After Years of Wantonly Declassifying Nuclear Secrets, D.O.E. Is Suddenly Seized with the Need to Protect Them — from Us

(Washington, D.C.): Yesterday’s New York Times reported an astonishing
statement by
Department of Energy spokeswoman Brooke Anderson. In response to a comment on the Fox
Sunday program by Rep. Chris Cox (R-CA) — to the effect that DoE was
delaying the
declassification of key passages of a highly critical report adopted last December by a select
House committee he chaired even after the CIA and FBI had “determined that [their]
release
would not harm intelligence-gathering sources or methods” — Ms. Anderson declared:

“We have been working with other agencies and Congress to declassify as much of the report
as
possible with out releasing information that would compromise intelligence sources or methods or
classified nuclear weapons information….Discussions are ongoing, but Secretary
Richardson
under no circumstances will bow to pressure and release sensitive nuclear weapons
information.” (Emphasis added.)

Protesting Too Much?

What makes this statement remarkable is not that the Secretary of Energy is determined to
protect
“sensitive nuclear weapons information.” That is, after all, as it should be. Rather, it is
extraordinary because that sentiment contrasts so sharply with the cavalier attitude about
such information that the Clinton Administration and its Energy Department have
exhibited until very recently.

This attitude was most evident in Executive Order 12958, signed by
President Clinton on April
17, 1995. E.O. 12958 calls for the automatic declassification by April
17, 2000 of all
documents containing historical information that are 25 years or older. While the order
allows a few exceptions in the name of protecting national security (notably, an injunction that
“nothing in this order shall supersede the [classification requirements of] the Atomic Energy Act
of 1954″), the practical effect of the order has been greatly to abbreviate the time and
necessarily to diminish the care with which documents are scrutinized prior to their release
to the public.1

What amounted to “pressure [to] release sensitive nuclear weapons information” (to coin a
phrase) came not only from then-Secretary of Energy Hazel O’Leary but from
declassification-devotes in the White House like then-NSC staffer Morton
Halperin and the current Chief of
Staff, John Podesta. Under such pressure, the Administration wound up
engaging in the
wholesale declassification of papers, including some containing Restricted Data (RD) or Formerly
Restricted Data (FRD). Those charged with doing so have been compelled to declassify DoE
documents by the file — if not by the box or by the shelf — on the grounds that the
time required
and the costs associated with a careful page-by-page review are in excess of what the Executive
Order and DoE budget will permit.

Last summer, several leading Members of Congress became alarmed about the Department of
Energy’s inattention to the need to safeguard “sensitive nuclear information” — i.e., information
that can, irrespective of its age, be of use to nascent nuclear weapons programs abroad.
Sens.
Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Richard Shelby (R-AL) and Bob
Smith (R-NH) wrote National Security
Advisor Sandy Berger to express their concern that “in a frenzied attempt to meet the deadline
mandated by E.O. 12958, officials are not taking proper care to ensure that Restricted Data and
Formerly Restricted Data that may be commingled with other classified information is not being
improperly released or scheduled for automatic declassification.”

The magnitude of the problem was described by the Washington Times on 31
July 1998. The
paper disclosed that the Department of Energy had inadvertently declassified extremely sensitive
information concerning: locations of overseas U.S. nuclear weapons storage facilities;
data
about U.S. nuclear weapons yields; Navy blueprints showing the exact firing sequence of a
nuclear weapon; a Navy document showing the design of nuclear weapons fuel capsules; an
Army paper detailing a gun-assembled nuclear weapon; data on British yield-to-weight
ratios for nuclear weapons; an Air Force document containing nuclear weapon design
information and another one concerning intelligence about Soviet nuclear weapons.

The Senators added:

“Our information is that the Secretary of Energy was made aware of [the
improper release during
declassification of sensitive data] in December 1995 and again in January 1996. The
National
Security Council staff was also briefed in January 1996. No remedial action was taken
as a
result of these meetings. In our opinion, this lack of action may be a very serious infraction
of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954.” (Emphasis added.)

The Senators’ concerns prompted them to amend the FY1999 defense authorization act to
tighten
up procedures for reviewing this material and to require a presidential certification that it is
“highly unlikely” RD or FRD material is being released pursuant to E.O.
12958. It is worth
noting that Mr. Podesta and the Administration strenuously opposed this amendment and have
generally tried to thwart its implementation as intended. Among the senior officials who are said
to have contributed to this effort is Rose Gottemoeller, whose controversial
nomination to
become Assistant Secretary of Energy for Nonproliferation and National Security was recently
sneaked through the Senate without any effort being made to examine her role in the
unfolding
China scandal and other DoE security problems. 2

The Bottom Line

Welcome as it is, Secretary of Energy Richardson’s reported determination to safeguard
classified
information would be more convincing if it did not contrast so completely with the policies
pursued by the Clinton Administration at least until the news broke about China’s espionage at
Los Alamos. It would also be less suspect if its insistence on protecting the Nation’s secrets did
not serve the President’s understandable — but opprobrious — desire to prevent the American
people from reviewing evidence of serious misfeasance, if not malfeasance, concerning PRC
penetration of the American economy, political system and military-industrial and nuclear
weapons complex.

1 See the Center’s Decision Briefs entitled
Clinton Legacy Watch # 30: America the
Proliferator (No. 98-D 145, 14 August
1998) and The Most Important Justification for Firing
Hazel O’Leary: Her Role in Denuclearizing the United States ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=95-D_90″>No. 95-D 90, 10 November
1995).

2 Additional reasons for concern about this nomination can be found
in the Center’s Decision
Briefs entitled Senate Given Another Opportunity to Reject Clinton’s
Policy of
Denuclearization: the Gottemoeller Nomination ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_166″>No. 98-D 166, 29 September 1998) and
Clinton’s Reckless Nuclear Agenda Revealed? Study Co-Authored By Candidate
For Top
Pentagon Job Is Alarming (No. 97-D 96, 12
July 1997).