentagon has not proved it can build a workable programme.

In an effort to secure an ABM deal, Talbott was also to discuss with the Russians prospects for a START-3 nuclear arms reduction pact that could slash each side's arsenal to 1,500 warheads from 6,000.

U.S. officials could not say if Talbott had made any progress after negotiations on Wednesday. He was to meet Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov on Thursday again before returning to Washington.

U.S. Defence Secretary William Cohen is scheduled to visit Moscow next Monday for talks with his counterpart while Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is to meet Clinton in New Zealand next week at an Asia-Pacific summit.

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By Walter Pincus and Vernon Loeb Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, September 9, 1999; Page A19
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/09/153l-090999-idx.html

Leading congressional Democrats and 46 state attorneys general are urging President Clinton to veto a Republican plan to reorganize the Department of Energy.

The reorganization, prompted by China's alleged theft of U.S. nuclear secrets, would create a semiautonomous agency to oversee the DOE's enormous complex of laboratories and plants that research, assemble and maintain America's nuclear arsenal.

Congressional Republicans say the proposed National Nuclear Security Administration would tighten security and streamline the bureaucracy throughout the nuclear complex. Democratic critics say it would blur lines of authority and weaken environmental controls.

But the critics concede that because the reorganization has been inserted in the $289 billion defense authorization bill now before both houses of Congress for final passage, the only way to stop it may be a presidential veto--and the White House said yesterday that Clinton would wait for the bill to pass Congress before indicating what he would do.

A White House spokesman said Clinton wants a reorganization that "maximizes efficiency" and "does not negatively impact on future secretaries' ability to manage the department." But the spokesman did not say whether the bill as currently worded would meet those conditions.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson already has expressed deep reservations about the GOP plan. Sen. Carl M. Levin (Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, took aim at the proposed reorganization yesterday, saying it would make the secretary of energy less accountable for security and counterintelligence.

To bolster his argument, Levin released an analysis by the Congressional Research Service that says the reorganization could "contribute to conflict" between the energy secretary and the administrator of the proposed nuclear agency, which would formally be part of the Energy Department but would have a substantial degree of autonomy.

Last week, 46 state attorneys general said in a letter to congressional leaders that the reorganization would undercut a 1992 law that explicitly gave the states regulatory control over the DOE's hazardous waste management and cleanup activities.

"Enhancing national security does not have to be inconsistent with protecting environment, safety and health," the attorneys general wrote. "But as set forth in [the reorganization plan], it is."

Rep. William M. "Mac" Thornberry (R-Tex.), who helped draft the reorganization plan in a House-Senate conference committee, said the attorneys general had been misinformed. He said the proposal would leave all existing state environmental controls in place.

Thornberry said the intent of the reorganization plan is to establish accountability and clear lines of authority within the nation's nuclear weapons program by insulating it from all of DOE's other activities, much as the Internal Revenue Service has semiautonomous status within the Treasury Department.

Thornberry called the contention that the energy secretary would lack control over the new nuclear weapons agency "ridiculous."

DOE officials, meanwhile, have spent days focused on a matter at Los Alamos National Laboratory, trying to determine how much sensitive nuclear information they would be willing to declassify to support criminal charges against Wen Ho Lee, a former physicist at the weapons lab identified as an espionage suspect and fired from his post in March for security violations.

While U.S. officials acknowledge that they lack evidence to charge Lee with espionage, the U.S. attorney in Albuquerque, John Kelly, is expected to decide within weeks whether to charge Lee with a felony for transferring nuclear weapons data from a classified computer network to his vulnerable desktop computer.

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New Mexico Headlines, Yahoo News September 9, 1999
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/local/state/new_mexico/story.html?s=v/rs/19990909/nm/index_2.html#5

(LOS ALAMOS) -- More problems for Los Alamos lab. The Department of Energy has cited the Lab for violating nuclear safety procedures. D-O-E officials say an incident last November caused a worker to be exposed to radiation. The worker opened two unmarked cans. The cans should have been marked since they contained radioactive materials. Also, a June incident spread radioactive contamination throughout an empty room.

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September 8, 1999 Web posted at: 6:31 p.m. EDT (2231 GMT)
From Correspondent Jennifer Auther, CNN
http://cnn.com/US/9909/08/los.alamos.unions/index.html

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico (CNN) -- A proposal by the Energy Department to give polygraph tests to employees at the Los Alamos National Laboratory appears to be strengthening efforts to unionize workers there.

