Polygraph Use Causes a Flap in Weapons Labs : Security: One scientist says the tests recall anti-Communist witch hunts of the 1950s.

National weapons lab scientist Patrick Weidhaas looks at the polygraph tests proposed as part of a new spy-fighting initiative and sees shadows of the anti-Communist sweeps of the 1950s.

“This was America at its worst, and we do not need another witch hunt,” he wrote in a newsletter this month to colleagues at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Weidhaas, a computer scientist, isn’t the only one registering discontent with the Energy Department’s decision to use polygraphs to stiffen security following allegations that nuclear secrets leaked to China.

Since the DOE announced its plans earlier this year, scientists at the nation’s three nuclear weapons labs, Livermore in California and Los Alamos and Sandia in New Mexico, have made it clear they’re worried about hanging their careers on the squiggly lines of a polygraph machine.

“I don’t think you’ll find very many people who are in favor of polygraphing,” says Betty Gunther, who works in the computing division of Los Alamos. “What we’re talking about is destroying a very good research institution.”

“Our concern here is that it will actually undermine, not bolster, national security,” said Alan Zelicoff, a senior scientist at Sandia. He said the tests have a very low “true positive” rate, meaning they won’t be very efficient spy catchers, but they probably will be effective at putting off bright young recruits.

“ ‘Come to the DOE labs. We’ll pay you a third of what you’d get in Silicon Valley and, by the way, you’re guilty until proven innocent.’ That’s counterproductive,” Zelicoff said.

Details of the tests--who must take them and when--are still being worked out. The first of four public hearings on the issue will be held Sept. 14 in Livermore.

Thousands of employees ultimately could be made to answer four work-related questions--”basically, are you a spy,” says Jim Danneskiold, Los Alamos spokesman.

The testing is being supported by the University of California, which manages Los Alamos and Livermore.

“National security now is of the utmost importance, and with new technologies out there, . . . new ways of penetrating security systems, it is just more important than ever to make sure that those people in those sensitive positions are completely reliable and understand their responsibilities,” said UC spokesman Rick Malaspina.

Sandia President C. Paul Robinson issued a statement saying the lab’s manager, Lockheed Martin Corp., has a policy of asking employees to take polygraphs if so requested by the government.

Polygraph opponents say they appreciate the need for strict security, but they’re worried about the possibility of “false positives” from the polygraphs.

DOE officials say the four-question tests, much less complex than the kind used in longer examinations, should have a very small error rate.