Arms Agency Criticized for Its Handling of Top-Secret Documents

Records of top-secret documents held by the government arms control agency are inaccurate, incomplete and of little help in locating scores of missing classified papers and safes, a General Accounting Office study has found.

The GAO also reported that the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency’s top-secret control officer in Washington had delegated his duties to a file clerk and took no steps to ensure that the employee protected classified material.

The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, said the arms control agency had no system for controlling documents at the offices of the U.S. arms reduction negotiating team and had neither named a control officer for top secrets nor created a log of top-secret documents.

The report said that, although agency officials maintained that arms control negotiators in Geneva had access to few, if any, top-secret documents, “in our review of a sample of 26 out of 256 safe drawers, we found more than 150 uncontrollable top-secret documents.”

A principal finding: “Although (the agency) has established procedures for handling and controlling top-secret documents at its Washington headquarters, it has no mechanism to ensure compliance with them. . . . Records of its top-secret documents were inaccurate, incomplete and out-of-date. . . . “

The GAO, which said corrective steps are now being taken, said the agency’s Washington top-secret control log is unreliable to assure that classified information is adequately protected because it is laced with “clerical and substantive errors.”

The agency could not locate scores of requested documents that had been entered in the log, the report said.

The GAO said it had pinpointed a number of other allegedly sloppy or lax security procedures. It noted that the agency had not changed the combinations of security safes as often as required and had placed some highly classified “code word” documents in improper containers.

It said its survey at the arms control agency’s Washington headquarters found that the agency could not locate 62 safes listed in its records but did have 42 safes for which there were no records at all.

“In Geneva, combinations to safes were not changed when (agency) personnel using the safes were transferred or their employment was terminated,” the report said.

The Geneva safe combinations were last changed during September and October, 1987, the report said.

The GAO said the arms control agency has begun to take corrective actions, including a May 2 memo to all staff members, which stated that “security is a priority” and emphasized “the need to protect classified information and material within the agency.”

It said the agency believes that most missing documents can be accounted for and is updating records on the numbers and locations of safes.