Pentagon Slow to Adopt Security Steps

Despite a serious effort to upgrade military security in the wake of recent spy scandals, many of the changes ordered by Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger have only recently been implemented and some have been delayed, a Pentagon report said Thursday.

The report focuses on the Defense Department’s response to more than five dozen recommendations made in November, 1985, by a task force chaired by retired Army Gen. Richard G. Stilwell.

Weinberger established the panel following the Walker family spy scandal, which involved the break-up of an espionage ring that funneled Navy secrets to the Soviet Union for almost two decades.

Pentagon spokesman Robert Sims said Weinberger embraced 48 of the panel’s 63 recommendations and that “43 of those have been implemented to date.”

The report said, however, that many of the recommendations were only adopted in the course of a January update of personnel security regulations and that some changes--while now reflected in the regulations--actually have not been implemented.