SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
Page 1 TOP OF DOC
PLEASE NOTE: The following transcript is a portion of the official hearing record of the Committee on Government Reform. Additional material pertinent to this transcript may be found on the web site of the committee at [http://www.house.gov/reform]. Complete hearing records are available for review at the committee offices and also may be purchased at the U.S. Government Printing Office.
62–262 CC
2000
RETALIATION AT THE DEPARTMENTS OF DEFENSE AND ENERGY: DO ADVOCATES OF TIGHTER SECURITY FOR U.S. TECHNOLOGY FACE INTIMIDATION?
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
Page 2 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
JUNE 24, 1999
Serial No. 106–74
08
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/reform
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York
STEPHEN HORN, California
JOHN L. MICA, Florida
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia
DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida
STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio
MARSHALL ''MARK'' SANFORD, South Carolina
Page 3 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
BOB BARR, Georgia
DAN MILLER, Florida
ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas
LEE TERRY, Nebraska
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois
GREG WALDEN, Oregon
DOUG OSE, California
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin
JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California
HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho
HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
TOM LANTOS, California
ROBERT E. WISE, Jr., West Virginia
MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington, DC
CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
Page 4 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
JIM TURNER, Texas
THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee
JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
———
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont (Independent)
KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director
DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director
DAVID A. KASS, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian
CARLA J. MARTIN, Chief Clerk
PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
Hearing held on June 24, 1999
Statement of:
McCallum, Lt. Col. Edward, Director of the Office of Safeguards and Security, U.S. Department of Energy, accompanied by William L. Bransford, Esq., Shaw, Bransford, Veilleux & Roth, Washington, DC; Peter Leitner, Senior Strategic Trade Adviser, Defense Threat Reduction Agency; Michael Maloof, Chief of Technology Security Operations, Defense Threat Reduction Agency; and Jonathan Fox, Esq., Arms Control Specialist, Defense Special Weapons Agency
Weldon, Hon. Curt, a Representative in Congress from the State of Pennsylvania
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Burton, Hon. Dan, a Representative in Congress from the State of Indiana:
Letter dated May 28, 1999
Page 5 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Prepared statement of
Fox, Jonathan, Esq., Arms Control Specialist, Defense Special Weapons Agency, prepared statement of
Horn, Hon. Stephen, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, examples of security incidents
Leitner, Peter, Senior Strategic Trade Adviser, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, prepared statement of
Maloof, Michael, Chief of Technology Security Operations, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, prepared statement of
McCallum, Lt. Col. Edward, Director of the Office of Safeguards and Security, U.S. Department of Energy, prepared statement of
Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State of Connecticut:
Memo from Johnathan Fox
Memo from Dr. Leitner
Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the State of Indiana:
Information concerning part of the Cox report
Letter dated May 25, 1999
Weldon, Hon. Curt, a Representative in Congress from the State of Pennsylvania:
E-mail from Mr. Trulock
Information concerning part of the Cox report
Prepared statement of
RETALIATION AT THE DEPARTMENTS OF DEFENSE AND ENERGY: DO ADVOCATES OF TIGHTER SECURITY FOR U.S. TECHNOLOGY FACE INTIMIDATION?
Page 6 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1999
House of Representatives,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m., in room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dan Burton (chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Burton, Gilman, Morella, Shays, Ros-Lehtinen, McHugh, Horn, Davis of Virginia, McIntosh, Souder, Scarborough, LaTourette, Barr, Miller, Terry, Biggert, Ose, Ryan, Chenoweth, Waxman, Lantos, Wise, Owens, Mink, Maloney, Norton, Cummings, Kucinich, Tierney, Ford, and Schakowsky.
Staff present: Kevin Binger, staff director; Barbara Comstock, chief counsel; David A. Kass, deputy counsel and parliamentarian; Corinne Zaccagnini, systems administrator; Carla J. Martin, chief clerk; Lisa Smith Arafune, deputy chief clerk; Scott Feeney, professional staff member; James Wilson, chief investigative counsel; Michelle White, counsel; Phil Schiliro, minority staff director; Phil Barnett, minority chief counsel; Kenneth Ballen, minority chief investigative counsel; Michael Raphael, Michael Yang, and Michael Yeager, minority counsels; Ellen Rayner, minority chief clerk; Earley Green, minority staff assistant; and Andrew Su, minority research assistant.
