Defense Dept., Adhering to Panel’s Recommendation, Orders Security Inspection

The Pentagon, trying to attack the weaknesses brought to light by the Walker spy case, will conduct a top-to-bottom security inspection, taking action on one of the recommendations of a senior-level commission created last summer to identify vulnerabilities in military security.

The panel, in a report made public Thursday, also recommended expanded use of lie detectors, rewards for information leading to the apprehension of spies, improved background investigations and fewer security clearances.

It called for establishing a policy of inspecting people entering or leaving sites of defense activities and keeping track of personal foreign trips--during which spies could trade information for payments.

Backed by Weinberger

Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger ordered the Defense Department security inspection and was said by his spokesman to have offered a “general endorsement” of the commission’s recommendations.

The inspection is to be conducted by next Oct. 1 to determine whether security policies throughout the department are being enforced.

In drawing up its recommendations, the commission, headed by retired Army Gen. Richard G. Stilwell, said “the stakes for the United States have never been higher,” and described the challenge of protecting the nation’s defense secrets as one of “almost immeasurable scope”:

--With the Pentagon maintaining an official presence in 95 countries, “the geographic distribution of classified information is . . . extensive.”

--The number of classified documents maintained by the Pentagon is unknown, but “an estimate of 100 million is not unrealistic,” with 16 million documents given a classified rating in 1984 alone.

--The Pentagon “is moving at a bewildering rate” to computer storage of classified data, with most of an estimated 16,000 computers processing information “of value to an adversary.”

--Classified defense work is conducted at more than 13,000 private companies.

Losses Called ‘Damaging’

Stilwell said at a news conference that “the known losses, serious losses, of our security have been relatively few. But each has been very, very damaging.”

The most recent significant such case involved that of John A. Walker Jr., a retired Navy chief warrant officer, who was arrested on espionage charges and pleaded guilty last month to spying for the Soviet Union.

That case, which stunned the Pentagon, focused attention on the problems of potential security risks posed by insiders, but was apparently unique only in its scope.

“Security regulations are often violated but only serious cases are typically made a matter of report, few of those are investigated, even where a pattern of such conduct is in evidence, and fewer still result in punishment,” according to the report, titled “Keeping the Nation’s Secrets: A Report to the Secretary of Defense by the Commission to Review DoD Security Policies and Practices.”

Seen as Key Weapon

The panel, emphasizing the security risks posed by spies rather than electronic surveillance, said that polygraph machines, commonly known as lie detectors, represented “the primary technique currently available to the (Defense) Department which offers any realistic promise of detecting penetrations of its classified programs by hostile intelligence services.”

People handling secret and top secret material should face the possibility of random polygraph examinations, the report said in one of its 63 recommendations.

The reliability of the machine, which detects physiological responses in a person answering questions posed by the machine’s operator, has frequently come under question, but Stilwell defended the validity of the tests, and the commission called for a “substantial” expansion of their use.

Theory Discounted

John Beary, an associate dean of the Georgetown University Medical School and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, wrote in a recent issue of the Harvard Business Review: “The theory behind the lie detector is scientifically incorrect. Using a lie detector to predict the truth is no more sound than using Laetrile to cure cancer or a copper bracelet to cure arthritis.”

Beary, in a telephone interview, said: “What we’re talking about here is the ability to predict lies, and you can underline the word ‘predict.’ You want to have a test that performs very, very well and accurately. There is no machine that detects lies.”