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-------- africa
http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/2000/6/19/9.text.1
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
June 18, 2000
STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT
Today in Algiers, Ethiopia and Eritrea signed an agreement to cease hostilities. This is a breakthrough which can, and should end the tragic conflict in the Horn of Africa. It can, and should permit these two countries to realize their potential in peace, instead of squandering it in war.
I commend the Organization of African Unity, and especially its chair Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, for leading the negotiation of this agreement. I am grateful to my envoy, former National Security Advisor Anthony Lake, to Assistant Secretary of State Susan Rice and to my senior advisor on African Affairs Gayle Smith for their tireless pursuit of a peaceful resolution to this conflict. The United States has supported the OAU in this effort and we will continue to do so. I have asked Tony Lake to return to Algiers to work with the OAU as we enter the next round of negotiations.
I hope this commitment by Ethiopia and Eritrea to stop the fighting also signals their commitment to build the peace. I urge them to use the next round of talks to produce a final, comprehensive, lasting agreement, so they can get on with the work of pursuing democracy and development for their people. Ethiopia and Eritrea are America's friends. If they are ready to take the next step, we and our partners in the international community will walk with them.
-------- india / pakistan
INDIA HAD DEPLOYED AGNI DURING KARGIL : EXPERT
ASIA PULSE
18 June 2000
From: aiindex@mnet.fr South Asians Against Nukes Post
New Delhi, Jun 18 (PTI) India had deployed at least five nuclear tipped missiles including Agni for retaliatory strikes during the Kargil conflict, a security expert has claimed. Quoting another expert that "four nuclear armed Prithvis and one Agni were deployed for retaliatory strikes during Kargil ", the expert, Dr Sanjay Badri-Maharaj, said "this I later more or less confirmed independently."
In an article on "Nuclear India 's Status" in a leading defence journal, he said in 1996-97, India "actually began work on mating nuclear warheads to missiles" after the clearance given by the H D Deve Gowda government. "This was confirmed to me in 1997 by a former artillery officer. This required modifications in safety locking systems and validating the mechanism's ability to withstand high-G (gravitation) forces," he said in the forthcoming issue of "Indian Defence Review". Badri-Maharaj, who is authoring a book "The Armageddon Factor", said two tests for the mechanism to mount and trigger warheads were done on Prithvi SS-250 missiles before these were formally deployed in September 1997.
Stating that it was difficult to estimate how many nuclear weapons India had, the expert said the weaponisation programme "has certainly taken place - with full mock delivery trials being completed by 1994". A rudimentary system was in place from 1986-88, he added.
To counter the claim by certain US officials that Indian nuclear capabilities could not match those of Pakistan, the expert said India possessed a "fully viable and operational nuclear warhead capability" for an intermediate range ballistic missile from April 11 last year when Agni -II was tested.
"The importance of Agni -II test was that as part of its payload, a nuclear weapons assembly minus its plutonium core, was mounted. This was to test whether all systems, including the safety locks would work," Badri-Maharaj said, adding he had confirmed that Defence Research and Development Organisation was working on such a system since late 1996. He said the Indian Air Force had conducted a number of experiments to find the most suitable aircraft. "The Jaguar was initially selected - the MiG-27 fleet, though equally suitable, was earmarked for operations. But two things counted against it," the defence expert said.
"There was a somewhat inadequate ground clearance and with a heavy centreline payload, two drop tanks and two R-550 air-to-air missiles, Jaguar's performance is somewhat sluggish," he said. This, he said, was the reason for selection of Mirage-2000 as the primary strike aircraft. "Weapons have been available for air delivery since 1986-88 - believed to be 12-15 kilotonne fission weapons." Badri-Maharaj also claimed that there were at least two "hardened sites" for storage of nuclear weapons.
06/18/2000 Press Trust of India
----
INDIA NUCLEAR WORKERS 'IN DANGER'
June 18, 2000
BBC News
edited by Nikola Stan AIM, Belgrade,
http://www.aim.ac.yu/
NEW DELHI, India, A leading atomic energy expert in India claims workers at the country's nuclear power plants are being exposed to extremely high levels of radioactivity. Dr A Gopalakrishnan, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, is worried that the staff are at risk of developing diseases like cancer from machines contaminated with radioactive tritium.
India's Department of Atomic Energy acknowledges that there are eight to nine times more tritium deposits in the power plants than in those of any other country.
But the Secretary of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, K S Parthasarathy maintains that the radiation from deposited tritium poses no extra health hazard. He says that in 1998 only three out of more than 10,000 workers at India's nuclear plants received radiation doses above the safety limits, and he stresses that workers use protective gear in areas with high tritium levels.
However Dr Gopalakrishnan says the high levels of deposits should raise doubts about the safety of India's nuclear programme.
----
U.S. urges restraint in missile tests
The Hindu
Sunday, June 18, 2000
By Sridhar Krishnaswami
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/06/18/stories/03180001.htm
WASHINGTON, JUNE 17. The Clinton administration has expressed ``regret'' at India's decision to proceed with tests of the Prithvi missile, saying that the United States had long urged countries developing missile systems, including India, to exercise restraint.
``Missile testing has the potential to increase tensions in the region and we hope that India will consider the impact of its tests under the current circumstances,'' the State Department spokesman, Mr. Richard Boucher, said on Friday.
The State Department also addressed the issue of the relative strengths of the Indian and Pakistani nuclear capabilities in the context of a recent report that said Islamabad was ahead, both in quality and quantity. The U.S. has maintained that while it was not in a position to discuss the issue in any great detail, it was troubled by the speculation such reports had generated in the region.
``It is clear that both India and Pakistan have the capability to assemble and to use nuclear weapons, that both are pursuing means of delivery and both continue active programmes to produce more fissile material for weapons. We're not prepared... to get into a public discussion of these capabilities. Suffice to say while there are differences in the programmes between the two countries, overall we believe there is rough parity in their nuclear and delivery capabilities. Whatever differences exist do not appear to be strategically significant,'' he remarked.
The Clinton administration, while taking note of the statement of India and Pakistan on wanting to avoid an arms race, has argued that the U.S. and the international community continued to be concerned about the possibilities of that kind of competition which would greatly add to the tensions and dangers in South Asia.
``Speculation about who could deploy more bombs or who has more nuclear capable aircraft or missiles is, in itself, potentially destabilising. We've had some experience with this in the Cold war, when misunderstandings and misinformation led to accelerated strategic competition. We hope that India and Pakistan do not go in that direction,'' the spokesman remarked.
Mr. Boucher argued that the U.S. was not only troubled by the conclusions being drawn on the differences in the Indian and Pakistani nuclear and missile programmes but also troubled by speculation about the ``implications of differentials''.
The U.S. believed that there was basically ``strategic stability'' and ``equality of capabilities'' between India and Pakistan. ``We're worried that the perceptions of strategically significant differences, which we don't think exist, could then lead to actions which could have further destabilisation.''
The State Department gave its version of what transpired between the visiting Pakistani Foreign Minister, Mr. Abdul Sattar, and senior officials of the administration. Mr. Sattar had detailed meetings with the Deputy Secretary of State, Mr. Strobe Talbott, and the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Mr. Thomas Pickering. He also called on the Secretary of State, Ms. Madeleine Albright.
According to the spokesman, the discussions between Mr. Sattar and Mr. Talbott focussed on mutual concerns about preserving South Asian security, preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems and exploring ways of reducing tension between India and Pakistan primarily over Kashmir.
The U.S. urged Pakistan again to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, move ahead on the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, the possibility of a multilateral moratorium on production pending conclusion of the treaty and tougher export controls.
During Mr. Sattar's meeting with Mr. Pickering, it was stressed that while Washington was ``pleased'' that Gen. Pervez Musharraf had accepted the Supreme Court's three-year time limit for restoring democracy, the administration continued to believe that a detailed road map should be presented and that the process be carried out as quickly as possible. They also discussed terrorism as it related to Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden and Pakistan's economic reform efforts.
-------- israel
Israel makes nuclear waves with submarine missile test
Uzi Mahnaimi and Matthew Campbell
June 18, 2000,
UK Sunday Times
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/06/18/stifgnmid01002.htm
JUST as President Bill Clinton is engaged in a bitter public debate about how best to defend America from missile attacks launched by "rogue" countries such as Iran, Israel's intensely secretive military preparations against the same threat have gone a stage further. Israeli defence sources claim the country has secretly carried out its first test launches from submarines of cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. The launches last month from German-built vessels in the Indian Ocean were designed to simulate swift retaliation against a pre-emptive nuclear attack from Iran.
While Israel's generals may be jubilant at the breakthrough - the missile is said to have hit a target more than 900 miles away - the development raises the worrying prospect of an escalation in the Middle East's nuclear arms race just as peace talks have been thrown into uncertainty after the death of President Hafez al-Assad of Syria.
According to Israeli sources, the three Dolphin-class submarines will give Israel a crucial third pillar of nuclear defence to complement the country's already much-vaunted land and air ramparts. While the Israelis' intention of using the German submarines as roving nuclear launch platforms had long been suspected, few experts had expected them to develop the capability to fire submarine-based cruise missiles so soon.
Planning for a submarine-launched nuclear deterrent was accelerated after reports in the early 1990s by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, that Iran would be capable of staging a nuclear missile attack against Israel by 2000.
The latest Israeli estimate has put that threat back by two years. But uncertainty over Iran's level of nuclear capability has not slowed Israel's drive to bolster its defences.
----
Fears of new arms race as Israel tests cruise missiles
June 18 2000
MIDDLE EAST
Uzi Mahnaimi and Peter Conradi, London Times
From: Stephen Kobasa - skobasa@pop.snet.net
ISRAEL has test-fired cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, fuelling fears of an escalation in the Middle East arms race.
Israeli defence sources revealed that the tests, involving two German-built Dolphin-class submarines, took place last month off Sri Lanka.
The Israeli-made missiles, which were equipped with conventional warheads, hit targets at sea at a range of about 930 miles, they said. Israel is the third country - after America and Russia - to be able to fire nuclear cruise missiles from submarines.
The tests will alarm Israel's neighbours and embarrass the German government. It paid for the £200m submarines to compensate for Iraq's use of German-made weapons against Israel during the Gulf war. A third submarine is expected to be operational within weeks.
Despite moves towards Middle East peace, Israel remains concerned about its vulnerability to attack, particularly from Iran. Israeli intelligence believes Tehran will develop nuclear weapons within two years.
Israel has never acknowledged its nuclear programme, revealed by The Sunday Times in 1986. However, its military planners are believed to have produced between 100 and 200 nuclear weapons. Sources said these included several 200kg warheads - each containing 6kg of plutonium - that could be mounted on cruise missiles.
Israel already has land and air-based nuclear weapons. It now plans to equip each of the three submarines, which have the advantage of being almost impossible to detect, with four cruise missiles.
Their ability to strike back after a non-conventional attack on Israel makes them a formidable deterrent. Under a system of rotation, two of the vessels will remain at sea: one in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, the other in the Mediterranean. A third would remain on standby.
The missiles could be fired only after approval by four people: the prime minister, defence minister, chief of staff of the Israeli army and the commander of the navy.
The 1,720-ton diesel-electric submarines, which are among the most technically advanced of their kind in the world, can remain at sea for up to 30 days.
-----
Israel makes nuclear waves with submarine missile test
June 18 2000
MIDDLE EAST
Uzi Mahnaimi and Matthew Campbell
JUST as President Bill Clinton is engaged in a bitter public debate about how best to defend America from missile attacks launched by "rogue" countries such as Iran, Israel's intensely secretive military preparations against the same threat have gone a stage further.
Israeli defence sources claim the country has secretly carried out its first test launches from submarines of cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. The launches last month from German-built vessels in the Indian Ocean were designed to simulate swift retaliation against a pre-emptive nuclear attack from Iran.
While Israel's generals may be jubilant at the breakthrough - the missile is said to have hit a target more than 900 miles away - the development raises the worrying prospect of an escalation in the Middle East's nuclear arms race just as peace talks have been thrown into uncertainty after the death of President Hafez al-Assad of Syria.
According to Israeli sources, the three Dolphin-class submarines will give Israel a crucial third pillar of nuclear defence to complement the country's already much-vaunted land and air ramparts. While the Israelis' intention of using the German submarines as roving nuclear launch platforms had long been suspected, few experts had expected them to develop the capability to fire submarine-based cruise missiles so soon.
Planning for a submarine-launched nuclear deterrent was accelerated after reports in the early 1990s by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, that Iran would be capable of staging a nuclear missile attack against Israel by 2000.
The latest Israeli estimate has put that threat back by two years. But uncertainty over Iran's level of nuclear capability has not slowed Israel's drive to bolster its defences.
The Dolphin-class vessels are among the most technically advanced of their kind in the world. They are twice as big as the 23-year-old Gal-class submarines that the Israeli navy has relied on to date.
Israel ordered the submarines from Germany when it could not find an American shipyard to produce the diesel and electric-powered vessels it needed, according to Israeli sources.
In a sign of the sensitivity of the project, elite crews have been assembled to man them: the 35 officers and men aboard each vessel have been nicknamed "force 700" because of the average 700 points they scored in psychological tests devised by the Israelis. The scores are equivalent to an IQ of 130-140. Another five specially selected officers solely responsible for the warheads will be added to each vessel once the missiles are operational.
America's supply of military technology to Israel is a sensitive political issue. Last week there were calls in Washington for a cut in aid to Israel unless it cancelled the sale to China of a spy plane built with American-supplied technology. The Pentagon fears it could be used against American pilots.
Since achieving nuclear capability in 1966, Israel has kept a hawkish eye on its neighbours' fumbling steps towards acquiring weapons of mass destruction.
Its fears were dramatically illustrated in 1981 when Menachem Begin, then prime minister, sent eight F-16 jet fighters to destroy a nuclear reactor in Iraq in an episode condemned around the world as reckless military adventurism.
In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician at the Dimona nuclear reactor who revealed secrets of Israel's programme to The Sunday Times, was kidnapped by Mossad and jailed. He remains incarcerated.
A decade later, Israeli fears appear to have proved well-founded. Washington routinely cites Iraqi and Iranian nuclear ambitions as justification for America's multi-billion-dollar missile defence system, whose deployment may be ordered by President Bill Clinton this year.
America will not look kindly on Israel's development of a remarkable new military capability at such a delicate stage in the peace process.
"This is certain to irritate the Clinton administration," said a defence analyst in Washington. "It makes it that much harder to get non-proliferation to stick in the Middle East."
Despite a good personal relationship between Clinton and Ehud Barak, the Israeli prime minister, relations between the two countries have soured in recent weeks. On top of reports of the extraordinary extent of Israeli espionage in Washington, Israel's proposed sale of the spy plane to China has outraged American congressmen.
Under a contract with the Chinese, Israel Aircraft Industries has installed a Phalcon airborne early-warning system in a Russian-made Ilyushin. China has an option for three more such planes. American officials say they fear they will pose a threat to Taiwan - as much of an American ally as Israel - and upset the military balance. Relations have been strained further by other Israeli missile tests conducted without advance warning to the Pentagon. Last month the American navy criticised Israel for test-launching a Jericho ballistic missile off its coast in April when an American warship in the vicinity momentarily thought it was under attack.
Pentagon officials said the missile landed about 40 miles from the warship. "That's pretty close for a missile that's not the most accurate," said one official, adding that this was the third time in two years that Israel had conducted "nonotice" missile tests near an American warship.
-------- korea
Kissing Kims
Washington Post
Sunday, June 18, 2000; Page B01
By Mary McGrory
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-06/18/142l-061800-idx.html
From Pyongyang, of all places, came a beautiful sight last week: The presidents of North and South Korea smiling and clasping hands; throngs in the streets, women dressed like rainbows, weeping and cheering. The North's Kim Jong Il, the recluse of the million-man army and the massive missile program, toasted peace. The South's sterling Kim Dae Jung beamed at a dream come true. "Publick happiness," as John Adams called it, was having its day.
So charmed and moved was the world by the tableau of hope and joy that White House spinners had to caution against euphoria. They reminded inquiring reporters that other hopeful agreements between North and South, other arrangements for reunions of families separated for half a century, had been made--and broken. And North Korea is still a Stalinist state that starves its people to feed its ruinously expensive habit of making weapons of mass destruction. But Clinton and company, like everyone else, were bowled over by the warmth and wonder of the occasion.