Mr. BURTON. Good morning. A quorum being present, the committee will come to order. Over the past 2 1/2 years, this committee has focused a lot on the People's Republic of China. We have looked long and hard at millions of dollars in illegal contributions that flowed from China to the Democratic National Committee. One month ago we heard Johnny Chung testify that the head of the Chinese military intelligence agency gave him $300,000, which he said could be given to the President's campaign, and we heard testimony that others were involved. If anyone ever had any doubts, it has now become crystal clear that there was a Chinese Government plan to illegally influence our elections.
Page 7 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
This is a very serious issue. We have received no cooperation whatsoever from the Chinese Government. We asked them to let us travel to China to interview witnesses. They turned us down flat. They told us they would arrest us if we came over to China. We asked them to give us bank records from the Bank of China to show where the money came from. They gave us nothing. We asked the Clinton administration to help us through diplomatic channels, but they haven't lifted a finger. The President has had three summit meetings with Chinese leaders over the past 2 years, and he has yet to put any pressure on them to explain what they did.
But this isn't the only issue that we have with China. We have some very difficult national security problems as well. A few weeks ago, the Cox committee report came out. It revealed for the first time how extensive China's espionage has been against our nuclear weapons labs. China's thirst for our technology is not limited to nuclear bombs. They have also engaged in a massive effort to acquire sophisticated U.S. technology to modernize their military, everything from supercomputers to milling machines to aircraft technology. Sometimes they do it in an above the board manner; just as often they do it illegally through front companies and with phony end users.
It is pretty obvious that China has taken a very adversarial approach toward the United States. The question now is, what have we done about it? Unfortunately, when you look behind all of the spin and the PR, the answer is, not very much.
Today we have three witnesses from the Department of Defense and two from the Department of Energy. They have several things in common. First, they are all career civil servants. They are not political appointees. Second, they have all served across more than one administration, both Republican and Democrat. Third, they have all worked very hard to try to safeguard sensitive U.S. technology from foreign adversaries or potential adversaries.
Fourth, they have all had to fight with entrenched bureaucracies to do their jobs. Finally, they have all suffered retaliation and damage to their careers for trying to do the right thing.
Page 8 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Two of our witnesses, who brought serious problems in their agencies to light, have been accused of violating security rules. In my opinion, this appears to be harassment, pure and simple. One of them is Lt. Colonel Edward McCallum of the Energy Department. Colonel McCallum is the Director of the Office of Safeguards and Security. He is in charge of security at all of the Energy Department's nuclear facilities. He has held that position for 10 years. He has worked on security within the Department of Energy for over 20 years. He is a decorated Vietnam war veteran.
I think the record will show that nobody has fought harder to try to improve security at the Department of Energy labs than Colonel McCallum. He has written report after report pointing out the weaknesses. Year after year, he has fought internal battles to try to fix the problems. During the Bush administration there were security problems. Colonel McCallum testified before the Dingell committee in 1989. He criticized the Department. After he testified, he was called into the Under Secretary's office. Was he punished? Was he threatened? No. They put him in charge of the Safeguards and Security Office and told him to fix the problems that he brought up. He was told to meet with the Under Secretary every week to keep him up-to-date. There was still bureaucratic resistance, but at least he was getting high level support.
During the Clinton administration, things changed. Secretary O'Leary decided to open up the labs and make them more accessible. The number of foreign visitors doubled. Security then took a back seat. Colonel McCallum's office lost any semblance of control over foreign scientists at the labs. Secretary O'Leary placed a new level of bureaucracy between McCallum's office and the high level decisionmakers he used to report to. According to Colonel McCallum, his relationship with upper management became adversarial.
On April 16, Colonel McCallum was invited to testify before the Rudman Commission about the problems at the labs. Three days later, he was handed a memo by the Assistant Secretary of Energy putting him on administrative leave. She accused him of disclosing classified information, which is a devastating accusation when you have to work with classified information every day. It is a career ender.
Page 9 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Now I am not going to get into the substance of what he is accused of disclosing. I am going to ask other Members to do the same thing. Until this dispute is resolved, I think it would be prudent to stay away from the substance of the issue. However, in my view, this smells rotten.
