Insider : A Giant Electronic Leap for the Diplomatic Corps : No more shredding of secret paper files. When U.S. embassies send messages, it will be through the State Department’s new $300-million computerized system.

It was October, 1979, and staffers at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran were rushing to shred their secret files before the Iranian Revolutionary Guards--who were about to capture the building and hold 52 Americans hostage for 63 weeks--could break down the doors.

The shredding operation was successful but unavailing. Despite the Americans’ efforts, scores of Iranian women with magnifying glasses were able to reconstruct the tiny shreds of paper, which later were made public at great embarrassment to Washington.

That scene won’t be replayed again, U.S. officials believe, because the State Department bureaucracy is taking a bold new leap into modern technology: It is about to replace the old paper files at U.S. embassies with a new, $300-million computerized communications system.

The new system will not only be far faster in speeding embassy diplomatic cables to Foggy Bottom but by substituting bits and bytes for paper, there will be no more documents to shred--or lose. Washington could use an emergency signal to destroy all the embassy’s files in a flash.

Sheldon J. Krys, assistant secretary for diplomatic security, believes computer files eventually will replace paper for almost all diplomatic uses--not just for diplomatic cables, to which the current system will be limited.

Although a formal international agreement may always require parchment and ink, Krys says, in the new age an ambassador will be able to “talk” directly to Washington through the computer, storing both outgoing messages and the State Department’s replies electronically.

Besides the new system’s classified message traffic, a companion “open” network--the Foreign Affairs Information System, or FAIS--will handle routine office business. Because there is no security problem, FAIS will be able to make use of off-the-shelf equipment.

Currently, the State Department relies chiefly on yards of Telex tape, time-consuming encoding methods and hand-delivered printed messages to maintain confidential links with 150 diplomatic posts. It all requires costly procedures for retrieval and storage.

Krys says the new computer system will keep three years of messages to and from Washington instantly available to authorized users. Messages from the previous 18 years will be retrievable within hours instead of the days that a file-search can take today.

The security problem posed by the old-fashioned paper files is expected to become an increasing concern, particularly as conflicts in the Middle East make America more and more a prime target for terrorism.

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad faced just such a threat last August when President Bush decided to send American troops to oust the Iraqi army from Kuwait. Fortunately, the crisis developed so slowly that the embassy staff had time to destroy sensitive materials.

“We can’t comment on specifics,” Krys says, “but it can be assumed that the shutdown of the embassy was done by the book--if you judge from the fact that there was no publication of any confidential information.”

Still, Krys makes no bones about the fact that the danger of compromise of classified materials from the embassy in Baghdad was a serious one. “You had a government which wouldn’t have hesitated to publish anything they had,” he says.

So far, Krys maintains, no hacker has been able to break into the confidential new computer system, which already is in operation between Washington and three embassies--London, Bonn and Bogota, Colombia.

The first two sites were chosen because of the heavy volume of communications at these large posts. Bogota was picked because of the major U.S. commitment to the battle against Colombian drug-traffickers.

Despite the State Department’s high hopes for the new system, private analysts have raised questions about just how secure any computer system can be, particularly against unauthorized leaks and so-called computer “viruses,” or malfunctions introduced by outsiders.

Lance J. Hoffman, a George Washington University computer expert, acknowledges that the government’s process of security clearances gives it better control than many organizations, but he argues that even trusted insiders can inadvertently compromise the computer system.

“There’s no absolute security in any system,” Hoffman says.

State Department officials seem confident that they will be able to protect the new system, which uses secret software.

Computerization isn’t the only new step that the department is taking to heighten communications security. It also is putting in scrambler telephones that disguise voice transmissions and then decode them at the other end of the line.

Even these aren’t foolproof, however. Because they are only safe to use in a secure environment, they are virtually useless in heavily monitored areas such as the new and now-famous “bugged” embassy in Moscow.

How a Top-Secret Embassy Cable Gets to Washington The old system involved every step shown here. With the new technology, the cable only flows through the steps at the bottom of chart. The computerized system will not only be faster but by substituting bits and bytes for paper, there will be no more documents to shred or lose. Old system:

A paper copy of cable is printed

Cable hand-carried to embassy communications center.

Optical character-reader scans cable, encodes it, puts it in digital format.

New system:

Embassy officer drafts cable on word processor or typewriter.

Cable is approved by clearing officer.

Cable sent over special diplomatic telecommunications system.

Cable arrives at State Dept. relay station in Beltsville, Md., and is decoded.

Cable processed and distributed to proper officials.