Kim Dae Jung, the real hero, stood by as his new best friend from the North mugged and clowned and laughed at his image as a terrible-tempered and dissolute hermit. State Department adjectives have been scaled back to "unpredictable" at this giddy hour. The South's Kim, who is fondly remembered in Washington for his years in exile, lived a saga of persecution by his native country, subjected to kidnapping, assassination attempts and unremitting slander. He never lost his faith in democracy or a reunified Korea. He declared his willingness to go to a North-South summit at his inauguration two years ago. The idea was much derided at the time. But Kim is a real grown-up; he persevered. He beamed at the tyrant's antics.
No one thinks that Kim Jong Il has been born again in any sense of the term or that his rogue state is necessarily about to go straight. What occurred, experts surmise, is a belated attack of common sense and a realization that it wasn't just his country's survival that was in question, but his own.
Kim Dae Jung made no effort to bring up the tough topics: North Korea's militarism, its mania for missiles, the heavy U.S. uniformed presence in the South. All in good time, Kim Dae Jung suggests. There will be more visits. The first item on the agenda is the reunion of North and South families, who have been kept apart by the most heavily fortified boundary in the world.
Aug. 15 is the date set.
The sight of the two Kims embracing at departure could stir hopes of similar pictures from the Middle East and Africa, where intractable hostilities rage on. But solutions require brave visionaries like South Korea's leader, and they are in short supply.
North Korea did not look to many people like a prime candidate for reconciliation. But luckily, former defense secretary William Perry, who headed a commission to study the problem, was one of those who thought accommodation was a possibility. Surely it is a far more economical undertaking than the U.S. missile defense being contemplated to counter an attack by North Korea. Perry gave Kim Dae Jung invaluable encouragement.
North Korea's missile capability was demonstrated in the August 1998 test of a three-stage rocket. It was fired over Japanese territory, and although it fell short of its planned orbit, its trajectory was such that the CIA was convinced that a nuclearized version could reach Alaska, Hawaii or parts of the western United States.
North Korea's failed rocket was enough to give fresh impetus to missile defense advocates in Congress, who expressed new urgency. President Clinton, despite his party's historic rejection of missile defense, forged ahead. Our European allies protest behind the scenes, and the Russians have stated that they will not accept the modifications to the 1972 ABM Treaty that even a limited missile defense would involve.
All reservations about reigniting the arms race in Russia and China have been trampled in the stampede to get cracking with the concrete and the radars. It would be wonderful if the dramatic possibilities opened up last week in Korea could cause a reciprocal onset of common sense in Washington. But as the summit talks were concluding, the New York Times reported that administration lawyers have advised Clinton that construction of a missile defense site in Alaska could begin without violating the ABM Treaty.
Spurgeon Keeney of the Arms Control Association calls such action "an anticipatory breach of contract," but who's listening?
Hawks cry that hope in Korea should make no difference: Other rogue nations, like Iran and Iraq, are lining up to threaten us with ICBMs they have yet to build.
The march to folly, it seems, will not be slowed by a mere miracle.
----
Protesters Clash With Police Near US Bombing Range
from the korea times:
6/18/2000 seoul, korea
http://www.korealink.co.kr/times.htm
Hundreds of villagers, students and labor activists demanding that U.S. troops leave South Korea clashed with baton-wielding riot police in Maehyang-ri, west coast of Kyonggi-do, Saturday, leaving at least 20 people injured.
``This is our land. Let's drive out U.S. troops!'' chanted 1,000 demonstrators, pumping their fists into the air as protest songs blared from loudspeakers.
Militant protesters hurled rocks and dirt and wielded bamboo sticks when police locked their plastic shields and batons to block them from marching on a U.S. Air Force bombing range to demand its closure.
Riot police beat them back with batons and shields. They traded rocks, kicks and punches with 100 union workers from the nearby Kia Motors Co. who tried to join the protest.
An initial group of 100 protesters increased to 1,000 when police temporarily opened their blockades to let workers and students join the villagers. Sporadic clashes continued for hours.
Ambulances screamed to the remote fishing village to carry off 20 Kia workers and students, all bleeding from the heads or arms. One Kia worker's face was covered with blood. Blood flowing from his head, a Roman Catholic priest shouted for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Some workers climbing pine-covered hills to go around the police blockade were chased by officers.
The protesters gathered in this west coast village, 80 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of Seoul, demanding closure of the Koon-ni Range, which they consider a source of noise and injuries.
They waved banners saying, ``Yankee go home!'' and ``Close the Koon-ni Range!''
Students and labor activists seized the occasion to mount anti-U.S. protests, demanding the withdrawal of 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea.
Villagers have long demanded the relocation of the range and anti-U.S. protests have increased since early May when a U.S. warplane with engine trouble dropped six bombs on the range.
Villagers claim that six people were slightly injured and walls were cracked and windows shattered by the impacts. But U.S. and Korean military investigators said the bombs caused no injuries or property damage. South Korea's Defense Ministry has ruled out moving the base and instead intends to relocate 236 homes close to the range to avoid friction _ a plan opposed by villagers.
The U.S. Air Force has suspended exercises at the range since mid-May. It said it will resume operation Monday, saying further delays would hurt its readiness to deter military threats from North Korea.
----
Korea Accord Fails to Stall Missile Plan
Washington Times
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and ERIC SCHMITT
June 18, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/061800korea-missile.html
WASHINGTON, June 17 -- The remarkable summit meeting between the Korean leaders this week has left the Clinton administration widely divided over North Korea's intentions, but has not so far diminished its resolve to move ahead with a missile defense, administration and defense officials say.
Despite recent diplomatic forays that culminated in a general agreement between the Korean leaders to work for peace and unity on their divided peninsula, North Korea has not stopped work on the long-range missile program that has helped provoke proposals for the United States to build a defensive shield, the officials said.
Indeed, a highly classified intelligence report being prepared for President Clinton will conclude that, if the current pace of development remains unchanged, North Korea could still build a missile capable of striking the United States by 2005, the officials said.
Without more concrete agreements and changes in North Korea's behavior, the officials said, it would not be prudent to back away from plans to build the missile defense now, despite the fact that the proposal has roiled relations with Russia, China and even America's European allies.
Three days of smiles and toasts, they emphasized, do not erase years of effort by North Korea to build nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them.
"Not from the summit and not from any of the other things have we seen any signs that they are changing their program to develop missiles," Walter B. Slocombe, the under secretary of defense for policy, said in an interview.
At the same time, the officials acknowledge that they will face even greater diplomatic pressure after this week's summit meeting to forswear the shield.
And they say that the striking scenes of the Korean leaders warmly embracing, holding hands and clinking Champagne glasses have underscored divisions within the administration over how -- and how quickly -- to proceed with a defensive shield and what the North's true intentions might be.
Moreover, officials acknowledge that the summit meeting has helped fuel some doubts over much of the rationale for a missile defense, which is that the North Korean government was so irrational and unpredictable that it would not respond to normal threats of deterrence.
"Can we argue that we face the same threat if we have a North Korea trying to integrate into the international community?" a former senior defense official said, referring obliquely to the administration's characterization of North Korea as a rogue state. Noting that North Korea's diplomatic steps have seemed well calculated in recent months, the official added: "How can we at the same time argue that it is an irrational state?"
The North's diplomatic opening has already prompted the White House to indicate that it will lift a broad set of economic sanctions that have been in place since North Korea invaded the South 50 years ago this month.
President Clinton spoke with the South Korean president, Kim Dae Jung, by telephone on Thursday and met on Friday in New York with South Korea's national security adviser, Wong Won Tak, to discuss the summit meeting. And Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright announced that she would go to South Korea next week for further discussions.
But officials repeatedly emphasized that it is too soon to evaluate promises of cooperation from North Korea and that they were looking for more concrete steps.
"We need to see something more than handshakes and speeches," a four-star military officer said. For starters, he suggested that the North could withdraw some of its formidable artillery dug in near the border within easy range of Seoul, the South's capital.
The summit meeting this week has left various parts of the administration with widely divergent interpretations as to its significance.
The most wary assessment, held by some senior military officials, is that it remains impossible to decipher the true motives of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, who before this week had been described by American officials as reclusive and paranoid. They darkly suggest that he is in league with China and Russia to undercut support for an American missile shield.
Some Pentagon and State Department officials, on the other hand, are cautiously optimistic that the North is indeed beginning to change.
Finally, some senior intelligence officials say they believe that reconciliation between the North and South, driven by the determination of the 75-year-old South Korean president, will happen faster than anyone can predict.
Officials acknowledged that the summit meeting together with North Korea's other recent diplomatic overtures might yet force a reconsideration of American assumptions about North Korea's intentions, but they said their assessment of the North missile abilities has remained unchanged. The most recent intelligence finding that is to be presented to Mr.Clinton reaches the same conclusion as last year's.
Although North Korea reached an agreement with the United States last fall to suspend testing of missiles like the one fired over Japan in 1998, the North Korean military has not suspended development of a new generation of missiles, known as the Taepodong 2, the officials said.
North Korea has honored its pledge not to test-fire its missiles and even renewed that pledge early this year, but intelligence analysts say they still detect work at that site, as well as other types of testing.
"They continue to test motors, missile engines and things like that," said a senior military officer who closely monitors North Korea. "There's nothing on their launch pads, but they're continuing to make improvements" at the test site.
Since this week's summit meeting, officials in Washington have tried to tamp down expectations that one of the last fronts of the cold war may soon disappear, fundamentally altering American security interests in Asia, including the presence of some 37,000 American troops in South Korea and its assessment of North Korea's missile threat. The day after the summit meeting, the Pentagon's spokesman, Kenneth H. Bacon, called for "warier, controlled exuberance."
Officials at the Pentagon, in particular, were adamant that whatever diplomatic progress was made, the United States was still justified in moving ahead with a limited national missile defense, the first phase of which is explicitly intended to counter a threat from North Korea.
The latest assessment of North Korea's missile threat is critical to the Pentagon's plans to develop a limited defense, beginning with 100 interceptor missiles based in Alaska.
The current timetable for building the $60-billion system is based entirely on last year's estimate that North Korea could have the ability to hit the United States with nuclear- or chemical-tipped ballistic missiles by 2005.
In order to have a system in place by then, the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization needs to begin construction of its first sophisticated radar site in Alaska by next spring, and a decision must be made by President Clinton before then.
The new intelligence report on potential missile threats -- known as a National Intelligence Estimate -- was ordered by the White House to update last year's assessment as Mr. Clinton nears a decision.
Last year's intelligence report concluded that North Korea's long-range missile program had advanced much further than previously believed.
In August 1998, North Korea tested a three-stage missile, known as a Taepodong 1, by firing it over Japan. The third stage of that missile, which carried a small satellite, failed to reach orbit, but intelligence officials concluded that other aspects of the test had succeeded.
Last year's report concluded that the Taepodong 1 was not sophisticated enough to carry a nuclear warhead and that North Korea was more likely to put weapons on a more advanced missile, the Taepodong 2.
Officials said the new intelligence report had concluded that North Korea would still be able to field an intercontinental ballistic missile by 2005. "Certainly there is no evidence they have stopped their development program for the Taepodong 2," a senior defense official said.
The North Korean threat is not the only factor Mr. Clinton must consider before moving ahead, but the intelligence findings will support arguments made by supporters of a missile defense that the United States needs a defensive shield. Opponents are sure to seize on the diplomatic developments to argue for postponing a decision on deploying a shield.
Indeed, even before the summit meeting, the administration was struck by North Korea's relative opening after years of wary seclusion. In recent months, Mr. Kim has begun a flurry of diplomatic initiatives, including establishing relations with Italy, Brunei and Australia and applying for membership in forums of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean.
The North Koreans have also revived their on-again, off-again discussions with the United States. At the end of May, North Korean negotiators surprised their American counterparts during a meeting in Rome by asking to discuss their missile program, and a new round of talks is expected soon. Last week the North Korean Army agreed to resume cooperating with searches for the remains of American soldiers killed in the Korean War, and the first team is scheduled to arrive later this month.
"It is clear by looking at North Korea's behavior that something has changed in the last year, year and a half," the assistant secretary of state for Asian affairs, Stanley O. Roth, told defense writers before the summit meeting. "The hermit kingdom has become the hyperactive kingdom."
On Capitol Hill, Democrats and Republicans applauded this week's summit meeting as a welcome first step in defusing one of the world's most dangerous hot spots, but warned against dropping America's guard against North Korea.
Senator Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican on the Intelligence Committee, spoke for many of his colleagues: "I would hope no serious person would assume we could change our policy on a dime just because of what happened in the last couple of days."
---
Korea Accord Fails to Stall Missile Plan
New York Times
June 18, 2000
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and ERIC SCHMITT
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/061800korea-missile.html
WASHINGTON, June 17 -- The remarkable summit meeting between the Korean leaders this week has left the Clinton administration widely divided over North Korea's intentions, but has not so far diminished its resolve to move ahead with a missile defense, administration and defense officials say.
Despite recent diplomatic forays that culminated in a general agreement between the Korean leaders to work for peace and unity on their divided peninsula, North Korea has not stopped work on the long-range missile program that has helped provoke proposals for the United States to build a defensive shield, the officials said.
Indeed, a highly classified intelligence report being prepared for President Clinton will conclude that, if the current pace of development remains unchanged, North Korea could still build a missile capable of striking the United States by 2005, the officials said.
Without more concrete agreements and changes in North Korea's behavior, the officials said, it would not be prudent to back away from plans to build the missile defense now, despite the fact that the proposal has roiled relations with Russia, China and even America's European allies.
Three days of smiles and toasts, they emphasized, do not erase years of effort by North Korea to build nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them.
"Not from the summit and not from any of the other things have we seen any signs that they are changing their program to develop missiles," Walter B. Slocombe, the under secretary of defense for policy, said in an interview.
At the same time, the officials acknowledge that they will face even greater diplomatic pressure after this week's summit meeting to forswear the shield.
And they say that the striking scenes of the Korean leaders warmly embracing, holding hands and clinking Champagne glasses have underscored divisions within the administration over how -- and how quickly -- to proceed with a defensive shield and what the North's true intentions might be.
Moreover, officials acknowledge that the summit meeting has helped fuel some doubts over much of the rationale for a missile defense, which is that the North Korean government was so irrational and unpredictable that it would not respond to normal threats of deterrence.
"Can we argue that we face the same threat if we have a North Korea trying to integrate into the international community?" a former senior defense official said, referring obliquely to the administration's characterization of North Korea as a rogue state. Noting that North Korea's diplomatic steps have seemed well calculated in recent months, the official added: "How can we at the same time argue that it is an irrational state?"
The North's diplomatic opening has already prompted the White House to indicate that it will lift a broad set of economic sanctions that have been in place since North Korea invaded the South 50 years ago this month.
President Clinton spoke with the South Korean president, Kim Dae Jung, by telephone on Thursday and met on Friday in New York with South Korea's national security adviser, Wong Won Tak, to discuss the summit meeting. And Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright announced that she would go to South Korea next week for further discussions.
But officials repeatedly emphasized that it is too soon to evaluate promises of cooperation from North Korea and that they were looking for more concrete steps.
"We need to see something more than handshakes and speeches," a four-star military officer said. For starters, he suggested that the North could withdraw some of its formidable artillery dug in near the border within easy range of Seoul, the South's capital.
The summit meeting this week has left various parts of the administration with widely divergent interpretations as to its significance.
The most wary assessment, held by some senior military officials, is that it remains impossible to decipher the true motives of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, who before this week had been described by American officials as reclusive and paranoid. They darkly suggest that he is in league with China and Russia to undercut support for an American missile shield.
Some Pentagon and State Department officials, on the other hand, are cautiously optimistic that the North is indeed beginning to change.
Finally, some senior intelligence officials say they believe that reconciliation between the North and South, driven by the determination of the 75-year-old South Korean president, will happen faster than anyone can predict.
Officials acknowledged that the summit meeting together with North Korea's other recent diplomatic overtures might yet force a reconsideration of American assumptions about North Korea's intentions, but they said their assessment of the North missile abilities has remained unchanged. The most recent intelligence finding that is to be presented to Mr. Clinton reaches the same conclusion as last year's.
Although North Korea reached an agreement with the United States last fall to suspend testing of missiles like the one fired over Japan in 1998, the North Korean military has not suspended development of a new generation of missiles, known as the Taepodong 2, the officials said.
North Korea has honored its pledge not to test-fire its missiles and even renewed that pledge early this year, but intelligence analysts say they still detect work at that site, as well as other types of testing.
"They continue to test motors, missile engines and things like that," said a senior military officer who closely monitors North Korea. "There's nothing on their launch pads, but they're continuing to make improvements" at the test site.
