Security at Nuclear Labs Eased in Clinton’s Last Days

In his last days in office, former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson temporarily suspended a series of measures that had been taken over the last two years to tighten security at the nation’s nuclear weapons laboratories.

Richardson discontinued some of the measures, which included giving polygraph tests to more than 10,000 employees, pending a high-level review to determine whether they have done more harm than good.

He had instituted many of the security measures under pressure from Congress after allegations of Chinese espionage at the lab. But laboratory managers and scientists have complained in recent months that the crackdown was making it difficult for them to do their jobs and for the labs to recruit first-rate researchers.

“I’m not just concerned with security,” Richardson said in a telephone interview. “I was concerned with the morale at the labs.”

In addition to widespread polygraph testing of Energy Department employees, the measures included tighter computer security, limited access to classified materials and controls over foreign visitors.

Richardson ordered that the new policies be suspended until administrators from Washington, regional Energy Department officials and lab managers can gather for a “review conference” to discuss security, according to a Jan. 18 memo from the former secretary to John A. Gordon, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Under legislation passed by Congress last year, Gordon, a retired general who also serves as an undersecretary of Energy, has primary responsibility for the Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories in New Mexico, and the Lawrence Livermore facility in Northern California.

No date has been set for the conference, which was proposed last month by a commission on science and security set up by Richardson. The commission chairman, former Deputy Secretary of Defense John J. Hamre, said this week there is “dissonance within the system” because “security people are not talking to scientists.”

Richardson also ordered Gordon to set up a task force to examine physical security around nuclear materials stored at the labs. In recent exercises designed to test those barriers, U.S. troops playing the role of infiltrators quickly overcame guards who were supposed to protect nuclear materials.

Richardson’s successor as Energy secretary, Spencer Abraham, has not yet decided whether to reimpose the suspended security measures, according to an Energy Department spokesman.