Energy Official Quits in Wake of Spy Scandal

The Energy Department’s top official overseeing the nation’s nuclear weapon programs has resigned because of differences with Energy Secretary Bill Richardson over the department’s organization, administration sources said Saturday.

Victor Reis, assistant secretary for defense programs, submitted his resignation in a letter to President Clinton on Friday, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Reis could not be reached for comment.

Reis is one of a number of officials targeted by an internal review into the mishandling of an espionage investigation involving a Taiwan-born scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Officials said Reis cited as the reason for his resignation his differences with Richardson over creating a largely autonomous nuclear weapon agency within the department.

Richardson opposed such an agency, believing it would reduce the Energy secretary’s authority and create a fiefdom largely immune to outside scrutiny.

“I will not agree to an agency I cannot control,” Richardson said last week when asked about pressure in Congress for DOE reorganization following the alleged espionage and security problems at the labs.

Reis had told Richardson he supports legislation being proposed by three Republican senators, including Sen. Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, to put all nuclear weapon programs under an agency that would report to Richardson but make its own budget and personnel decisions.

Richardson had suggested streamlining authority within the weapon program and raising its profile by making its head an undersecretary.

But security and counterintelligence activities and budget and personnel decisions should remain under his authority, he said.