Since this week's summit meeting, officials in Washington have tried to tamp down expectations that one of the last fronts of the cold war may soon disappear, fundamentally altering American security interests in Asia, including the presence of some 37,000 American troops in South Korea and its assessment of North Korea's missile threat. The day after the summit meeting, the Pentagon's spokesman, Kenneth H. Bacon, called for "warier, controlled exuberance."
Officials at the Pentagon, in particular, were adamant that whatever diplomatic progress was made, the United States was still justified in moving ahead with a limited national missile defense, the first phase of which is explicitly intended to counter a threat from North Korea.
The latest assessment of North Korea's missile threat is critical to the Pentagon's plans to develop a limited defense, beginning with 100 interceptor missiles based in Alaska.
The current timetable for building the $60-billion system is based entirely on last year's estimate that North Korea could have the ability to hit the United States with nuclear- or chemical-tipped ballistic missiles by 2005.
In order to have a system in place by then, the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization needs to begin construction of its first sophisticated radar site in Alaska by next spring, and a decision must be made by President Clinton before then.
The new intelligence report on potential missile threats -- known as a National Intelligence Estimate -- was ordered by the White House to update last year's assessment as Mr. Clinton nears a decision.
Last year's intelligence report concluded that North Korea's long-range missile program had advanced much further than previously believed.
In August 1998, North Korea tested a three-stage missile, known as a Taepodong 1, by firing it over Japan. The third stage of that missile, which carried a small satellite, failed to reach orbit, but intelligence officials concluded that other aspects of the test had succeeded.
Last year's report concluded that the Taepodong 1 was not sophisticated enough to carry a nuclear warhead and that North Korea was more likely to put weapons on a more advanced missile, the Taepodong 2.
Officials said the new intelligence report had concluded that North Korea would still be able to field an intercontinental ballistic missile by 2005. "Certainly there is no evidence they have stopped their development program for the Taepodong 2," a senior defense official said.
The North Korean threat is not the only factor Mr. Clinton must consider before moving ahead, but the intelligence findings will support arguments made by supporters of a missile defense that the United States needs a defensive shield. Opponents are sure to seize on the diplomatic developments to argue for postponing a decision on deploying a shield.
Indeed, even before the summit meeting, the administration was struck by North Korea's relative opening after years of wary seclusion. In recent months, Mr. Kim has begun a flurry of diplomatic initiatives, including establishing relations with Italy, Brunei and Australia and applying for membership in forums of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean.
The North Koreans have also revived their on-again, off-again discussions with the United States. At the end of May, North Korean negotiators surprised their American counterparts during a meeting in Rome by asking to discuss their missile program, and a new round of talks is expected soon. Last week the North Korean Army agreed to resume cooperating with searches for the remains of American soldiers killed in the Korean War, and the first team is scheduled to arrive later this month.
"It is clear by looking at North Korea's behavior that something has changed in the last year, year and a half," the assistant secretary of state for Asian affairs, Stanley O. Roth, told defense writers before the summit meeting. "The hermit kingdom has become the hyperactive kingdom."
On Capitol Hill, Democrats and Republicans applauded this week's summit meeting as a welcome first step in defusing one of the world's most dangerous hot spots, but warned against dropping America's guard against North Korea.
Senator Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican on the Intelligence Committee, spoke for many of his colleagues: "I would hope no serious person would assume we could change our policy on a dime just because of what happened in the last couple of days."
-------- puerto rico
Message from Hector Rosario (6th Day of Fast for Vieques)
June 18, 2000 From: FlapsC@aol.com
Dear Mr. President:
Saludos. As you are well aware, I have been fasting in front of your house since Wendesday morning but my fast actually started on Monday at night. All we are asking for is that you agree to meet with the Vieques community leaders, something you have declined to do ever since they requested it on December 21, 1999. Later, on February 29, 2000 the religious leaders in Puerto Rico asked you to meet with them. You did not even respond. You have suggested that Jeffrey Farrow meet with them, but they do not want to meet with him because all he does is distort reality. You should have the kindness and courtesy to listen to how Viequenses feel about the military exercises on their island for the past 60 years. We believe you do not have the necessary facts to make a sound decision with regard to Vieques. I will be in front of the White House (I'm accessing the Internet from the Kinko's on 15th St. and K St.) until you agree to meet with them or I have to be taken to the hospital. You decide.
Several congresspeople as well as senators and representatives from Puerto Rico have written letters of support making you responsible for anything that might happen to me simply because you refuse to concede to this meeting, a simple request. Please, let us talk about when to have said meeting.
Willing to die but not to kill, Hector Rosario
-------- russia
West fears fresh arms race
The Hindu
Sunday, June 18, 2000
By Batuk Gathani
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/06/18/stories/0318000b.htm
BRUSSELS, JUNE 17. The decision of the Russian President, Mr. Vladimir Putin, to visit North Korea in mid-July has evoked much interest as this is the first trip of its kind by a Russian leader. The decision has surprised many Western officials as North Korea is widely suspected of selling long-range missile technology to ``rouge states''.
Mr. Putin's visit in the aftermath of the North-South Korean summit would give him a fresh perspective of the future developments in the region, especially the impact on the defence strategies of the U.S. and Russia. North Korea's spectacular advances in the development of short and long-range nuclear missile systems coupled with South Korea's growing industrial and economic clout in the eastern Asian region have a special significance.
The visit is interpreted in the Western media as an attempt to counter the Clinton administration's plan for the National Missile Defence (NMD). The moot point is if Russia also rates North Korea as a ``rouge state'' as the U.S. does. The European quandary also highlights the differing perceptions between the U.S. and Russia over defence strategy which may portend a fresh arms race with the collapse of the ABM treaty.
In some Western quarters, Russia and China are also seen as willing sellers of nuclear missile technology. Indian observers, like many Europeans, are also watching the unfolding scenario of long-range nuclear missile strategy with some dismay and trepidation.
The Japanese media notes that the visit takes place just before the summit of the world's richest industrial nations in Japan, from July 21 to 23. This has evoked much interest and speculation in the European media.
It is ironical that prominent American commentators are now overtly wondering why the so-called American ``infatuation'' with the strategic missile defence `baffles' Europe. This is in the background of the U.S. President, Mr. Bill Clinton's meeting with Mr. Putin on June 4. In Moscow, the two leaders found themselves at odds over the American plan for the deployment of a limited anti-missile strategy.
Under the proposed strategy, the U.S. proposes to amend the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, to allow limited land-based defence against future limited missile attacks, not from Russia but from the so-called `rouge' states. However, the Russian Defence Minister, Mr. Sergeyev, met senior officials at the NATO headquarters here for two hours last Friday. He briefed them on the joint missile defence project outlined by Moscow. He said the Russian proposals were first broached in Rome early this month by Mr. Putin.
The Russian perception is that the current proposals would `fall safely' within the 1997 demarcation agreement between U.S. and Russia, that would permit regional defence against missile sites with a range of less than 3520 km. The U.S.-Russian pact has not been ratified by anybody.
---
Putin takes pragmatic approach to missile system
Toledo Blade
June 18, 2000
Mike Sigov
http://www.toledoblade.com/editorial/sigov/0f18sigo.htm
Vladimir Putin plans to be the first Russian leader to visit North Korea.
Both countries are considered potential U.S. adversaries in a nuclear conflict.
But don't get alarmed. The visit, planned for July shortly before the G-8 summit in Okinawa, is a diplomatic step by Russia to gain leverage in arms control negotiations with the United States, possibly to gain economic concessions down the road.
The United States and Russia are locked in a dispute over U.S. plans to deploy a limited national missile defense system to protect itself from nuclear missile attacks by "rogue" states, such as North Korea. U.S. military experts believe that within five years North Korea will have a ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States mainland.
The Russians are worried that such a system would unleash a multinational arms race. They believe China, India, and Pakistan would build up their arsenals to overwhelm a limited missile defense system.
Some experts doubt the practicality of the national missile defense system because of the potential of igniting a new arms race.
Some, including this columnist, think it's too early to make a judgment about the U.S. proposal. But they applaud Moscow's attempts to seek a diplomatic resolution of the disagreement between the United States and Russia, China, France, Germany, and some other countries.
"The system that the administration is planning on deploying - if the decision were made now - would be destabilizing," Dr. Thomas E. Graham, Jr., a senior associate with Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said. "But I would just stress . . . that [now that] the decision hasn't been made this is very much an open question at this point."
He went on to say Mr. Putin is "certainly" going to discuss missile defenses with the North Koreans. "Putin wants to come away saying that they are indeed rational people, that we [in the United States] need to pursue diplomatic channels and other means of dealing with the emerging threat of limited missile attacks," he added.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly denied that Mr. Putin will be talking the North Korea leader Kim Jong Il into discontinuing the country's missile program.
Like Dr. Graham in the United States, most experts in Russia don't believe that.
"Moscow and Beijing will try to convince Kim Jong Il to give up his plans to advance North Korea's missile program," writes Russia's popular Segodnia daily. "If Vladimir Putin succeeds in convincing the 'great leader,' Moscow will deprive Washington of valid arguments for deployment of the system."
It appears that the Russians tend to overestimate potential consequences of Mr. Putin's visit to North Korea. Mr. Putin's diplomacy may not have a decisive effect on the U.S. plans. Dr. Graham said that's because the tests for the system have not been "overwhelmingly successful," causing "a lot of doubts about the technology" in the United States.
"I think that what you are going to see is the decision [on the system's deployment] pushed down the road in any event," he said.
It's hard to disagree. But at least for once Russia's foreign policy appears rational. This is a far cry from its usual spoilsport role.
Dr. Graham shared this view, calling Mr. Putin's planned visit to North Korea "a very intelligent thing to do at this point" and "very good diplomacy."
"Putin is certainly trying to conduct an activist foreign policy now to try to sow doubts both within Europe and within the United States itself as to the wisdom of deploying of any type of missile defense system." Mike Sigov, a Russian-born journalist, is a staff writer for The Blade.
-------- spying
WORD FOR WORD / ABC'S OF COUPS
Oh, What a Fine Plot We Hatched. (And Here's What to Do the Next Time).
New York Times
June 18, 2000 NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/library/review/061800iran-cia-review.html
WHEN the Central Intelligence Agency helped overthrow Mohammed Mossadegh as Iran's prime minister in 1953, ensuring another 25 years of rule for Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, the C.I.A. was already figuring that its first effort to topple a foreign government would not be its last.
The C.I.A., then just six years old and deeply committed to winning the cold war, viewed its covert action in Iran as a blueprint for coup plots elsewhere around the world, and so commissioned a secret history to detail for future generations of C.I.A. operatives how it had been done. The history, which remains classified, was recently obtained by The New York Times; excerpts were published this spring and a more complete version is now available on the Times Web site.
Written in the heady aftermath of Tpajax, the code name for the plot, the C.I.A. history enthusiastically recounted the accomplishments of the agency's officers. In fact, the coup would turn out to be the high point in the spy career of its director, Kermit Roosevelt, a grandson of Theodore Roosevelt who died 10 days ago at the age of 84.
But in a section on what could be learned from the experience, the history also drew lessons for future conspirators, and today reads as a prescient warning of the political and strategic risks that similar covert operations would pose for the United States.
For example, amid the sometimes curious argot of the spy world - "safebases" and "assets" and the like - the C.I.A. warns of the possibilities of "blowback." The word must have been unfamiliar to the public in 1953 but it has since come into use as a shorthand for the unintended consequences of covert operations.
The C.I.A.'s covert action in Afghanistan in the 1980's, which led to the empowerment of anti-Western Islamic fundamentalists there in the 1990's, saw to that.
"Possibilities of blowback against the United States should always be in the back of the minds of all C.I.A. officers involved in this type of operation," the history cautions.
That was only one of the lessons drawn -- not all of which seem to have been heeded. Here is a sample.
JAMES RISEN
The history warns that the C.I.A. should always count on things getting very messy:
"The possibility of civil war must be accepted by our military planners and measures taken within the plan for that eventuality. Such an eventuality might possibly include the necessity for establishing a safebase for the new friendly government. Possibilities and eventualities stemming from civil war can only be seen upon the analysis of each local situation, but they are not difficult to foresee and should certainly be planned for. . . . The possibility of action against mobs must be considered, including action against Communist paramilitary forces from factories, etc. Where this contingency exists it may be necessary to dispose friendly forces in such a way as to neutralize entire cities through the use of roadblocks, strong points, traffic control, curfews, new documentation, etc."
The Iran operation very nearly failed, and the C.I.A. was on the verge of abandoning it when the tide turned in its favor. The chief planner of the coup, Dr. Donald N. Wilber, who wrote the history, thus came away from Iran with a fatalistic view of covert action.
"Military planning should include the possibilities of complete failure and, therefore, should include an evacuation scheme for C.I.A. and indigenous personnel who might be exposed. Aircraft of American military attachés, evasion and escape nets, and other operations assets might have to be employed.
If none of these assets exists then hiding places should be created in advance of the operation which are kept sterile throughout. . . ."
"Military planning should be based upon the principle that some elements without our friendly forces will be exposed, and that our operation must not collapse on that account. Therefore, danger signals should be included which automatically call for movement from one phase to the other depending upon who or what units have been exposed to the hostile government. In Iran there was good reason to believe that danger signals so noted prior to the change of government were instrumental in keeping alive an operation which, to an outsider, appeared to have failed."
The decision to topple the Iranian government was made quickly in Washington in early 1953 by the new Eisenhower administration, and it represented an abrupt policy change. So the C.I.A. had not done its homework when called on by President Eisenhower. The C.I.A.'s history discusses its frustrating efforts to get up to speed, including fruitless contacts with Army intelligence (G-2 in military shorthand) and draws a cautionary lesson for planners of future C.I.A. plots: know a little about a country you may be called upon to transform.
"Throughout the summer (of 1953) cables were exchanged with the Tehran Station in an effort to procure the latest information on the order of battle of Iranian armed forces. The Iranian desk, G-2, Pentagon, was queried in an effort to obtain whatever information they could get which might help accomplish the above tasks. Information available in G-2 was almost nonexistent. Biographical information on leading Army figures was extremely scanty. G-2 did not possess a tactical map showing the military situation in the city of Tehran. It must also be admitted that C.I.A. too was unprepared for this type of operational plan and a heavy burden had to be laid upon the field at a time when the Tehran station was already occupied with the opening phases of Tpajax.
"The primary difficulty in staff planning at this time was the fact that neither the field nor Headquarters possessed detailed information on military figures in Iran. C.I.A. had heretofore never placed particular emphasis on that type of operational reporting, and we learned as the days went by how extremely important, indeed vital, that type of reporting is."
One reason the coup nearly failed was that the Mossadegh government found out about the coup plot just before it was begun. Iranian officers working for the C.I.A. were arrested as they tried to take control of the government. Although the coup succeeded on a second attempt, the history warned that if the C.I.A. hoped to keep trying to overthrow governments, it had to keep its plans secret. Unfortunately, it was a lesson that the planners of the Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba in 1961 did not learn well enough.
"A final subject of interest concerns the security problem connected with such an operation. From the moment the project got underway, the N.E.A. [Near East and Africa] Division made a serious effort to put special security measures into effect; within the N.E.A. Division and even within the NE/4 Branch the rule of need to know came into effect. However, by the time the operation had been concluded, a considerable number of people British and Americans were aware of what was going on.
From the viewpoint of NE/4 Branch, which has listed all the individuals whom it knows were aware of the project and its purpose, the number was excessive - it totaled 89. How many others were told by people without the NE/4 Branch being aware of this, there is no way of knowing. It is true that the knowledge that there was direct U.S.-U.K. collaboration on the project was kept to a more restricted number. It is, however, suggested that in the future when an operation of similar magnitude and sensitivity is contemplated a special security officer be brought into the operation at its inception and be given the responsibility for keeping track of exactly who knows what about the project."
The history included a haunting reminder to C.I.A. planners of the future that promises to spies and agents must be made in a form that could be kept, a lesson that the United States seemed to forget in Vietnam.
"Commitments to friendly persons should be kept well within our ability to make good. . . . Forethought should also be given to the problem of care and keep of wives and families of friendly officers."
-------- us military
Pentagon report questions US missile defense
June 18, 2000
By Charles Aldinger
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A report by an independent Pentagon panel has raised concerns about the speed of U.S. plans to deploy a national missile defense by 2005, including doubts whether interceptors can yet distinguish between armed warheads and decoys, U.S. officials said Sunday.
The officials, who asked not to be identified, confirmed a Sunday Washington Post report that the classified study cited some of the same difficulties raised by critics of tentative plans to build an anti-missile base in Alaska over the next five years.