"There has been a lot of buzz on the (employee) newsletter about espionage, about polygraph testing, about unionizing -- particularly about unionizing," says Gilbert Merriman, who has worked at Los Alamos for almost 15 years.

The polygraph proposal is part of an overall tightening of security in the wake of allegations that China may have garnered nuclear secrets from Los Alamos, an Energy Department nuclear weapons facility.

Scientist Wen Ho Lee, an American citizen born in Taiwan, was fired for allegedly transferring secret nuclear codes to an unclassified computer system, but he has not been charged with espionage.

The director of internal security for Los Alamos, Ken Schiffer, says questions on polygraph tests would be limited and would not delve into employees' personal lives.

"The scope is strictly counterintelligence, such questions as 'Have you provided unauthorized classified information to a foreign national? Have you committed espionage against the United States?'" Schiffer said.

Still, many employees are concerned about the possibility that polygraph tests could tar them as deceptive when they were being truthful.

"The biggest concern is the 'false positives,'" says Betty Gunther, an organizer with the University Professional and Technical Employees union. "If you take 2 percent, that would be 100 false positives at the laboratory."

"Even one person being falsely accused and maybe having a career tarnished is probably too much to put up with," says Merriman.

However, Los Alamos officials say failing a polygraph alone isn't enough to get someone fired. They say that if someone fails or refuses to take the test, the worst that can happen is reassignment.

The Energy Department is conducting public hearings on the polygraph proposal through October 4.

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By Dan Thomasson, Scripps Howard, September 11, 1999, Evansville (IL) Courier-Press
http://www.courierpress.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?/199909/08/+nuclearwar_news.html+19990908+news

In 1964, Democrats sponsored a television campaign commercial that depicted a happy child preparing to pick a daisy from a field of wildflowers. As she reached for it, an explosion obliterated everything on the screen, the familiar mushroom cloud leaving no doubt that it was atomic in nature.

The message was clear. If voters elected Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater to the presidency, this is what they could expect.

Political veterans shook their heads in disbelief. Public outrage over the commercial was instant; it ran just one time. But it had done its job, leaving Goldwater unfairly tainted with an image of nuclear warfare.

Since that time, politicians and those they hire have studiously avoided the frightening specter of nuclear holocaust as a campaign tactic until recently, when the head of the Republican Senate Campaign Finance Committee, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, raised the threat in a letter to potential contributors.

McConnell declared that if his party loses the Senate, there is a real chance that the United States will be the victim of a nuclear attack by the North Koreans. Recipients of the letter were urged to donate $25 to keep the Republicans in power.

McConnell's letter was the second one to raise eyebrows in political circles in the last few weeks. Earlier in the year, it was revealed last week, McConnell, a staunch opponent of campaign finance reform, urged a number of top businessmen to resign from a committee that supports overhauling the political funding system. Proponents of reform instantly noted that the letters went to executives of companies that have serious issues pending before Congress.

But it was McConnell's outrageous scare tactic that points up the lengths to which politicians are willing to go to raise money for next year's elections. While his GOP defenders tried to pass off the letter as not unusual, a number of leaders of nonpartisan watchdog groups rightfully decried his statements.

It is not unusual for politicians to ascribe disastrous consequences from electing a certain party or candidate. Election after election, Democrats have irresponsibly demagogued the issue of entitlements, frightening the nation's sensitive older population.

There's no comparison, however, between this and posing the possibility of death and devastation from nuclear attack. Few things are more upsetting.

While there is concern about North Korea's testing of a long-range rocket capable of reaching U.S. territory, to insinuate, as McConnell's letter did, that Democrats generally and President Clinton specifically would fail to "preserve, protect and defend" the nation is truly beyond the pale. It is tantamount to calling the president and his party either traitorous or incompetent.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy's campaign scared voters into believing the Russians had more missiles than the United States. The implication was that President Eisenhower's incompetence had brought this about, and that his vice president, Richard Nixon, would continue this policy.

The fright campaign was an absolute lie. The United States had far more delivery systems for nuclear weapons, and the Russians were scrambling to catch up. Only two years later, America's ability to wreck havoc on the Soviet Union resulted in the abandonment of Russian plans to install missiles in Cuba.

McConnell should review the history of the missile gap and remember the little girl picking the daisy.