Clinton Legacy Watch # 40: A Scandal at the Department of Energy On His Watch — Grievous Damage Done to Sell the C.T.B.T.
(Washington, D.C.): In his press conference last week, President Clinton tried once again to
distance his Administration from the unfolding scandal arising from reported Chinese penetration
of the U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories. He claimed that, as far as he knew, no one had
suggested that there had been any compromise of sensitive information at the labs on his watch.
This statement is laughable on its face. In fact, given the Clinton policy of “engaging” China
(among other potential adversaries), its dismal security practices and the personnel charged with
responsibility for both,
of miraculous if additional, serious
damage to U.S. interests had not occurred at the Department of Energy labs and elsewhere
during this presidency.
A case in point is the deleterious effect of the Clinton Administration’s single-minded pursuit
of a
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). In the following areas, even a
preliminary
assessment of the harmful effects of this campaign suggests that real and long-term damage has
been done:
- Unprecedented access to U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories and their sensitive
information: William Safire speculated in a column that appeared in yesterday’s
New York
Times (see the attached) that the Chinese were given by the
Clinton team not only access to
powerful supercomputers but also the “Langrangian codes” — computations based upon data
derived from decades of U.S. nuclear tests — that would permit the PRC to pursue its
aggressive nuclear build-up using simulated tests instead of real ones.
- What Mr. Safire did not discuss is the Administration’s rationale for
providing China
with such extraordinarily sensitive information, which he reasonably surmises would
have enabled “the People’s Liberation Army [to leap] a decade ahead in its race to
nuclear-weapon parity.” The Clinton team saw access to such technology and the
relevant DOE lab personnel as means of inducing China and other CTBT
holdouts to sign onto that accord. Bizarre as it may seem, the practice of increasing
the threat to the United States in the name of advancing an arms control agenda is
hardly unprecedented.
- Proliferating Knowledge About Nuclear Weapons Design: The
Administration’s pursuit
of a CTBT has caused it, for the moment at least,3 to place
priority on a hugely expensive and
ambitious “Stockpile Stewardship Program” (SSP). This program aims to develop new
experimental facilities, computer modeling and other scientific techniques as replacements for
nuclear testing. Unfortunately, there are not only serious technical risks associated with this
program (e.g., that it will not get completed, work as advertized or be accurately calibrated via
nuclear testing); it also has important liabilities from a counter-intelligence point of
view.
- As Kenneth deGraffenreid, a distinguished member of the Center for
Security
Policy’s Board of Advisors, has observed, prior to the Clinton Administration,
information about nuclear testing was closely held by a small cadre of government
experts. Thanks to the SSP, however, such data has suddenly become relatively widely
available to contractor personnel, universities, graduate students and others.
Inevitably, as the number of people with access to sensitive information
concerning the U.S. nuclear weapons program grows, so does the counter-intelligence challenge
involved in protecting this data — especially given the
extraordinary lengths to which the Chinese are going to penetrate not only the nuclear
laboratories but relevant parts of American industry and academia.
- Suppression of warnings about Chinese espionage to protect the SSP:
The Center has
learned that senior DOE officials — fearful that counter-intelligence revelations about the
PRC’s penetration of the nuclear weapons laboratories could have had chilling effects on
congressional support for the SSP — refused to cooperate fully in the CI
investigation and in
implementation of recommendations concerning corrective actions that resulted therefrom.
- Increased Vulnerability to Electromagnetic Pulse: Press reports suggest
that, in addition to
stealing the Trident II missile’s W-88 warhead, the Chinese have also compromised designs for
specialized U.S. nuclear weapons. These are said to include the enhanced radiation weapon
(the so-called “neutron bomb”) and an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) device. Whatever the
accuracy of these reports, they should catalyze a fresh look at associated U.S. vulnerabilities.
- To their credit, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) and other members of
the House Armed
Services Committee have taken the lead in warning against the dangers posed by EMP
attacks against an advanced computer-dependent society like that of today’s United
States. According to testimony before the Committee, a single, well-placed explosion
optimized to produce a large-scale electromagnetic pulse would be able to obliterate
much of the Nation’s civilian electronics. Obviously, this would not only have
devastating effects upon the society as a whole but upon the national security, as well.
- Worse yet from a defense point of view, with the cessation of U.S. nuclear testing
in 1992, an important technique for assuring that critical, dedicated military
equipment is EMP “hardened” has been foreclosed. The cumulative effect of a
diminished interest at the highest levels of the Pentagon in nuclear hardness
the one hand and, on the other, an increased reliance upon civilian
telecommunications, computers and other electronic gear — equipment that has,
with few exceptions, not been subjected to the additional costs associated with
EMP hardening — is to engender a yawning American vulnerability. Given the
traditional Chinese interest, dating back to Sun Tzu, in achieving asymmetric
capabilities with which to destroy adversaries, the United States should be
deeply concerned about the potential for EMP attacks, whether from China or
elsewhere, especially if American nuclear technology may be contributing to such
a threat.
The Bottom Line
The Clinton Administration has made early Senate action on the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty
a top foreign policy priority for 1999. The debate over this Treaty must be informed, among
other things, by the contribution that Mr. Clinton’s efforts to secure this agreement may have
made to the spreading China scandal and to the harm it has caused American security.
Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Clinton Legacy Watch # 38: China and the ‘Three P’s’ — Reckless Policies,
Practices and
Personnel Spell Trouble (No. 99-D 33, 15 March
1999).
Factory Episode Illuminates Why Chemical
Weapons Cannot be Effectively, Verifiably Banned (
Military a Voice — and heed it — on Landmine Policy (
Soviet Defector Offers Timely Warning on Bioweapon Threat; Ex-CIA Director
Woolsey
Rejects On-Site Visits as Rx (No. 98-D 53,
27 March 1998).
fully funding the SSP
program — at a cost of at least $4.5 billion per year in constant dollars — if it is able to secure the
Senate’s advice and consent to the CTBT. See Warning to the Nuclear Labs: Don’t
Count on
‘Stockpile Stewardship’ to Maintain Either Overhead Or Confidence (
December 1997).
once a key institution called
the Defense Nuclear Agency.
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