President Clinton is not expected to make a decision on starting the base construction until later this year, but Russia bitterly opposes the plan for a limited U.S. National Missile Defense (NMD) against attack from "rogue states" such as North Korea.
Moscow has rejected a call from Washington to modify the 1972 Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty to allow for the system. U.S. allies in Europe have voiced concern about whether the NMD plan would trigger a new arms race.
The U.S. officials, responding to questions from Reuters, declined to discuss details of the classified report given to Defense Secretary William Cohen last week by an independent panel headed by retired Gen. Larry Welch, former Air Force chief of staff.
They confirmed, however, that the report questioned the current maturity of the technology, raising concerns about the problem of dummy decoys launched with attacking missiles, and about pressure from Congress for fast-track 2005 deployment of a yet-unproved system.
Decoys are designed to fool defensive projectiles attempting to shoot down nuclear or other warheads approaching the target.
The Post said Sunday that the report from the panel, pointed to problems over whether the system could distinguish between real attacking missiles and decoys in space and concern that the timetable for constructing a working system in five years is unrealistic.
The Post reported that the panel, which serves independently under Defense Secretary William Cohen, had extensive access to secret information. The panel, which also includes experts from industry and retired senior military officers had been giving lengthy briefings on its conclusions to Pentagon officials, the Post added.
The Pentagon Tuesday dismissed criticism from a number of scientists and analysts of its plans for the NMD system, saying charges that it would not be able to discriminate between missiles and decoys were unfounded.
Defense Department spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said the system would rely on a combination of factors, including radar, sensors on the intercept missile and intelligence material, to ensure the correct target was hit.
"We have confidence that we will successfully be able to integrate these various technologies and come up with a system that ... can discriminate against the projected threat that a rogue nation might possess in the year 2005, which is our target to deploy the system," he said.
The U.S. military is scheduled to attempt for a third time in early July to shoot down a dummy warhead high over the Pacific Ocean with a test "hit-to-kill" weapon fired from a Pacific atoll.
The first such test last October was successful, although there was a problem with finding the approaching warhead. A second such test failed early this year.
Many leading independent scientists have warned that the system, meant to provide a shield against a small number of missiles fired by North Korea, Iran, Iraq or some other unfriendly state, would not provide foolproof protection.
About 40 physicists and engineers, came to Washington from 16 states last Monday charging that the proposed national missile defense was long on politics and short on science.
The Welch panel also issued two earlier interim reports which criticized the fast timetable of the NMD plan.
Last November, it said that the drive to develop a base by 2005 remained plagued by problems, including inadequate testing, parts shortages and management confusion.
In 1998, it warned that the compressed program schedule led to a conclusion it was "on a rush to failure."
----
More Doubts Are Raised on Missile Shield
By Roberto Suro and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, June 18, 2000; Page A01
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13546-2000Jun17.html
A classified report by a Pentagon-appointed panel of experts raises numerous warning flags about the current plan for a missile defense shield, citing problems with the booster rocket for interceptor missiles, doubts about whether the interceptor can distinguish an enemy missile from decoys, and concern that the timetable for constructing a working system in five years is unrealistic.
The panel, headed by Larry Welch, a retired four-star general and former Air Force chief of staff, cites many of the same difficulties recently raised by critics of the plan, including prominent scientists and former top-ranking defense officials. But the Welch report carries far more weight, because the panel had extensive access to secret information and is giving lengthy briefings on its conclusions directly to Pentagon decision-makers.
The report contains a mix of cautions and encouragement for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, the Pentagon office charged with developing a system to defend all 50 states from a small number of incoming warheads fired by such "rogue states" as North Korea and Iran. Senior defense officials familiar with the report said it concludes that the complex system of targeting radars, interceptor missiles and high-speed computers eventually should work as designed. But it voices strong skepticism that the system will be operating successfully by 2005, the deadline set by Congress and the White House.
The Welch panel warns that "there is substantial schedule risk, but not particularly high technical risk" of a fundamental engineering or scientific flaw, said a senior official familiar with the report. "It is like remodeling a kitchen: It may not get done by [the date the builder promised], but it will get done."
The report, delivered last week to Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, questions whether the system's "kill vehicle"--which is designed to ram incoming warheads high in space--will be able to detect a warhead hidden by decoys and other sophisticated countermeasures, the officials said. Opening a new area of concern, the report notes engineering problems in the construction of the high-speed interceptor missile that is supposed to boost the kill vehicle into space, the officials said. Initial testing of the booster has been delayed repeatedly this year and is now scheduled for September, and yet it is supposed to be ready for a flight test of the entire system by early next year.
The Welch panel, composed of 12 weapons scientists and former military officers, has issued two previous reports on national missile defense, including one in 1998 that warned against a "rush to failure" and prompted the Pentagon to seek a postponement of the deployment date from 2003 to 2005, schedule additional tests and take measures to tighten management of the program. The new report comes at a particularly sensitive moment, as missile defense is emerging as a presidential campaign issue and President Clinton is due to make a critical decision soon on the current plan.
Clinton has said he will decide this fall whether to start construction of a radar tracking station on Shemya Island at the western end of Alaska's Aleutian Island chain. The Pentagon has warned that any delay in the construction schedule would jeopardize its ability to meet the 2005 deployment deadline.
In recent weeks, a variety of Russia scholars, prominent scientists and former Clinton administration officials--including former defense secretary William Perry, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. John Shalikashvili and former CIA director John Deutch--have urged the president to defer the decision. Among the reasons they have cited are the hurried testing schedule, the many technical questions hanging over the system, predictions that a U.S. missile shield could provoke an arms race in Asia, and concern about souring relations with Russia and the European allies.
A key factor in Clinton's decision will be the results of a flight test scheduled for July 7. If all goes perfectly or, on the contrary, if the test is a complete disaster, the Pentagon should be able to present Clinton with a clear judgment on the status of the system, the Welch report concludes. But in the more likely event that some elements of the system work well and others encounter problems, Pentagon analysts may not be able to evaluate the test data in time to give the president an informed judgment on the project's near-term feasibility, the report warns.
Similar time crunches are found at key points throughout the program's schedule, the report says.
Development of the current missile defense system, a modest descendant of Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" program, began in 1996 and accelerated in 1998, after North Korea and Iran flight-tested primitive ballistic missiles and intelligence reports concluded that the United States might be vulnerable to a missile attack from North Korea by 2005 and from Iran later in the decade.
Timed to meet the North Korean threat, the administration's plan begins with 20 interceptor missiles based in Alaska by 2005, with a full force of 100 interceptors to be in place two years later. The system is designed to deal with relatively simple weapons packages, and initial testing involves only a target warhead and single decoy.
The Welch panel warned that by 2005, much more sophisticated countermeasures might be available to threatening nations, and it urged the Pentagon to begin testing the system with multiple decoys and other countermeasures by 2003. Under current plans, testing will grow more complex as 2005 approaches, but the system will not be able to handle sophisticated incoming weapons for several years after that. The Welch panel is already at work on another report devoted entirely to the issue of countermeasures, a senior official said.
Overall, the new report gives the Pentagon's missile defense developers a "B plus grade for work done thus far," and it grants an overall blessing to the plans drawn up for future testing and evaluation, a senior official said. The warnings mainly concern a series of developments that could hold up the process.
For example, the construction schedule for the X-band radar on Shemya Island is severely limited by the long Alaskan winter and the harsh conditions in the Aleutians even in summer. The Pentagon says it has developed the timetable based on average weather conditions. The Welch report, however, cites the weather on Shemya as a highly unpredictable factor that could throw everything else off.
Welch noted in briefings conducted for top Pentagon officials last week that during his Air Force career he was scheduled to fly into Shemya seven times but made it there only twice, because of weather problems. One unavoidable problem highlighted by the Welch report stems from geographical limits on testing, officials said. Until the system is operational, all tests will be conducted with a target warhead launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and an interceptor launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific. This is "for safety reasons--it would be unpleasant to launch a dummy nuclear warhead towards California and then fail to knock it down," said a senior official. The result, however, is that every test will run from west to east, while in real life the interception would take place in the opposite direction.
The Welch panel says the problem can be dealt with only by extensive modeling and simulation, which is what the Pentagon has been planning all along.
"On many points all this report does is articulation of points that we have been making all along," said a senior military official, adding that the Pentagon has always labeled the missile defense program as highly risky because of the short time frames between testing and evaluation.
While the Pentagon views the report as broadly supportive of its missile defense efforts, officials acknowledged that it also contains many cautionary notes that critics could seize upon. "In this climate," said one official, "everybody will be able to read what they want into it."
-------- us nuc facilities
-------- california
Rocketdyne Environmental Assessment
June 18, 2000,
L.A.Times
http://www.latimes.com/editions/ventura/20000618/t000057692.html
* I fully agree with your sentiment that residents in the community surrounding the Department of Energy's (DOE) Energy Technology Engineering Center (ETEC) "deserve a thorough review to confirm that the cleanup efforts are completed satisfactorily and that there is nothing to fear from the site." ("EIS Warranted at Rocketdyne," Ventura County editorials, June 4). Cleanup of ETEC began in the early 1970s, and all of the reactors and other nuclear facilities were decommissioned by the end of the 1980s. More than 99% of the man-made radioactivity generated at the site was removed over a decade ago and properly disposed of as radioactive waste. We are working closely with the state of California to complete the remaining cleanup activities. Our work has benefited over the past several years from quarterly meetings with state regulators, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials and local citizens. By September, we will begin an environmental assessment. This will determine whether there is enough of an impact from DOE's plans for ETEC to require an environmental impact statement on alternative ways to complete cleanup. If the need to do so is identified at any point during the environmental assessment's preparation, an environmental impact statement will be written. Before any conclusions are reached, we will hold two public meetings, and there will be a 45-day comment period during which anyone can comment on the scope of the assessment. DOE will develop a draft of the environmental assessment that will describe planned activities, appropriate alternative paths and impacts to workers, the public and the environment. The public will then be given a chance to review and comment on the draft. DOE takes its cleanup responsibilities very seriously. We will restore ETEC to the satisfaction of the community.
-------- kentucky
FACING FACTS Area must prepare for plant closing
Paducah Sun,
June 18, 2000
http://www.paducahsun.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?/200006/18+00 Td_editorial.html+20000618+editorial
The news that the United States Enrichment Corp. plans to deploy a more advanced technology for enriching uranium in Portsmouth, Ohio, provides a clear warning to the Paducah area to prepare for the eventual loss of the gaseous diffusion plant. Nothing is certain about the future of USEC's gaseous diffusion plants in Paducah and Portsmouth, but the financially struggling company must cut costs and improve its ability to compete in the world market for reactor fuel. It's possible that, as early as next week, USEC's board will vote to close one of the enrichment plants.
Here's the scenario that seems to be shaping up: USEC closes the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant and keeps the more efficient Paducah facility running. The company is in the process of upgrading the Paducah plant so that it can produce reactor-grade uranium. It's unlikely that USEC would make this investment unless the company was planning to keep the Paducah plant in operation for at least a few more years.
However, the long-term outlook for the Paducah facility isn't promising. The Sun reported last week that USEC is developing gas centrifuge technology to replace the 50-year-old gaseous diffusion process.
In the 1980s, the federal government spent almost $2 billion in an abortive attempt to deploy the centrifuge technology at Portsmouth. Since the building that was to house the centrifuge is still standing, USEC could save a substantial amount of money by locating a new gas centrifuge there.
Once the centrifuge plant began operating â€" analysts say it would take six-to-eight years to put the technology in place â€" the gaseous diffusion plant in Paducah would no longer be needed.
It should be emphasized that while this is the most likely scenario, it is not set in stone. We can't say with certainty what USEC officials have in mind. And, in any event, conditions could change and produce an entirely different outcome.
Even so, prudence dictates that the Paducah community begin planning now for a future that does not include the gaseous diffusion plant and its 1,500 jobs. We still hope to keep the plant, but we must face some hard facts.
First of all, it's very unlikely that political pressure will lead to a reversal of the privatization of USEC and the long-term survival of both gaseous diffusion plants.
The unions representing plant workers and the members of the Kentucky, Illinois and Ohio congressional delegations are pushing for a re-examination of the privatization process. Illinois is affected because the Honeywell plant in Metropolis produces feed material for the Paducah and Portsmouth enrichment facilities.
We see no evidence that delegations from the 47 other states are interested in tapping the federal budget to maintain jobs in Paducah and Portsmouth. It's understandable that the unions and some members of the three states' congressional delegations have targeted privatization, but it's worth remembering that the process had broad, bipartisan support, largely because the government-owned U.S. enrichment industry was rapidly falling behind in the competitive world market.
Former U.S. Sen. Wendell Ford, the father of the privatization effort, told the Sun in a 1998 interview that the U.S. enrichment industry's share of the world nuclear fuel market tumbled from 100 percent in the early 1970s to about 40 percent in the early 1990s. "It would have withered on the vine," he said.
Congress may step in and rescue the plants for national security reasons if it appears that USEC is going out of business. But that is the option of last resort. A review of the basic political facts tells us that Congress is not inclined to put the federal government back in the uranium enrichment business.
In terms of the future of the Paducah plant, it may not matter whether the government regains control of the enrichment industry. Gaseous diffusion is an expensive, outmoded technology. The operator of the plants, regardless of whether it's USEC or the Department of Energy, is going to have to develop new technology to replace gaseous diffusion. That points to the closing of both plants and the use of an updated facility to produce enriched uranium at a more competitive cost.
If Paducah eventually loses the gaseous diffusion plant, it will be a hard but not necessarily devastating blow to the area's economy. Keep in mind that McCracken County and surrounding counties already have absorbed the loss of hundreds of jobs at the plant.
The cleanup of the environmental mess left at the plant by the DOE will take years, and the jobs it provides will lessen the impact of a shutdown. For the sake of the environment and plant workers who may lose their jobs, community leaders must continue to push for a complete cleanup.
Job re-training programs should continue to be a high priority for local leaders. But with the plant's future in serious doubt, the top priority must be attracting new businesses and cultivating existing ones.
The federal government was a major employer in McCracken County for many years. But what the government gives it can also take away. This area cannot base its future on a single industry that is subject to the ever-changing winds of national politics.
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How will Vortec experiment affect our environment?
Paducah Sun,
June 18, 2000
http://www.paducahsun.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?/200006/18+00 Tg_editorial.html+20000618+editorial
EDITOR: What are the facts concerning the hazardous materials generated by the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant? What is meant by "cleaning up" the plant and surrounding area? Can we be certain that our air, creeks, ponds, groundwater, and surrounding soil are uncontaminated by toxic waste and radioactive elements such as uranium-238 and plutonium? If we settle for the "official" word from those in charge we may never know the truth. Do we trust our officials to make decisions regarding our health, even after they have betrayed us?
Can we take action that will lead to the safe removal and/or storage of the hazardous materials generated at the gaseous diffusion plant? Will we? Do we want to continue giving silent consent to the abuse of public trust displayed by policymakers and managers responsible for determining future directions for the uranium enrichment plant and its waste?
People, we can each make a proactive response to this seemingly complex problem. We can demand to know the facts regarding the gaseous diffusion plant. We can learn about the Vortec vitrification process, which is the only solution being pursued by our officials.
Did you know that the entire project is one big experiment and if it works, McCracken County will become a receiving and processing center for unknown quantities of hazardous waste from all over the country? Did you know that the Vortec agency officials are uncertain whether the vitrification processes pose a threat to public health and safety? They cannot predict how much dioxin (considered by scientists to be the most toxic synthetically produced chemical) will be emitted into the air by the process or even whether the end product will be stable or radioactive. They do not know what they will do with the resulting hazardous waste created by the process.
Do you want to be part of yet another experiment that can affect our environment so adversely on such a grand scale?
We must stop our silent consent and take action in order to set in motion our vision of a healthy, beautiful, bountiful McCracken County. We must put an end to secrecy and demand the facts.
We can support the Site Specific Advisory Board's recommendation to include the Vortec incinerator in Secretary Richardson's incinerator moratorium. Further, we can demand that the Vortec incinerator experiment be stopped until a full blown environmental impact study is conducted and recommendations made public.
We must voice our concerns at the local, state and federal levels by writing or calling our political officials. Let us voice our opinions and in that way put an end to further contamination of McCracken County.
BETH YOUNG
Paducah
*EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is a response from Dr. James G. Hnat, president and CEO of Vortec Corporation.
Vortec best technology for processing hazardous waste
EDITOR: Vortec Corporation would like to comment on concerns brought up by several citizens regarding the proposed demonstration of the Vortec vitrification process at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
First, we share their concern over protection of the environment and human health. This is the mission of our company and the reason our vitrification technology was developed. Vortec is not in Paducah to make the situation worse, but to help correct a serious environmental and human health problem that has occurred over many years.
The technology is not experimental. The technology we have developed has been identified by the United States Enviromental Protection Agency as the "best demonstrated available technology" (BDAT) for the processing of selected hazardous industrial wastes. The technology is already in commercial use for industrial waste applications, and the objective of the DOE demonstration is to validate its performance in the processing of specific DOE radioactive wastes.
Because of public concern over the treatment of radioactive wastes, we have chosen a very conservative and responsible approach and will demonstrate the ability to process specific DOE waste before treatment is implemented.
The demonstration will be done with oversight from the EPA as well as the Kentucky Environmental Protection Cabinet. The operation of the facility will be validated with non-radioactive and non-hazardous wastes prior to the introduction of any radioactive or hazardous materials.
The technology has found favor within the environmental community because of its ability to transform problematic wastes into chemically stable glasses that can be safely stored for tens of thousands of years.
If a treatment process like the Vortec unit is not used, DOE may elect to landfill much of the waste at Paducah without treatment. Recent changes by the EPA regarding the disposal of PCB/radioactive contaminated waste now allow the direct landfill disposal of PCB-contaminated waste without regard to PCB concentration level.
This is not a better solution to the environmental problem we are facing than using a treatment process prior to disposal. Liners and containers break down over time. Then, hazardous materials that are stored in a container or disposed in a landfill still have the opportunity to leak into the environment.
If, on the other hand, the materials are treated through our vitrification process before disposal or storage, the radionuclides and hazardous metals become immobile, and will not become an environmental legacy, even if a liner or container fails.
I urge you to consider the following facts:
The Environmental Assessment that was completed in 1999 shows "no significant impact to the environment." The engineering and technical analysis performed concluded that, "on the basis of expert scientific and engineering judgment, dioxin and furan emissions are expected to be very low, or non-existent." The process conditions have been intentionally designed by Vortec to minimize the formation of dioxins and dibenzofurans within the process and to capture any air pollutants evolved in the process.
The air pollution control system that will be used with the process incorporates the latest technology advances in this field and takes into account emission measurements taken during the operation of our vitrification plants during commercial as well as pilot plant operations. Based on these data, we have determined the amount of air emissions that could be potentially generated in the process. For the Paducah system, we have designed an air pollution control system that effectively removes these air emissions to the satisfaction of the EPA and the Kentucky Environmental Protection Cabinet.
The Kentucky Environmental Protection Cabinet will not allow emissions that would prove harmful to human health and the environment. Further, the Kentucky Environmental Protection Cabinet and the EPA will require testing to prove that no emissions in excess of permit levels are made. If there were excess emissions, the Commonwealth of Kentucky would immediately terminate all operations of the vitrification process, as necessary, to protect human health and the environment.
In addition, both DOE and the Kentucky Environmental Protection Cabinet have said that Paducah will not become a central processing center for waste generated elsewhere.
Several of the individuals who have opposed our project persist in calling our technology "incineration." It is not incineration, it is "vitrification." There are many differences, which make vitrification better than incineration, one of which is the effective immobilization of the inorganic constituents. Another is the effective destruction of organic contaminants, including PCBs.
We strongly believe in the benefits of our technology and are committed to the completion of the demonstration project. The technology is ready now to begin deployment, as opposed to other technologies that may still be under development or cannot provide the same level of long-term chemical stability for the treated waste.
Finally, this project was publicly announced in May 1995. It has been open to more public comment and input than perhaps any other DOE project at Paducah or elsewhere. The public needs to be aware that landfilling this waste without treatment is not the answer.
DR. JAMES G. HNAT President/CEO Vortec Corporation
-------- nevada
Letters to the Editor: Test site workers didn't always know dangers
KALYNDA TILGES
Sunday, June 18, 2000
Las Vegas Review-Journal
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2000/Jun-18-Sun-2000/opinion/13778910.html To the editor:
In a recent letter, Mary Partch makes a very good point when she says that many people who never set foot on the Nevada Test Site have developed illnesses and died from radiation exposures. There are the Nevada and Utah downwinders to start. There are also the wives and children of the exposed workers who didn't know that in that loving hug from Dad after work there was also radioactivity. Exposure didn't end at the fence line and compensation should include communities and the families of workers. However, the idea that the workers knew the dangers and therefore should just deal with it is misinformed.
Most information surrounding the nuclear weapons facilities was and is still highly classified. This was particularly true during the Cold War. There is a long-standing pattern of lies and misinformation by the Department of Energy -- and the Atomic Energy Commission before that. In addition to not being told what they were working with on a regular basis, workers were lied to about the dangers of the substances they dealt with. "It's safe enough to eat" was what some workers were told. Workers were not properly protected. Many worked with no protection at all. Others had damaged equipment. No, no one held a gun to their heads and made them work there. Yes, they were well paid as are most government and union workers. That is no reason not to compensate them for their hell. These were patriotic men and women, people who believed in our government. After all, the American government would never lie to its own people, would it?
The 1986 underground test Mighty Oak leaked and vented into the atmosphere for many days before it was detected by outside monitoring. It took the Energy Department more than three weeks to finally admit the truth. According to the workers, many tests vented and leaked and no one was told of the dangers.
Where is the money going to come from? Good question. In the pending legislation, there is no mention of that. If the compensation amendment is to survive, an offset is in order. Perhaps we could take it from the incredibly bloated and behind schedule National Ignition Facility (NIF), the mega-laser currently under construction at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. (DOE recently admitted that laser's construction costs would double -- from $1.2 billion to more than $2 billion. Also that the construction schedule would slip five years, from 2003 to 2008.) Then not only would we have enough money to compensate workers and families, but maybe to help the affected communities as well.
The writer is nuclear issues coordinator for Citizen Alert.
-------- new mexico
Computer drives appear intact
USA Today
06/18/00- Updated 09:40 PM ET
By Peter Eisler, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncssun05.htm
WASHINGTON - Two computer drives with nuclear weapons secrets appear intact after they disappeared for six weeks from a federal lab. But Energy Secretary Bill Richardson says it might take several days to answer the question that has congressional critics urging his resignation: How did this happen?
Richardson said Sunday that the FBI is doing tests on the hard drives, which turned up Friday behind a copy machine in the high security area at Los Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory from which they were missing. The tests aim to authenticate the data on the drives, determine whether the information was copied and uncover fingerprints or other information that might help explain what happened to them.
Meanwhile, Richardson said, investigators from the FBI and Department of Energy say the drives' disappearance probably involves an authorized user who failed to return them to the vault where they belonged. He noted on ABC's (italic)This Week (/italic) that polygraph tests on the 26 people with unescorted access to the vault had shown that "a few have given contradictory statements."
"What may have happened is that (the drives) were misplaced by any of these individuals, and what happened was they were concerned about maybe losing their job if they revealed them and thereupon engaged in possible cover-up or deceptive actions so they wouldn't be found," he said.
But espionage has not been ruled out in the case, and the FBI is conducting a criminal investigation. Moreover, whether the drives' disappearance was an internal security lapse or a theft , the political fallout continues .
Several high-ranking Republican lawmakers said Sunday that the episode shows an inattention to national security concerns that warrants Richardson's resignation.
The computer drives, each the size of a deck of cards and containing identical information, are used by the Nuclear Emergency Search Team (NEST), which responds to nuclear incidents from reactor accidents to terrorist threats. The data, copies of which exist at other NEST bases, include design and wiring information on U.S. warheads, as well as weapons from Russia and "improvised" devices that might be used by terrorists.
NEST members discovered the drives were missing May 7 as they gathered equipment during the evacuation of Los Alamos for a wildfire. But team members didn't report the loss: They waited until the lab reopened May 24 and then spent a few days searching for the data before telling higher-ups.
Richardson, "incensed" by the notification delays, said on ABC that he is awaiting results of several ongoing investigations before taking "very concrete disciplinary, accountability action." Six managers at Los Alamos, which is run by the University of California under a federal contract, are on paid leave pending the outcome of the probes.
Richardson defended the administration's national security record. He noted that he has ordered an array of improvements at U.S. weapons labs, including increased use of polygraph tests for scientists, heightened physical security of buildings and enhanced protections for computerized records. But he noted on NBC's Meet the Press that he cannot "get into people's heads" in a "lab culture," where scientists have bristled at security orders for decades.
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Cover-up suggested in secrets case
USA Today
06/18/00- Updated 01:26 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncssun01.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - Rejecting GOP calls he resign over security lapses, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said Sunday there is no evidence two computer drives with nuclear secrets ever left the Los Alamos lab or that espionage was involved in their disappearance. He suggested panicked scientists may have misplaced the devices, triggering a cover-up.
The two tapes, found Friday behind a copying machine, were flown to Washington from the weapons lab in New Mexico. They were being examined electronically to determine with more certainty if they had been tampered with or the data compromised.
''I believe there's been no espionage. It doesn't appear (the tapes) left the X Division,'' Richardson said on NBC's ''Meet the Press,'' referring to the highly secure area of the Los Alamos lab where nuclear designers work. The two hard drives disappeared from a vault in the X Division sometime before May 7 and mysteriously reappeared behind a copying machine.
Energy Department officials said the investigation was focusing on ''several'' members of a nuclear emergency response team that had free access to the vault holding the devices. These individuals have made ''contradictory statements'' and given ''suspicious'' answers during polygraph tests, said Edward Curran, the Energy Department's director of counterintelligence.
Richardson said all 26 individuals with access to the vault have had polygraph exams and he pledged that those involved in the disappearance would face discipline. He declined to rule out replacing the University of California, which has managed the Los Alamos lab for more than 50 years.
In a few days, ''We will know what happened,'' Richardson predicted.
The secretary decried the security breakdown but strongly defending his attempts over the past year to improve security in his department's nuclear programs.
But key congressional intelligence committee members said there is no assurance the information has not been compromised. Even though espionage might not have been involved, they said the incident was an inexcusable breach of security for which Richardson should be held personally accountable.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Richardson's explanations and defenses were ''fluff and rhetoric'' and he should step down. ''He's not the man for the job,'' Shelby said on CBS' Face the Nation.
''I don't think ... he's measured up,'' said Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on NBC, adding that Richardson should consider quitting. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., also on the intelligence panel, said Richardson should leave.
President Clinton did not respond Sunday when he was asked by reporters as he entered and left church services if he continues to have confidence in Richardson.
Last week Clinton expressed confidence in Richardson, but also dismay over the latest security flap at Los Alamos. Security already was a focus for most of 1999 because of former lab scientist Wen Ho Lee, who was accused of illegally copying secret files and is in jail awaiting trial.
Richardson's frustration was clear.
''I can't get into human heads,'' he said on NBC, criticizing - as he had often last year - a ''lab culture'' of not taking security seriously enough.
The two hard drives, each about the size of a deck of cards, were found missing from the Los Alamos vault on May 7 when two scientists sought to make sure they were protected from a wildfire that threatened the lab. The next day the lab was evacuated because of the fire threat, but no one reported the devices missing until May 31, prompting an intense investigation.
Investigators said that while one scientist reported seeing the drives in the vault on April 7, it remained unclear when they were last inventoried; they could have been missing longer.
On Friday, the computer drives were found behind a copying machine down the hall from the vault, officials said. The FBI is conducting a criminal investigation on the disappearance.
Six Los Alamos managers, including the head of the nuclear weapons program, are now on paid leave.
But the investigation was focusing on several members of the Nuclear Emergency Response Team, or NEST, a group of scientists whose job it is to rush within hours to the scene of a nuclear accident or terrorist act, find and dismantle a nuclear device. The drives were part of a response ''kit'' giving detailed technical information about both U.S. and foreign nuclear devices, officials said.
The area where the drives were found had been searched before, according to DOE officials, prompting suspicion the devices may have been dropped there on purpose after being kept elsewhere. Richardson speculated some scientists may have misplaced the drives, panicked and tried to cover it up.
Classified as ''secret'' - as opposed to ''top secret'' - the computer drives did not have to be signed in or out when used, making it more difficult to determine who might have had them last, investigators said.
The lack of such tracking brought was criticized by Republican lawmakers at hearings last week, although the security requirements for secret information were eased by President Bush two weeks before he left office in January 1993.
Clinton continued that policy of no longer requiring a running inventory possession of data classified as secret. Richardson said Sunday that checkout procedures were now in effect at Los Alamos for such information.
Republicans also have questioned why the information on the hard drives used by the rapid response team had not been upgraded to top secret.
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Political light fading for Energy secretary
USA Today
06/18/00- Updated 09:38 PM ET
By Laurence McQuillan, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncssun04.htm
WASHINGTON - Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, once considered a front-runner among candidates for the Democratic vice presidential nomination, has seen his chances fade as a result of the controversy surrounding the Los Alamos nuclear lab and skyrocketing gasoline prices .
Richardson has made no secret of his interest in becoming Vice President Gore's running mate. He has been a member of Gore's inner circle of political advisers and campaigned for him during the Democratic primaries.
In an interview last week, Gore said he has not yet focused on his running mate and said no formal list of candidates has been compiled. However, several Democrats say Richardson had been a top contender, but now only an unexpected development could salvage his chances. They note that the Gore campaign has followed a "no risk" strategy that tends to avoid needless confrontation, though Richardson's Hispanic background would appeal to a key Democratic constituency.
Several said the current problems at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico have created too much political baggage for Richardson, who is responsible for overseeing the USA's premier nuclear facility.
Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the Republican chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, issued a scathing attack on Richardson on Sunday. The senator suggested that the Cabinet secretary symbolizes other security problems that have haunted the Clinton administration.
"Running the Department of Energy is a very serious undertaking and you've got to have a very serious, responsible person," Shelby said on Fox News Sunday. "Richardson is a great politician, and we all know this, but I don't believe that he has served the American people very well."
Shelby noted that other embarrassing breaches have also taken place at the State Department and CIA during the Clinton administration. "This is a tone, it's a culture, I believe it's a big malignancy that is spread anywhere in this administration," he said, striking a theme that could be used against Gore in the fall campaign.
Last week, Richardson announced that former Tennessee Republican senator Howard Baker and former representative Lee Hamilton, an Indiana Democrat, would review security measures at Los Alamos. The lab, which was caught up in allegations last year that nuclear secrets had been obtained by operatives for China, is the target of an FBI probe of two computer hard drives containing classified data on nuclear weapons that were missing for weeks. Several Republicans have called for Richardson's resignation. He became Energy secretary two years ago and was charged with cleaning up the department. Last year he assured "the American people that their nuclear secrets are now safe at the labs."
Richardson also might bear the political fallout from rising gasoline prices. Last year, he had predicted that the trend of increasing cost at the pumps would be reversed. Instead, prices have risen to a national average of $1.50 a gallon; the cost exceeds $2 a gallon in Midwestern cities such as Chicago and Milwaukee.
Richardson, who made the rounds of television talk shows, bristled at the notion that he has been too focused on his political future and that of Gore.
"I totally reject that view," he said on NBC's Meet the Press. "I've got a lot of problems and I'm dealing with them." Asked whether the problems have doomed his vice presidential hopes, he replied: "I don't even think of that. I don't even think of that, that's not an issue. I'm going to do my job."
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Breaches Stun Lab Employees
By Dale Lezon
Journal Northern Bureau
June 18, 2000
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/60032news06-18-00.htm
SANTA FE - Recent security breaches at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have "blown away" some lab workers and retired lab scientists.
Two computer hard drives - each the size of a pack of cigarettes - containing highly classified information about the designs of nuclear weapons belonging to this country, China, France and Russia were discovered missing from their secured vault in the offices of X Division May 7 on the second floor of the Administration Building.
The drives were found Friday behind a copy machine on the second floor. They were not reported missing to lab security officers until May 31.
"I'm flabbergasted," said Marcos Trujillo, a lab human resources generalist who is on disability leave for medical reasons.
"They have a two-man rule for the vault," Trujillo said. "There are only 86 people in the nation who have access to that vault. Any time you get into one of the safes (or vaults), you can't get into it alone. Two people have to manipulate the combination. I'm blown away. I know what you need to access those areas."
The drives belonged to the Nuclear Emergency Search Team which is trained to disable nuclear weapons in the event of a nuclear weapons accident or terrorist attack.
The FBI is examining the drives to determine if they are the original drives and if they were copied or if material was removed from them. The FBI also is examining the drives for fingerprints.
The second floor and the hallway where the copy machine is located were searched twice by law enforcement officials. FBI and lab officials are uncertain if the drives were placed behind the copier after the searches.
