Albright Demands Shake-up in Security Procedures

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright ordered a shake-up in the way her department protects national secrets Monday following the disappearance of a laptop computer loaded with classified information from a supposedly secure conference room.

“Like several other recent serious lapses in security, this is inexcusable and intolerable,” Albright said of the loss of the computer, which contained classified information about weapons proliferation and other matters. “Such failures put our nation’s secrets at risk. They also damage the department’s reputation.”

Albright ordered all of the department’s supervisory personnel to conduct a thorough review of security procedures this week and called on all employees to attend annual refresher courses on safeguarding sensitive material.

She also resolved a simmering bureaucratic turf fight by declaring that the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, mainly a law enforcement organization, should have primary responsibility for security, rather than the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the department’s in-house intelligence analysts. The missing computer, which disappeared in January, was used by the intelligence bureau.

The department’s inspector general recommended the change last year before the computer disappeared. Phylis Oakley, then head of the intelligence bureau, resisted the switch and no action was taken at the time.

Albright also transferred two intelligence bureau supervisors to other duties pending a full investigation of the laptop incident. They were not identified.

Although Albright insisted that blame will not be assigned until the investigation is complete, she left no doubt that disciplinary action is likely.

“In regard to the investigation of the disappearance of the laptop computer, I have asked that questions of accountability be examined carefully and that appropriate recommendations be made,” she said.

“Ultimately, of course, the accountability rests with me,” she added. “And I am determined to do all I can to encourage a culture within the department where incidents of the sort we have seen recently simply do not happen.”

State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said it is not known if the computer was stolen or just misplaced. And if it was stolen, he said, it is not clear whether it was taken for the secrets it contained or only as a valuable piece of hardware.

But if the machine was taken by spies and if they succeed in cracking its elaborate code words, the damage to U.S. security could be severe, officials said. The computer’s hard drive stored thousands of classified documents about weapons proliferation. Officials were concerned that information in the computer could compromise U.S. espionage sources and methods.

Officials said that the laptop was never supposed to leave an intelligence bureau conference room.

The incident followed the discovery last year that a Russian agent had planted a microphone in a different State Department conference room. That matter was discovered when the FBI apprehended a Russian agent loitering outside the department as he tried to pick up signals from the listening device. In 1998, an unidentified man stole classified documents from an office down the hall from Albright’s own suite. The papers have never been recovered.

On Monday, Albright renewed a proposal made earlier this year to establish an undersecretary post for security. In the State Department’s hierarchy, undersecretaries rank just below the secretary and deputy secretary. They outrank assistant secretaries. In the meantime, she named David Carpenter, an assistant secretary and head of the diplomatic security bureau, to be her senior advisor on security issues.

“Unfortunately, security is not a subject in a university course--99% success is a failing grade,” Albright said. “So today I want to reiterate to every employee in every office in every bureau and diplomatic post: Security must be your top priority in all its aspects all the time.”

She read a statement to reporters but did not answer questions.

Since the laptop disappearance was first reported by the Washington Post, Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House International Relations Committee, has announced plans for full-scale hearings into State Department security lapses.

Later Monday, Albright addressed a conference at the United Nations, defending U.S. plans to develop a limited system of ground-based interceptors directed against the potential missile programs of foreign states such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq.