The Public Policy: Nuclear Security Meltdown
Timmerman, Kenneth R.
THE PUBLIC POLICY by Kenneth R. Timmerman Nuclear Security Meltdown I n the latest episode of the Clinton administration's cover-up of its mind-boggling security lapses at our nuclear weapons...
...Grumbley now works for Kaiser as president of its Environment & Facilities Management Group...
...Security at Rocky Flats was so bad, McCallum warned President Clinton in a January 27, 1997 report, that terrorists could easily penetrate the facility and steal weapons-grade plutonium, or construct and detonate a nuclear bomb on the site without DOE security teams being able to prevent it...
...On April 19, 1999, Assistant Secretary of Energy Rose Gottemoeller informed McCallum that he had been placed on administrative leave without pay, and was under investigation for having released classified information in telephone conversations that were taped by Mark Graf three years earlier, and which (without his knowledge or consent) recently appeared on an Internet web-site...
...Ed McCallum gave the facility an "unsatisfactory" rating, meaning that nuclear material was in jeopardy...
...Because that official, Edward J. McCallum, had made clear his intention to warn Congress and the public of devastating gaps in the security procedures at nuclear storage sites such as Rocky Flats, Colorado, that the Clinton administration has repeatedly, and obstinately, refused to correct...
...And these are not the only casualties...
...Indeed, by skimping on security, Kaiser-Hill actually earned performance bonuses from DOE, because its cleanup operations were going ahead on schedule...
...In the case of China, the study found that, from 1994 to 1996, only two percent of some 1,500 Chinese visitors received any security checks whatsoever...
...Kaiser also hired Thomas Grumbley, a former aide to Al Gore who was put in charge of DOE's Office of Science and Technology...
...Energy Hazel O'Leary, who not only failed to act on his warnings but consistently reduced the budget for security at the nation's nuclear labs—far below what McCallum and other security officials warned was the danger level...
...B ut neither Rudman nor Congress will get to talk to Ed McCallum if Bill Richardson has anything to say about it...
...In my professional life as a military officer, as a registered engineer and as a technologist with the contractor operating the Department of Energy's Fernald, Ohio site, I never before experienced a major conflict between loyalty to my supervision and duty to my country and to the public," Ridenour wrote...
...At DOE, Grumbley had "harpooned" Kaiser's performance at Rocky Flats, according to Mark Graf, the former security chief at Rocky Flats...
...And Democrats in Congress are just as incensed...
...nuclear stockpile under the START I and START II agreements, Rocky Flats is "bursting at the seams with SNM—far more than the place was ever designed to hold," he said...
...ambassador] to Energy—surely, if not a demotion, at the very least a lateral move for someone who sees himself as Al Gore's running mate in 2000...
...A few months later, Graf and Peters sent an eight-page classified memorandum to their general manager and to DOE...
...McCallum warned that contractors were slashing the guard force, failing to replace outdated alarm systems, and reducing the number of guard dogs at nuclear storage sites in order to boost profits...
...McCallum's warning was reinforced by the General Accounting Office (GAO), which reported on April 20,1999, that "foreign scientists are allowed into DOE's nuclear weapons design laboratories with few background checks and inadequate controls over the topics discussed...
...In February 1997, DOE dispatched a new security director to Rocky Flats, a former Air Force weapons officer and trained engineer, David Ridenour...
...When the guards' employer, Wackenhut, discovered the bugs, it thought a disgruntled former employee was trying to gather information for a labor dispute, and brought in a private security firm to sweep the facility...
...Some security systems "were so outdated, we couldn't even get spare parts," a DOE security consultant who worked with McCallum told TAS...
...He also sent dozens of memos to his immediate superior at DOE, Joseph Mahaley, who colleagues say backed him and raised the issue of lax security at DOE's nuclear facilities with top DOE management, to no avail...
...In 1995, Mark Graf and Jeff Peters, senior security inspectors at the plant, finally wrote to Democratic Congressman David Skaggs, drawing his attention to the security deficiencies...
...Peters eventually resigned in June 1996, after filing a discrimination suit against Wackenhut, the security subcontractor...
...In 1997, the House Commerce Committee discovered that Grumbley had funneled lucrative DOE contracts to Molten Metal Technology, after the company had hired Gore aide(and top DNC fundraiser) Peter Knight as its chief Washington lobbyist...
...Security has been greatly improved since the 1996 and 1997 problems, and we now have a satisfactory rating, which is the highest you can get from DOE...
...At one point, McCallum ordered DOE agents to place surveillance devices at the plant, in order to keep track of secuDOE worries more about leaks to Congress than to China...
...Just this March, John Dingell, ranking member on the Commerce Committee, fired off a letter to the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, informing Chairman Warren Rudman of "a disturbing pattern of security weaknesses in the contractor-run national weapons labs, along with extraordinarily lax oversight by the Department of Energy...
...Graf's case is still in dispute...
...Today, we have more Special Nuclear Material than ever before...
...Special Nuclear Material (SNM) is the technical term for highly enriched uranium or plutonium used in making nuclear warheads...
...During the Cold War, Rocky Flats was used to machine highly toxic plutonium into nuclear weapons cores...
...former Green Beret colonel, McCallum headed DOE's Office of Safeguards and Security, and detailed his concerns regarding deteriorating security of U.S...
...Well-informed sources close to the energy secretary say he personally gave the order to fire McCallum in April because he was "pissed off" that McCallum was the source of the information reaching the Hill about loose security at the labs...
...Since then, Thompson said, Rocky Flats has consolidated nuclear material holdings into three buildings, instead of the nine used during the Cold War...
...MMT executives contributed $50,000 in 1994 to the University of Tennessee to establish a chair honoring the vice president's sister, and in 1995 told Knight they would raise $50,000 for the Clinton-Gore reelection campaign, according to Commerce Committee documents...
...By all accounts, McCallum's reports angered Secretary of KENNETH R. TIMMERMAN is a contributing editor for Reader's Digest and a frequent contributor to The American Spectator...
...All the people who have raised the alarm over DOE security lapses have suffered some form of harassment," one Republican congressional aide told TAS...
...Graf had taken his suit against Wackenhut to the Government Accountability Project, a left-leaning nonprofit organization that provides legal assistance to government whistleblowers...
...The American Spectator • June 1999 53...
...52 June 1999 • The American Spectator rity guards believed to have ties to local militia groups...
...The risk was "extremely high," he told the recently dismissed head of the Rocky Flats security detail, that terrorists could successfully attack the plutonium storage site, unleashing "a little mushroom cloud" over nearby Denver...
...In a twist that should no longer shock observers of the Clinton administration, almost as soon as O'Leary resigned as secretary of energy in January 1997, she joined the board of ICF Kaiser, the parent of the company that McCallum had cited for poor management of Rocky Flats...
...Budget reductions and other "disturbing trends" had turned DOE security into a "hollow force that goes below the bottom line and makes it more difficult to fulfill National Security mandates," McCallum wrote...
...Said one well-placed Democratic congressional aide, "Why do you think Richardson was moved from the United Nations [where he was U.S...
...A spokesperson for Kaiser-Hill, Jennifer Thompson, told TAS that Rocky Flats management acknowledged in 1996 that its security was awry, and set about correcting the problems...
...No one but DOE-approved security people should ever have been allowed into a nuclear weapons storage facility...
...I feel that conflict today...
...In retaliation, Peters was placed on administrative leave, and Graf's workload was stepped up dramatically...
...Gottemoeller also issued a reprimand to McCallum's superior, Joseph Mahaley, but quietly withdrew it after he threatened legal action...
...nuclear storage and research sites in annual reports to the president...
...At Los Alamos, for instance, the Chinese were "allowed unescorted after-hours access to controlled areas to preserve what one official described as an open `campus atmosphere.'" Despite promises to correct the problems, DOE managers and contractors "have shown a lack of attention and/or priority to security matters...
...Richardson's job is to keep the lid on this whole scandal, and he was furious that all this information was leaking out...
...THE PUBLIC POLICY by Kenneth R. Timmerman Nuclear Security Meltdown I n the latest episode of the Clinton administration's cover-up of its mind-boggling security lapses at our nuclear weapons labs, Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson is now attempting to prevent a top DOE official in charge of safeguards and security from testifying before Congress...
...In a telephone conversation four months later, McCallum was more blunt...
...That in itself was a security violation," a source familiar with the incident told TAS...
...After just three months at the job, Ridenour resigned "in disgust," sending a scathing letter to then-Energy Secretary Federico Pena...
...Last year, Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey wrote to Energy Secretary Richardson detailing the lapses and asking how DOE was fixing them...
...Under O'Leary's stewardship, Rocky Flats cut its security force by 40 percent, allowing prime contractor Kaiser-Hill LLC to improve its profit margin despite an overall reduction in the funds it received from DOE...
...He also warned that, under O'Leary's "get-loose" policy at DOE, routine five-year security clearance reviews were no longer being conducted for lab scientists and other persons with access to nuclear weapons design information (known as "Q" clearances...
...Without a doubt, rather than get to the root of any problem involving national security, the Clinton administration would prefer to shoot the messenger...
...We have closed entire security areas, and made a lot of changes, so today we need fewer security officers," Thompson said...
...In it he complained of no government oversight—a criticism reinforced by the April 1999 GAO report—and said he had been told not to let security concerns interfere with the contractor's schedule or profits...
...But the problems raised by McCallum went far beyond physical security and even beyond Rocky Flats...
...With the downsizing of the U.S...
...R ocky Flats employees have tried to get management to focus on security problems at the facility for many years...
...I can guarantee you that the minute McCallum was put on leave, Richardson had people going through his computer and his office files to see if he was the leaker...
...O'Leary remains on the Kaiser board today, and her husband, John O'Leary, does consulting work for the group...
Vol. 32 • June 1999 • No. 6