Esther Trujillo, Marcos Trujillo's wife, works as an administrative secretary in the TAS Division on the Administration Building's fourth floor.
She was skeptical that the drives could have been misplaced accidentally. People who remove drives from a vault must keep them in their possession or lock them in a safe at all times, said Esther Trujillo.
"That's not something you take with you when you go to make (photo) copies," Esther Trujillo said of the computer drives.
However, Esther Trujillo said that someone may have been carrying the drives, been told to leave the building because of the Cerro Grande Fire and panicked, putting them down on the copy machine and leaving quickly.
How the drives got behind the machine she said she could not fathom, however.
"It was crazy during the fire," Esther Trujillo said. The fire burned more than 9,000 acres on the lab, but did not damage the Administration Building. Los Alamos was evacuated May 10. On Sunday, May 7, people may have been working at the lab. Employees often work on weekends, Esther Trujillo said.
A former member of the lab's scientific staff who asked not to be identified said the drives are "smaller than the palm of your hand" and easily misplaced. When they are lost, they're "hard to find," she said.
"It happens, when you have something on your mind, you put it down and forget where you put it," she said. "I think it's a human kind of thing."
Espionage seems unlikely, she said. "It's not that easily copied," she said of the drives. "It would take some doing unless you had some inside help."
Espionage has been rumored as a possible explanation for the misplaced drives and Lab Director John Browne and other officials have not discounted that possibility.
Lab officials also say a lab employee with clearance to the X-Division vault may have placed the drives behind the copier.
Louis Rosen, a physicist who began working at the lab on nuclear-explosion behavior in 1956, said he would be surprised if espionage was involved with the once-lost drives.
"There are much more important things a spy (could be) after than what was on those tapes," Rosen said.
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Security has been a problem since atom bomb
By CHRIS ROBERTS
The Associated Press
June 18, 2000
http://cjonline.com/stories/061800/new_nukesecurity.shtml
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. -- Reports of security breaches and missing computers have thrust the Los Alamos National Laboratory into an unwanted spotlight. But guarding the nation's nuclear secrets has been a daunting task for the lab since its scientists began working on the atomic bomb more than half a century ago.
Experts say it was a clash of cultures -- scientific vs. military -- that made security difficult from the lab's earliest days during World War II.
Manhattan Project scientists, cloistered in the remote New Mexico foothills, insisted they needed to share information with colleagues to advance their work. Military security officers had other ideas, seeking to keep scientists from knowing how their individual work fit into the mission of creating an immensely destructive weapon that might help shorten the war.
Security quickly became a problem as the scope of the Manhattan Project grew. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the top civilian on the project, had envisioned a cohort of a couple dozen scientists, but that number grew to between 1,000 and 2,000 by 1943.
Eventually, atom bomb secrets were stolen by spies who passed the information to Soviet couriers.
"By 1944, it was breaking down," Richard Melzer, a University of New Mexico history professor, said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. "They just couldn't keep up. The ultimate proof of how bad it was is that the spies (who stole the atom bomb secrets) were amateurs."
During those early days, Brig. Gen. Leslie Groves, the commanding officer at Los Alamos, was obsessed with scientists who vocally advocated freedom of academic speech.
Security measures bordered on paranoia. Microphones were hidden in scientists' offices and homes, and other methods of Army surveillance were so "dishonorable" that they still haven't been disclosed, according to Melzer's new book, "Breakdown: How the Secret of the Atomic Bomb was Stolen during World War II."
Richard P. Feynman, a Nobel laureate in physics, arrived at Los Alamos during the war years before the complex was completed. He took delight in finding holes in the security system -- easy-to-crack safes, for example -- and challenging the censors who edited incoming and outgoing mail.
At one point, Feynman wrote in his book, "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" that he had found a hole in one of the security fences. He left through a well-guarded gate and returned through the hole, retracing his route a number of times before a guard got suspicious and called his superior with the intent of throwing Feynman in jail.
----
Bush Criticizes Security Lapses at Los Alamos
New York Times
June 18, 2000
By ALISON MITCHELL
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/061800wh-bush.html
ORLANDO, Fla., June 17 -- Gov. George W. Bush of Texas crisscrossed Florida today with his brother -- the other Governor Bush -- at his side, and criticized the recent security lapses at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, saying "America's nuclear security should not be a matter of lost and found."
Campaigning at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Florida state convention in Kissimmee, Gov. Bush, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee promised, "In my administration our national labs will be secure again, our vital information will be sealed again, our nuclear secrets will be safe again."
Federal officials are investigating the disappearance and reappearance at the laboratory of two computer hard drives containing nuclear secrets. The hard drives were found on Friday behind a copying machine in a secure area after being reported missing on May 31.
Most of the day was more light-hearted, with the Texas governor even teasing reporters with the possibility of a Bush-Bush ticket.
As he fended off the daily deluge of questions on his campaign plane about his vice-presidential search, Mr. Bush turned to his younger brother Jeb, who was standing at his side.
"What do you think?" the governor of Texas asked the governor of Florida.
"I'll stick to my day job," Jeb hastily replied.
But the older brother relished the idea a moment longer. "It would save space on bumper stickers," he said, imagining just one word: Bush.
If not a ticket, the Bush brothers were still a hit with the veterans, who gave them a string of standing, cheering ovations.
"I particularly want to say something about the governor of Florida -- my big little brother," said George Bush, 53, referring to Jeb, 47, who stands half a head taller than him. "We're all proud of him, and we know you are as well."
"He came with a positive agenda," the Texan said. "He's serving for the right reason, and both of us have been successful because we listened to our mother."
With his brother serving as governor, Mr. Bush should have a powerful advantage campaigning for Florida's 25 electoral votes.
But Vice President Al Gore has also mounted an all-out drive for the state. He even broke with the Clinton administration by supporting legislation to grant permanent resident status to Elián González, a move that brought protests from many loyal Gore backers, who called it a craven bid to win Cuban-American votes.
The last public poll, in May, showed Mr. Bush ahead but Mr. Gore gaining ground. President Clinton won Florida four years ago after narrowly losing it to President Bush in 1992. Asked how his brother was doing, Jeb Bush told reporters on the campaign plane, "He's winning."
But the Florida governor conceded that if Mr. Gore were to select Senator Bob Graham of Florida as his running mate, "it would tighten the race up." Asked if Mr. Gore could win Florida, Jeb Bush said: "Everything's possible. I'm pretty optimistic, though. As long as we get a few resources from the national campaign we'll do fine."
Much of the day, in fact, was devoted to raising money for the campaign. George Bush brought in an estimated $2.75 million for the Republican National Committee and the state party at a midday reception in Coral Gables and at a fund-raising dinner later here in Orlando.
The Texas governor also won the endorsement of the Florida chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, the nation's oldest and largest Hispanic organization.
Members of the Bush family have said, until he lost his first bid to be governor of Florida, they had expected that Jeb Bush would be the brother to run for president. But he said today that he did not have any ambitions to seek the presidency himself. "I'm consumed by my work an my family," he said, "and I've got the best job in the world."
The two brothers were dressed nearly identically in blue shirts and red ties.
"Interesting that you brought that up," George Bush said, when asked whether the choice of dress was intentional. "You can see mine's a little kind of softer tone. It's a little more presidential look."
-------- south carolina
Security lapse may bring firings at S.C. nuclear site
June 18, 2000
Access Atlanta
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editi ons/today/news_93c425bc36fab1731002.html
Aiken, S.C. -- The parent company of the top contractor at the Savannah River Site nuclear weapons complex says it might fire some workers because of a security breach in which some of the complex's computers were sold as scrap overseas.
Morrison Knudsen, owner of Westinghouse Savannah River Co., will take "appropriate personnel actions," said John Roberts, director of administration for the company, which is based in Boise, Idaho. "We take this matter very seriously."
His announcement Friday came two days after confirmation that some surplus computers from the complex wound up in China. The Department of Energy, the agency's inspector general and Westinghouse all have investigated the year-old incident.
DOE spokesman Bill Taylor said the lapse did not result in the release of classified information.
The computers had been sold as scrap to Allied Fabricators and Constructors Inc. of Aiken.
"I think they sold it by the pound in some instances," Taylor said.
The Energy Department's inspector general said Wednesday that at least two disks from a security system at the government-owned complex were found at a reseller's business last fall.
This month, Westinghouse Savannah River Co., which operates the complex for the Energy Department, lost $1 million in incentive fees from the government because of the security breach.
"The flaw in our handling of these computers should not have happened," Taylor said.
-------- tennessee
Radioactive America
Center for Defense Information,
Produced: June 18, 2000, Running Time: 29 minutes, Show Number: 1341
http://www.cdi.org/adm/1341/
Transcript: Under Construction
http://www.cdi.org/adm/1341/transcript.html
Historically, nuclear weapons production has generated massive amounts of radioactive waste. Poor disposal and containment practices have allowed radioactive waste to contaminate the soil and ground water surrounding nuclear laboratories. A case in point: the nuclear facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. What effect has America's nuclear bomb-making legacy had on our communities nationwide?
Featured Experts: Glenn Bell, Machinist, [Oak Ridge] Y-12 http://www.y12.doe.gov/lmes/y12.html Harry Boston, Deputy Manager for Site Transition, Hanford Facility, http://www.hanford.govTrisha Pritikin, Hanford Downwinder
Dr. Owen Hoffman, President, SENES, Oak Ridge, Inc., http://www.senes.com/about.html
Dr. David Michaels, Assistant Secretary for Environment, Safety and Health, Department of Energy, http://www.doe.gov
-------- texas
'Can't take clean water for granted'
Pantex area residents say they'll take complaints about plant to Legislature
By JENNIFER LUTZ
Globe-News Staff Writer
June 18, 2000
http://www.amarillonet.com/stories/061800/new_cleanwater.shtml
For Dave and Lori Henderson, they had to tell possible buyers it is not safe to drink the tap water.
"The damage is done," Dave Henderson said. "The chances of selling our home are slimmer than ever."
The Hendersons live northeast of the Pantex Plant. They put their house up for sale in February. Days later, reports indicated the Ogallala Aquifer monitoring well had traces of a cleaning solvent, trichloroethylene (TCE).
"We didn't move out here to put up with this," Dave Henderson said. "We moved out here so my kids could ride motorcycles, not to be afraid that they will contract some kind of cancer."
He said he received three phone calls, and two people came out to look at the house, but never returned.
"Once people see the area, they never call back," Henderson said.
The couple held a press conference at their house Saturday with seven other neighbors and concerned citizens.
"Those of us living around Pantex can't take clean water for granted any more like we once did," said Mavis Belisle, director of the Peace Farm.
Belisle and others have been working on taking their complaints with the Pantex Plant to the state Legislature. They will travel to the capital in Austin on Wednesday to meet with area senators and representatives.
Their goal is to convince the Texas Sunset Commission to modify the way the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission does business.
"We can't have this going on," said Doris Smith, with the Panhandle Area Neighbors and Landowners. "They must stand up for the responsibilities they have."
Smith, along with others, expressed concern with how Pantex and TNRCC has handled the outbreak of toxins in the water.
"It's a strange feeling that they don't have anybody watching what they're doing," said Buddy Vance, a farmer in the Pantex area.
Recently, low levels of acetone and toluene have been discovered in the Ogallala Aquifer monitoring wells, according to Pantex officials. The Energy Department and state officials said they failed to report the finding of TCE in the monitoring wells for nine months.
However, they are trying to fix their mistakes.
"We're looking for more and more ways to build relationships with the landowners to bring them up-to-date," said Brenda Finley, public affairs officer with the Department of Energy in the Amarillo office.
Finley said a monthly meeting is held with landowners in the area to discuss what is happening at the Pantex Plant. Landowners are encouraged to attend and give suggestions on how to improve the relationship between the two parties.
"We want to develop a trust with them and discuss things in an open and honest way," she said.
However, Smith said these meetings do not always lead to full disclosure of information. Only after a meeting a few months ago, did Smith say she found out what was really going on with the monitoring wells.
"There are times when some of the findings or information is watered-down, or presenters don't give the total picture," she said.
Besides the monthly meetings, Pantex officials also visit area landowners to distribute information.
"We're looking at new ways to have more one-on-one attention," Finley said.
The group at the Hendersons' home said they aren't satisfied. They want to see independent sampling done of the land, rather than by Pantex or TNRCC.
"TNRCC has always been more interested in protecting the agency polluting us than in protecting the landowners," Smith said.
Until the situation improves, the Henderson family is stuck with drinking bottled water provided by Pantex.
"I'm scared for my kids," Henderson said. "I just want to get them away from here."
-------- washington
Mission to Northwest
Spokane Spokesman Review
June 18, 2000
http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=061800&ID=s816209&cat=
The 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion was dispatched to the Pacific Northwest in the summer of 1945 over fears that a Japanese bombing campaign would set the nation's forests on fire.
The fleets of balloon bombs that Japan hoped would burn down the woods of America failed. Though they landed as far south as Mexico and into Canada, none of them caused a forest fire.
In Washington, one of the balloons did land in the Hanford Engineering works where uranium was being processed for the atomic bomb that would be dropped on Nagasaki.
The balloon became tangled in an electrical line providing power to the cooling pumps of a nuclear reactor. The pumps shut down, but a backup system quickly restored power.
The fleets of balloon bombs that Japan launched were born of an ingenuity with paper and a careful study of the wind and atmosphere.
The 30-foot-diameter balloons were made of 600 sheets of handmade Mulberry tree paper, called washi.
Japanese schoolgirls were enlisted to construct the balloons. They weren't allowed to wear hairpins or have long nails for fear the paper would be punctured. They wore socks and gloves as further attempts to protect the paper during construction.
Filled with hydrogen, the balloons rode across the Pacific from Japan on a jet stream at 30,000 feet. The winds could move the balloons at more than 100 mph, making the 6,000-mile trip in about three days.
An aneroid barometer was attached to a small platform below the balloon. When the balloon rose above 30,000 feet, the barometer would trigger venting and the balloon sank. When it fell below 3,000 feet, another device dropped sandbags from the platform. After three of these cycles, the floating bomb would crash and explode.
Of an estimated 9,300 balloons the Japanese launched, only 90 are known to have reached the United States.
-- Tracy Ellig
-------- us nuc weapons
U.S. Mulls Stricter Security Rules
Bush Administration Relaxed Accountability for 'Secret' Data, Hill Told
Washington Post
Sunday, June 18, 2000; Page A19
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-06/18/170l-061800-idx.html
Congress and the Energy Department are taking a new look at the government's rules for handling secret information as a result of the latest security breach at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Rep. William M. "Mac" Thornberry (R-Tex.) is calling for a review of changes made in the early 1990s that loosened accounting for information classified "secret," such as the data on the computer hard drives discovered missing last month and then found Friday at Los Alamos.
The Energy Department's chief of security, retired Air Force Gen. Eugene Habiger, told Congress last week that the Bush administration relaxed the government-wide rules on tracking "secret"--as opposed to "top secret"--documents in May 1992.
In January 1993, just two weeks before the end of the Bush administration, an executive order extended the new rules to government contractors that handle national security information classified as secret, including the University of California, which operates the Los Alamos lab. They no longer were required to maintain registers listing who had possession of each secret document, nor label each document so that it could be immediately traced.
The changes were intended to streamline bureaucracy and reduce the cost of handling the enormous number of classified documents generated by the government and defense contractors. Stringent accounting has remained in effect, however, for documents classified "top secret," which cannot be removed from secure areas.
As a result of the Bush administration's reform, "the chain of custody was done away with" for "secret" documents, said John C. Browne, director of the Los Alamos lab. He added that the lab now is considering whether to reinstate, on its own, tighter accounting procedures for nuclear data.
Thornberry, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said the government needs to reconsider the rules on "secret" documents because of the power of computers, which enable vast amounts of information to be compressed into a tiny space, copied easily and moved rapidly around the world.
Computers have played a central role in two other recent security breaches: former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee's copying of nuclear secrets onto portable tapes, seven of which are missing; and former CIA director John M. Deutch's use of unsecure home computers to create and store highly classified documents.
Upgrading the record-keeping requirements for classified information, however, could prove expensive. Habiger said he suggested last year--in the wake of the Wen Ho Lee case--that a variety of nuclear weapons information be reclassified from "secret" to "top secret." But the Defense Department sent him a letter in December objecting that the "costs of implementing such a program would be substantial."
Among the ramifications cited in the Pentagon letter were expanding the number of investigations for top secret security clearances, which are more extensive than those for merely "secret" clearances; upgrading computers to hold top secret materials; and constructing new storage facilities for top secret documents.
One reason the information on the Los Alamos hard drives was classified secret rather than top secret was that it was intended to be portable. The drives contain data on disarming or dismantling U.S., Russian and other nuclear warheads, data that the Energy Department's Nuclear Emergency Search Team (NEST) would need to carry to the site of a nuclear accident or terrorist threat.
As an initial response to the latest security breach, Habiger said, the department is planning to encrypt the nuclear weapons data that must be placed on portable computer disks and hard drives such as those used by the NEST.
Energy may be the first department to use a commercially developed encrypting system that is awaiting approval from the National Security Agency, code-breakers for the U.S. intelligence community, Habiger said.
Browne said Los Alamos also is tightening rules on access to its vaults after it was found that 26 NEST members could enter the vault where the computer drives were stored without any record being kept. The team members could also remove and return classified material without filing any report.
The lab also plans to improve its physical security by upgrading the entry system into certain high security areas, replacing simple cyber locks that can be opened by punching in numbers with more sophisticated devices that read handprints. And, Browne said, the lab is reconsidering an earlier decision not to install video surveillance cameras within vault areas. Browne told the congressional committees that such systems had fallen out of favor because their signals can be intercepted.
---
More Doubts Are Raised on Missile Shield
Pentagon Panel Concurs With Recent Criticism
Washington Post
Sunday, June 18, 2000; Page A01
By Roberto Suro and Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post Staff Writers
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-06/18/211l-061800-idx.html
A classified report by a Pentagon-appointed panel of experts raises numerous warning flags about the current plan for a missile defense shield, citing problems with the booster rocket for interceptor missiles, doubts about whether the interceptor can distinguish an enemy missile from decoys, and concern that the timetable for constructing a working system in five years is unrealistic.
The panel, headed by Larry Welch, a retired four-star general and former Air Force chief of staff, cites many of the same difficulties recently raised by critics of the plan, including prominent scientists and former top-ranking defense officials. But the Welch report carries far more weight, because the panel had extensive access to secret information and is giving lengthy briefings on its conclusions directly to Pentagon decision-makers.
The report contains a mix of cautions and encouragement for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, the Pentagon office charged with developing a system to defend all 50 states from a small number of incoming warheads fired by such "rogue states" as North Korea and Iran.
Senior defense officials familiar with the report said it concludes that the complex system of targeting radars, interceptor missiles and high-speed computers eventually should work as designed. But it voices strong skepticism that the system will be operating successfully by 2005, the deadline set by Congress and the White House.
The Welch panel warns that "there is substantial schedule risk, but not particularly high technical risk" of a fundamental engineering or scientific flaw, said a senior official familiar with the report. "It is like remodeling a kitchen: It may not get done by [the date the builder promised], but it will get done."
The report, delivered last week to Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, questions whether the system's "kill vehicle"--which is designed to ram incoming warheads high in space--will be able to detect a warhead hidden by decoys and other sophisticated countermeasures, the officials said.
Opening a new area of concern, the report notes engineering problems in the construction of the high-speed interceptor missile that is supposed to boost the kill vehicle into space, the officials said. Initial testing of the booster has been delayed repeatedly this year and is now scheduled for September, and yet it is supposed to be ready for a flight test of the entire system by early next year.
The Welch panel, composed of 12 weapons scientists and former military officers, has issued two previous reports on national missile defense, including one in 1998 that warned against a "rush to failure" and prompted the Pentagon to seek a postponement of the deployment date from 2003 to 2005, schedule additional tests and take measures to tighten management of the program. The new report comes at a particularly sensitive moment, as missile defense is emerging as a presidential campaign issue and President Clinton is due to make a critical decision soon on the current plan.
Clinton has said he will decide this fall whether to start construction of a radar tracking station on Shemya Island at the western end of Alaska's Aleutian Island chain. The Pentagon has warned that any delay in the construction schedule would jeopardize its ability to meet the 2005 deployment deadline.
In recent weeks, a variety of Russia scholars, prominent scientists and former Clinton administration officials--including former defense secretary William Perry, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. John Shalikashvili and former CIA director John Deutch--have urged the president to defer the decision. Among the reasons they have cited are the hurried testing schedule, the many technical questions hanging over the system, predictions that a U.S. missile shield could provoke an arms race in Asia, and concern about souring relations with Russia and the European allies.
A key factor in Clinton's decision will be the results of a flight test scheduled for July 7. If all goes perfectly or, on the contrary, if the test is a complete disaster, the Pentagon should be able to present Clinton with a clear judgment on the status of the system, the Welch report concludes. But in the more likely event that some elements of the system work well and others encounter problems, Pentagon analysts may not be able to evaluate the test data in time to give the president an informed judgment on the project's near-term feasibility, the report warns.
Similar time crunches are found at key points throughout the program's schedule, the report says.
Development of the current missile defense system, a modest descendant of Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" program, began in 1996 and accelerated in 1998, after North Korea and Iran flight-tested primitive ballistic missiles and intelligence reports concluded that the United States might be vulnerable to a missile attack from North Korea by 2005 and from Iran later in the decade.
Timed to meet the North Korean threat, the administration's plan begins with 20 interceptor missiles based in Alaska by 2005, with a full force of 100 interceptors to be in place two years later. The system is designed to deal with relatively simple weapons packages, and initial testing involves only a target warhead and single decoy.
The Welch panel warned that by 2005, much more sophisticated countermeasures might be available to threatening nations, and it urged the Pentagon to begin testing the system with multiple decoys and other countermeasures by 2003. Under current plans, testing will grow more complex as 2005 approaches, but the system will not be able to handle sophisticated incoming weapons for several years after that. The Welch panel is already at work on another report devoted entirely to the issue of countermeasures, a senior official said.
Overall, the new report gives the Pentagon's missile defense developers a "B plus grade for work done thus far," and it grants an overall blessing to the plans drawn up for future testing and evaluation, a senior official said. The warnings mainly concern a series of developments that could hold up the process.
For example, the construction schedule for the X-band radar on Shemya Island is severely limited by the long Alaskan winter and the harsh conditions in the Aleutians even in summer. The Pentagon says it has developed the timetable based on average weather conditions. The Welch report, however, cites the weather on Shemya as a highly unpredictable factor that could throw everything else off.
Welch noted in briefings conducted for top Pentagon officials last week that during his Air Force career he was scheduled to fly into Shemya seven times but made it there only twice, because of weather problems.
One unavoidable problem highlighted by the Welch report stems from geographical limits on testing, officials said. Until the system is operational, all tests will be conducted with a target warhead launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and an interceptor launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific. This is "for safety reasons--it would be unpleasant to launch a dummy nuclear warhead towards California and then fail to knock it down," said a senior official. The result, however, is that every test will run from west to east, while in real life the interception would take place in the opposite direction.
The Welch panel says the problem can be dealt with only by extensive modeling and simulation, which is what the Pentagon has been planning all along.
"On many points all this report does is articulation of points that we have been making all along," said a senior military official, adding that the Pentagon has always labeled the missile defense program as highly risky because of the short time frames between testing and evaluation.
While the Pentagon views the report as broadly supportive of its missile defense efforts, officials acknowledged that it also contains many cautionary notes that critics could seize upon. "In this climate," said one official, "everybody will be able to read what they want into it."
----
Is Missile Defense Flawed? Pentagon Study Questions Technology and Timetable
The Pentagon now says that an October test of a critical part of a national missile defense system encountered more technical problems than initially revealed. (Dept. of Defense)
ABC News
06/18/00
By Charles Aldinger
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/missile000618.html
WASHINGTON, June 18 - A report by an independent Pentagon panel has raised concerns about the speed of U.S. plans to deploy a national missile defense by 2005, including doubts whether interceptors can yet distinguish between armed warheads and decoys, U.S. officials said today.
The officials, who asked not to be identified, confirmed a Washington Post report out today that the classified study cited some of the same difficulties raised by critics of tentative plans to build an anti-missile base in Alaska over the next five years.
Russia Objects to Plans
President Clinton is not expected to make a decision on starting the base construction until later this year, but Russia bitterly opposes the plan for a limited U.S. National Missile Defense (NMD) against attack from "rogue states" such as North Korea.
Moscow has rejected a call from Washington to modify the 1972 Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty to allow for the system. U.S. allies in Europe have voiced concern about whether the NMD plan would trigger a new arms race.
The U.S. officials, responding to questions from Reuters, declined to discuss details of the classified report given to Defense Secretary William Cohen last week by an independent panel headed by retired Gen. Larry Welch, former Air Force chief of staff.
They confirmed, however, that the report questioned the current maturity of the technology, raising concerns about the problem of dummy decoys launched with attacking missiles, and about pressure from Congress for fast-track 2005 deployment of a yet-unproved system.
Decoys are designed to fool defensive projectiles attempting to shoot down nuclear or other warheads approaching the target.
The Post said today that the report from the panel pointed to problems over whether the system could distinguish between real attacking missiles and decoys in space and concern that the timetable for constructing a working system in five years is unrealistic.
They also reported that the panel, which serves independently under Defense Secretary William Cohen, had extensive access to secret information. The panel, which also includes experts from industry and retired senior military officers had been giving lengthy briefings on its conclusions to Pentagon officials, The Post added.
Pentagon Had Dismissed Criticism
The Pentagon Tuesday dismissed criticism from a number of scientists and analysts of its plans for the NMD system, saying charges that it would not be able to discriminate between missiles and decoys were unfounded.
Defense Department spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said the system would rely on a combination of factors, including radar, sensors on the intercept missile and intelligence material, to ensure the correct target was hit.
"We have confidence that we will successfully be able to integrate these various technologies and come up with a system that ... can discriminate against the projected threat that a rogue nation might possess in the year 2005, which is our target to deploy the system," he said.
U.S. Testing Technology
The U.S. military is scheduled to attempt for a third time in early July to shoot down a dummy warhead high over the Pacific Ocean with a test "hit-to-kill" weapon fired from a Pacific atoll.
The first such test last October was successful, although there was a problem with finding the approaching warhead. A second such test failed early this year.
Many leading independent scientists have warned that the system, meant to provide a shield against a small number of missiles fired by North Korea, Iran, Iraq or some other unfriendly state, would not provide foolproof protection.
About 40 physicists and engineers, came to Washington from 16 states last Monday charging that the proposed national missile defense was long on politics and short on science.
The Welch panel also issued two earlier interim reports which criticized the fast timetable of the NMD plan.
Last November, it said that the drive to develop a base by 2005 remained plagued by problems, including inadequate testing, parts shortages and management confusion.
In 1998, it warned that the compressed program schedule led to a conclusion it was "on a rush to failure."
---
STATE INSECURITY
The Trials of Secret Science
New York Times
June 18, 2000
JAMES GLANZ
http://www.nytimes.com/library/review/061800scientists-losalamos-review.html
SCIENTISTS talk for a living. If this comes as a surprise, consider that all the experiments and deep thinking of scientific research take place in what amounts to a global sandbox overrun by extremely bright toddlers. Incessant communication is how they get their work done, and passing the secret of how to build the tallest sand castle to half a dozen of them -- say, those on one side of a line in the sand marked United States of America -- guarantees that the entire sandbox will look like downtown Manhattan in about five minutes.
As secrets on nuclear terrorism and miniaturized warheads apparently slip out of Los Alamos National Laboratory and other federal labs, the message here would seem to be obvious: do not give dangerous secrets to scientists. There is, of course, a flaw in this solution. Governments need the scientists and their culture of openness to produce weapons that are worth keeping secret in the first place.
That in a nutshell, is why science and secrecy have clashed, from the Renaissance to the Wen Ho Lee case.
That clash, said Dr. Gerald Holton, a professor of physics and history of science at Harvard University, arises from an inherent contradiction between the ethos of science and what he called the obligation and absolute need for the preservation of national security.
Science has served the powerful for centuries. When he was not changing the world with his painting and scientific investigations, Leonardo da Vinci moonlighted as a military engineer for Cesare Borgia, the ruthless model for Machiavelli's Prince. But the sting of secrecy apparently did not touch scientists until later in the Renaissance when Niccolo Tartaglia, the Italian mathematician who computed the first tables for firing cannons to specified distances, tried to impress a well-connected colleague in hopes of becoming artillery adviser to the Spanish Army.
Around 1540, under a promise of strict secrecy, Tartaglia revealed how he had solved a famous problem called the cubic equation. Not only did he not get the job, but his colleague later published the solution. Tartaglia died an embittered pauper in Venice.
Half a century later, Francis Bacon, the British philosopher of science, wrote that knowledge is power. He was right, but it was not until the 20th century and research on the atom that scientists, at any rate, were in a position to realize the full significance of his words.
Secrecy, or at least a severe lack of communication, hampered the growth of science in Soviet times on both sides of the superpower conflict. In some cases, the problem was aesthetic. Speaking of top-flight Russian physics journals, Dr. Holton said, "Whenever they arrived, you opened the first page and you saw this picture of Stalin on it. And you immediately closed the book." Partly as a result, the West vastly underestimated Soviet science until Sputnik was launched in October 1957.
Soviet science suffered far more severely behind the Iron Curtain. Apparently hoping for quick improvements in crop yields, Stalin backed an agronomist named Trofim Denisovich Lysenko, who favored a Lamarckian version of genetics. Lysenko thought that altering the surroundings in which plants grew could almost immediately create new species. His theories would have been laughed out of any open, international biology conference, but hey managed to keep a stranglehold on Soviet science right through Khrushchev's regime, which ended in 1964.
Probably the defining science-versus-secrecy encounter was the battle between Gen. Leslie R. Groves, the director of the Manhattan project, which built the atomic bomb during World War II, and the scientists who actually designed the bomb and showed that it could work. That conflict, said Dr. Robert S. Norris, a historian at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group, who is working on a biography of Groves, was the template for all those that came after.
Groves's bright idea of giving the scientists uniforms and military rank was stopped by a revolt led by I. I. Rabi, the street-smart New Yorker who soon received the Nobel Prize in physics. Groves also ordered scientists who were involved with different aspects of the bomb in Los Alamos, N.M., not to talk to each other about their work. J. Robert Oppenheimer (or Oppie, as his Manhattan project colleagues called him), the scientific director of the project, opposed Groves and won. The scientists kept talking.
General Groves was a difficult boss who disliked scientists in general and Oppie in particular, wrote two veterans of the project, Dr. Hans Bethe of Cornell University and Dr. Robert Christy of Caltech, in a remembrance in the current issue of Physics Today. In the creation of the bomb, wrote Dr. Bethe (another Nobel laureate) and Dr. Christy, Oppenheimer's greatest contribution was his insistence on this freedom of communication inside the laboratory. (There are those who charge that Oppenheimer exercised that freedom of communication as a Soviet spy, but those accusations remain unproved.)
The battle between scientific openness and the governmental vision of secrecy has continued in this same basic form up to the present, a case in point being the outrage among some scientists at the federal labs over polygraph testing and restrictive new security rules put in place after the recent investigation of Wen Ho Lee, a Los Alamos scientist suspected of spying for the Chinese.
There have been lulls in the battle, as in the early 1990's when Hazel O'Leary, then secretary of energy, who declassified millions of previously secret documents and allowed some scientists at the federal labs to publish their most important research results for the first time. But some analysts later charged that this outpouring of information helped China to improve its nuclear weapons.
According to Dr. Sidney Drell, an emeritus professor at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and a member of a federal investigative panel that last year looked into security lapses at the labs, many scientists feel fully capable of drawing and maintaining the line between classified and unclassified information in their minds. He blamed managerial "casualness of habit" rather than scientific volubility for the problems.
But the clash between the sandbox and the bunker is unlikely to go away. Witness the footers added to e-mail messages sent out by Dr. Paul Ginsparg, a physicist who does non-weapons research at Los Alamos and who founded xxx.lanl.gov/, a thriving Web site where scientists from all over the world post their new work:
"DISCLAIMER: No sensitive or classified information has been compromised by the creation of this document, and no foreign nationals from sensitive countries consulted during its composition have failed polygraph tests."
Somewhere, Oppie is smiling.
-------- us politics
Richardson Rejects Calls To Resign
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
JUNE 18, 2000
http://wire.ap.org/?PACKAGEID=espionage
WASHINGTON (AP) - Rejecting GOP calls he resign over security lapses, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said Sunday there is no evidence two computer drives with nuclear secrets ever left the Los Alamos lab or that espionage was involved in their disappearance. He suggested panicked scientists may have misplaced the devices, triggering a cover-up.
The drives, found Friday behind a copying machine, were flown to Washington from the weapons lab in New Mexico. They were being examined electronically to determine with more certainty if they had been tampered with or the data compromised.
``I believe there's been no espionage. It doesn't appear (the drives) left the X Division,'' Richardson said on NBC's ``Meet the Press,'' referring to the highly secure area of the Los Alamos lab where nuclear designers work. The drives disappeared from a vault in the X Division sometime before May 7 and mysteriously reappeared behind a copying machine.
Energy Department officials said the investigation was focusing on ``several'' members of a nuclear emergency response team that had free access to the vault holding the devices. These individuals have made ``contradictory statements'' and given ``suspicious'' answers during polygraph tests, said Edward Curran, the Energy Department's director of counterintelligence.
Richardson said all 26 individuals with access to the vault have had polygraph exams and he pledged that those involved in the disappearance would face discipline. He declined to rule out replacing the University of California, which has managed the Los Alamos lab for more than 50 years.
In a few days, ``We will know what happened,'' Richardson predicted.
The secretary decried the security breakdown but strongly defending his attempts over the past year to improve security in his department's nuclear programs.
But key congressional intelligence committee members said there is no assurance the information has not been compromised. Even though espionage might not have been involved, they said the incident was an inexcusable breach of security for which Richardson should be held personally accountable.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Richardson's explanations and defenses were ``fluff and rhetoric'' and he should step down. ``He's not the man for the job,'' Shelby said on CBS' Face the Nation.
``I don't think ... he's measured up,'' said Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on NBC, adding that Richardson should consider quitting. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., also on the intelligence panel, said Richardson should leave.
President Clinton did not respond Sunday when he was asked by reporters as he entered and left church services if he continues to have confidence in Richardson.
But a White House spokesman, Jim Kennedy, said later: ``We have full confidence in Secretary Richardson, who is working hard to get to the bottom of this. And that kind of a partisan finger-pointing should not be taken too seriously.''
Clinton has expressed dismay over the latest security flap at Los Alamos, where security already was a focus for most of 1999 due to former lab scientist Wen Ho Lee, who was accused of illegally copying secret files and is in jail awaiting trial.
Richardson's frustration also was clear.
``I can't get into human heads,'' he said on NBC, criticizing â€" as he had often last year â€" a ``lab culture'' of not taking security seriously enough.
The two hard drives, each about the size of a deck of cards, were found missing from the Los Alamos vault on May 7 when two scientists sought to make sure they were protected from a wildfire that threatened the lab. The next day the lab was evacuated because of the fire threat, but no one reported the devices missing until May 31, prompting an intense investigation.
Investigators said that while one scientist reported seeing the drives in the vault on April 7, it remained unclear when they were last inventoried; they could have been missing longer.
On Friday, the computer drives were found behind a copying machine down the hall from the vault, officials said. The FBI is conducting a criminal investigation on the disappearance.
Six Los Alamos managers, including the head of the nuclear weapons program, are now on paid leave.
But the investigation was focusing on several members of the Nuclear Emergency Response Team, or NEST, a group of scientists whose job it is to rush within hours to the scene of a nuclear accident or terrorist act, find and dismantle a nuclear device. The drives were part of a response ``kit'' giving detailed technical information about both U.S. and foreign nuclear devices, officials said.
The area where the drives were found had been searched before, according to DOE officials, prompting suspicion the devices may have been dropped there on purpose after being kept elsewhere. Richardson speculated some scientists may have misplaced the drives, panicked and tried to cover it up.
Classified as ``secret'' â€" as opposed to ``top secret'' â€" the computer drives did not have to be signed in or out when used, making it more difficult to determine who might have had them last, investigators said.
The lack of such tracking brought was criticized by Republican lawmakers at hearings last week, although the security requirements for secret information were eased by President Bush two weeks before he left office in January 1993.
Clinton continued that policy of no longer requiring a running inventory possession of data classified as secret. Richardson said Sunday that checkout procedures were now in effect at Los Alamos for such information.
Republicans also have questioned why the information on the hard drives used by the rapid response team had not been upgraded to top secret.
----
G.O.P. and the Voters Rethink the Primary Process
New York Times
June 18, 2000
By ADAM CLYMER
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/061800gop-nomination.html
WASHINGTON, June 17 -- Most politicians do not go out of their way to say the public does not know what it is talking about. But Jim Nicholson cheerfully takes on the three-fourths of the American people who say they want a national primary to pick their presidential nominees.
Mr. Nicholson, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, responded to that finding, in a New York Times/CBS News Poll in May, by saying the public was "wrong, wrong, wrong."
"They haven't thought about it enough," he said. "I don't think there has been a rational public dialogue for them to have made a rational decision."
Mr. Nicholson, interviewed this week, is no supporter of the current nominating process, which he finds excessively dependent on money, giving too much influence to states with early primaries. "It is not totally broken down yet, but it is breaking."
Instead he advocates a plan adopted last month by the Rules Committee of the Republican National Committee. It would have the smallest states hold primaries first, in February, followed by small and medium-size states in March and April, with the big states voting in May.
That approach, Mr. Nicholson argues, would maintain public interest until May, unlike this year's contests, which were over in March. He said it would encourage more face-to-face campaigning and less reliance on campaign commercials and airport stops to get on the local television news. And that in turn would make it possible for unknown, underfinanced candidates to build on early success and make a race of it.
The biggest obstacle to Republicans' adopting this plan is the opposition of several big states, which fear that whatever the mathematics of delegate selection (about half would be chosen in May), the nominations would be effectively settled before they got to vote. He conceded, "We don't see any movement on that yet."
But, he added, "We plan to have more discussions with the big states between now and when we go to Philadelphia" for the convention at the end of July. Under Republican rules, only the convention can change party procedures, although the proposal would also give the Republican National Committee power to adjust things between conventions. The Democratic National Committee already has that authority.
Another alternative, one many big states prefer, would be rotating regional primaries, with a different bloc of states going first every four years. Such a system, Mr. Nicholson said, "has a lot of advantages over the current system, but you would have to change the statutes of the states every four years."
The worst alternative, he said, would be a national primary. The public might think that would get the process over more quickly, but in fact "the buildup to it would be a lot longer and more intense than it is now," he said. "All the marbles would be riding on that one day."
A national primary, he said, would require "an enormous amount of money, even more reliance on advertising and less on retail campaigning."
"It would also lead to a lot more negative campaigning for 'knockout' day, with candidates doing a lot more to trip up their opponents," he said.
It "would greatly favor people who were either very famous or very rich," Mr. Nicholson said.
Nor is it a matter of choosing whether to keep the present system or a national primary. Because states want to rush to the earliest permissible date, he said, "we are on an inexorable path to a national primary day," which would intensify "all the things that are wrong with the present system."
Mr. Nicholson has tried before to change the system. In 1996 he led a commission that proposed giving states bonus delegates if they held late primaries. "That was market-based, a real good Republican approach, not to be prescriptive but to incentivize." It did not work at all, as states rushed to get to the head of the line, and last year Mr. Nicholson asked Bill Brock, a former party chairman, to lead a group considering new alternatives. That produced the big-states-last plan.
Mr. Nicholson said he was disappointed that Democrats had poured cold water on the idea this spring, but said he hoped that if the Republicans could pass it, Democrats would consider it afresh after the election. "That is the responsibility of the parties," he said.
---
For Activists, Nailing Theses to Their Party's Doors
New York Times
June 18, 2000
By ROBIN TONER
http://www.nytimes.com/library/review/061800political-activists-review.html
WASHINGTON -- Conventional wisdom holds that party platforms are only slightly less archaic than torchlight parades on election eve -- a grab bag of dogma for true believers at a time when nearly every candidate wants to run as a centrist, wooing the swing voters of the suburbs.
But in fact, many experts say, national party platforms can be exceedingly revealing -- not only of what an administration will try to do once in office, but also of the power of various constituency groups and the extent to which a nominee is willing to take them on. In an era when everything else is so stage-managed and poll-driven in politics, platforms are where the activists -- like social conservatives in the Republican Party and organized labor, feminists and teachers in the Democratic -- often have their say.
This, of course, can be troublesome for nominees, ever hopeful of a harmonious, triumphant convention for a middle-of-the-road audience. That may help explain why Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, the presumed Republican nominee, and his fellow party leaders are not exactly throwing a spotlight on the platform process, which begins in earnest this week with two "policy forums" in Dayton, Ohio, and Billings, Mont. "The less said about the platform the better, is their message," said Susan Cullman, co-chairwoman of the Republican Pro-Choice Coalition, one of many groups trying to influence the document.
Seemingly intent on avoiding the platform nightmares of Bob Dole, the 1996 Republican nominee, Mr. Bush signaled early on that he would not seek to contest the most contentious plank in the document: the call for an end to legalized abortion, with no exceptions for rape, incest or danger to the life of the mother. (Mr. Bush says he personally supports such exceptions.)
Republican leaders in recent days have also indicated that there will be no public hearings on the abortion issue before the convention. At the same time, the Bush campaign is also distancing itself -- ever so respectfully and gingerly -- from the platform itself. "The platform is a grass-roots document that percolates up from below and that reflects the views of the grass-roots activists of the party," said Ralph Reed, an adviser to the Bush campaign, adding that he believed this was true of both parties. "And while that sets an overarching philosophical tone for the party, the nominees of the party at every level reserve the right to differ on particulars."
Anyone who thinks platforms are unimportant should consider their rough history. Sometimes, activists use them to "constrain their candidate" from breaking with party orthodoxy, as Paul Allen Beck, a political science professor at Ohio State University, put it. Most recently, social conservatives stopped Bob Dole from adding a tolerance provision to the abortion plank in 1996; he ended up metaphorically throwing up his hands, declaring that he had not even read the platform.
Sometimes, the platform becomes another staging ground to continue a brutal primary struggle, a specialty of the Democrats for many years. In 1980, when Senator Edward M. Kennedy challenged President Jimmy Carter for the nomination, the two camps struggled over the platform for 17 hours of floor debate and numerous roll call votes; the Kennedy camp won so many liberal concessions -- like a demand for a $12 billion jobs program -- that Mr. Carter could not, in the end, fully endorse his own platform. In 1968, the battle between hawks and doves in the Democratic Party raged anew over the platform plank on Vietnam.
For much of the 70's and 80's, the Democratic Party fought so hard over platforms, while losing so many elections, that its activists ultimately embraced a kind of realpolitik. By 1992, after 12 years out of power, Democrats approved a platform that was a model of centrist, New Democratic philosophy, organized around the unobjectionable themes of "responsibility," "opportunity" and "community."
"The message we wanted to deliver to the American people was, this wasn't the kind of Democratic Party you've been voting against for a quarter century," said Al From, president of the Democratic Leadership Council, which was instrumental in the new platform. "And the platform was a key element in that."
So, for example, the party that in its 1972 platform railed against the evils of "forced work requirements" for welfare recipients was declaring in 1996 that welfare should be "a second chance, not a way of life." Vice President Al Gore seems likely to follow suit thematically: the former editor of the leadership council's policy journal will be the main draftsman of the new Democratic platform.
Alan Brinkley, a historian at Columbia who views the post-1992 Democratic platforms as "bland to the point of invisibility," added, "Even the most left-leaning members of the party have conceded they have to go with the game plan for everybody to get elected."
It is that mentality, of course, that the Bush campaign would like to foment in its party, after eight years out of power. Because another important truth about platforms, some analysts say, is that the only way average voters learn of a platform is when the opposition uses it against you. "It is a document that can get you into trouble and can do you no good," said Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster.
The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, for example, intends to highlight the Republican platform's abortion position -- including its demand for the appointment of judges who respect "the sanctity of innocent human life." Mr. Bush has declined to embrace such a litmus test. But his critics argue that if a candidate cannot override his party's constituent groups on the platform, he is unlikely to do so in office.
In the end, for all the attempts to tamp down controversy in the platform, and for all the control modern nominees exert on the process, there is still room for the passion of activists. Mr. Beck, the political science professor, argues that in some ways, "principles have become even more important" for activists these days, because the old incentives for engagement -- like patronage -- have diminished.
All of which explains why, even though abortion is nowhere on the agenda of this week's platform meetings, representatives of both the Republican Pro-Choice Coalition and local affiliates of the National Right to Life Committee are expected to head to Dayton and Billings.
-------- human genome
George Irving Bell, 73, Leader in Studies of Human Genome
New York Times
June 18, 2000
By WOLFGANG SAXON
http://www.nytimes.com/00/06/18/news/national/obit-g-bell.html
Dr. George Irving Bell, a biophysicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and a leader in its human genome studies, died on May 28 in Los Alamos, N.M., where he lived. He was 73.
The cause was leukemia complications after surgery, his family said.
Dr. Bell was a founder of the Center for Human Genome Studies, which was organized at Los Alamos in 1988 with him as acting director. The center participates in the public consortium, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, that has worked for 10 years to decode the human genome.
The goal of the Human Genome Project, as it is known, is to decode the three billion units of human DNA and thereby usher in an era in which diseases will be analyzed and treated in terms of the genes that cause or influence them. To that end, the Los Alamos laboratory is also participating in the Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, Calif., a venture with Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories.
While heading the genome studies center for a year, Dr. Bell continued as director of the laboratory's theoretical biology and biophysics division, which he had led since 1974. He was named a senior laboratory fellow in 1989 and retired the next year, but continued his research until last September.
Dr. Bell, a mountain climber, was a member of a team that climbed two of the highest Andean peaks in Peru in the 1950's and took part in many treks and climbs in the Himalayas. He had hiked 14 miles the weekend before he died.
George Bell was born in Evanston, Ill. He graduated from Harvard with a degree in physics in 1947, and four years later he received a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Cornell, where he studied with the physicist Hans Bethe. Dr. Bell joined the staff at Los Alamos the same year, working in the theoretical division when it was producing designs for thermonuclear weapons.
Besides sequencing the human genome, his specialties were theoretical physics and immunology, nuclear reactor theory and mathematical models in biophysics. He contributed more than 100 papers, many of them offering novel theoretical approaches to biological problems.
He was a co-author of "Nuclear Reactor Theory" (1970) and a co-editor of "Theoretical Immunology" (1978) and "Computers and DNA" (1989).
Dr. Bell is survived by his wife of 46 years, Virginia Lotz Bell; a daughter, Carolyn Prince, of Los Alamos; a son, George Jr., of Boulder, Colo.; a sister, Dr. Barbara Bell, a solar physicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; and five grandchildren.
-------- activists
Demonstrators Battle Police at U.S. Base Near Seoul
New York Times
June 18, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/korea-base-ap.html
MAEHYANG-RI, South Korea, June 17 -- At a United States military base that has long been a point of dispute, hundreds of protesters demanding that American troops leave South Korea clashed with the police today, leaving at least 20 people injured.
The protests came just days after a landmark agreement between North and South Korea to work for peace and unity, but the villagers have long demanded the relocation of a nearby United States Air Force bombing range at the Koon-Ni Range, which they consider a source of noise and injuries.
After about 100 people gathered today to protest at this west coast village, 50 miles southwest of Seoul, students and leftist labor activists seized the occasion to mount a wider anti-American demonstration, swelling the ranks of the protesters to about 1,000.
"This is our land! Let's drive out U.S. troops!" they chanted today, pumping their fists into the air as they demanded that the 37,000 American troops in South Korea go home.
The protesters threw rocks and dirt and wielded bamboo sticks when riot police officers locked their plastic shields and batons to block them from marching on the range.
Police officers beat them back, and traded rocks, kicks and punches with 100 union workers from the nearby Kia Motors plant who tried to join the protest. Sporadic clashes continued for hours.
Ambulances rushed to the remote fishing village to carry off 20 Kia workers and students, all bleeding from their heads or arms. One Kia worker's face was covered with blood. A Roman Catholic priest, bleeding from the head, shouted for the withdrawal of American troops.
Some workers climbing pine-covered hills to go around the police blockade were chased by officers.
The villagers' protests have increased since early May, when an American fighter jet with engine trouble dropped six bombs on the range. The villagers claimed that six people were slightly injured, and that walls were cracked and windows shattered by the impact.
American and Korean military investigators said the bombs caused no injuries or property damage. South Korea's Defense Ministry has ruled out moving the base and instead intends to relocate 236 homes close to the range to avoid friction -- a plan opposed by villagers.
The United States Air Force has suspended exercises at the range since mid-May. It said it will resume operation Monday, saying further delays would hurt its readiness to deter military threats from North Korea.
President Kim Dae Jung has said he supports a continued American military presence even after North Korean military threats cease. He said the American presence was necessary for stability in the region.
The bombing exercises have been a constant source of friction with villagers. They say at least nine people have died in accidents linked to the range, including a pregnant woman killed when shrapnel hit her in 1967.
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