This looks like retaliation against someone who has been a tough critic of the Department for years. I want to just list a few reasons why this looks so fishy to me.
First, there is a long history at the Energy Department of retaliating against whistleblowers by threatening their security clearances. John Dingell, when he was chairman, held a number of hearings on this when he was the chairman of the Commerce Committee. Let me quote you what he said way back in 1984 on this very subject. This is Chairman Dingell speaking.
This is an insidious time of harassment because it threatens the very livelihood of an employee. It also dampens the will of the employee to be honest with their supervisors and to be honest with the Congress of the United States. It is clear that without a Q clearance, you are out of a job in defense programs at the Department of Energy.
Second, if someone is suspected of revealing classified information, there is a procedure that has to be followed. It must be followed. It is spelled out in great detail in the Code of Federal Regulations. The employee has a right to a hearing. He has a right to a lawyer and to present evidence. The Department would not do this. They broke their own rules, so Colonel McCallum could not get a fair hearing.
Third, the first thing the Department is supposed to do is ask the Office of Classification to review the material and determine whether it is classified or not. Again, they did not do this.
Page 10 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Fourth, we asked the Department of Energy to cooperate with us as we looked into this. They haven't. We asked to meet with the two people who met with Colonel McCallum and put him on administrative leave. The Secretary has refused to let them meet with us. We sent them a subpoena for documents. It was due over a week ago. They have not complied. This is unacceptable. Although the Secretary of Energy is a friend of many of us in Congress, I am seriously considering moving a contempt citation against him if we don't get the documents we asked for and to which we are legally entitled.
One of the things I have learned is that when people refuse to cooperate with a congressional investigation, there is usually a reason, and it is usually not a good one. I find this all very disturbing. This is a Department that left Wen Ho Lee on his job with his security clearance for 18 months, after the FBI said there was no reason to do so. But Colonel McCallum has been fighting for tougher security for years, and he is getting pushed out of his job without so much as a hearing. We are going to hear from Colonel McCallum today and we are going to continue to try to get to the bottom of this.
We also are going to hear from three witnesses from the Defense Department. They have been involved in the review of export licenses for dual-use technologies; that is, technologies that are controlled because they have a military use as well as civilian use. They are not political appointees. They are career civil servants. They are nonpartisan experts in their fields. They will each testify that they have tried to stop the export of sensitive technology to Communist China and other countries. They will describe how they have been run over rough-shod by a system geared to get licenses approved with as little opposition as possible.
Dr. Peter Leitner is one of these experts. Dr. Leitner will testify that he opposed the export of sophisticated computers to India that they could use in their nuclear program. He was overruled. He opposed the export of aircraft engines to Communist China, engines that could be modified for using in their Silkworm missiles. He was overruled. He opposed the sale of machine tools from a McDonnell Douglas plant to China because he was afraid they would be diverted to a military facility. He was overruled. He learned later that the machine tools did wind up in a military facility. There is now a criminal investigation under way regarding that.
Page 11 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
According to Dr. Leitner, every time he opposed a license, his bosses grew more and more frustrated with him. Then earlier this year, he too was accused of a security violation under very questionable circumstances. Does this sound familiar? Dr. Leitner has filed a whistleblower complaint to defend his reputation.
One of Dr. Leitner's colleagues will also testify. Michael Maloof also has been swimming against the tide trying to stop sensitive technology exports to Communist China. His career has also suffered. We will also hear from Jonathan Fox. He is an attorney in the Defense Special Weapons Agency. He was asked to write a position paper on whether China should be certified as a nuclear nonproliferator. That means not giving nuclear weaponry to other countries. This decision had important consequences. If China was certified, they would be eligible to receive civilian technology from the United States, technology that also had military uses.
There was also a lot of pressure because this was happening 1 week before the President's first summit meeting with Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Mr. Fox is an expert in this area. He certified that China is a nuclear proliferator, giving weapons to other countries. He wrote a memo that said they were giving these weapons to other countries. He was forced to rewrite his memo under duress to say just the opposite. He testified that he felt his job was threatened. I want to have a copy of the memo put up on the screen, because I think it is important that my colleagues see what happened.
You will note in the margins some handwritten notes which directed him about what things to take out of that memo so that it would look like China was not involved in the proliferation of nuclear weapons. You can see there the big line drawn through it. The material that was slashed out showed very clearly that China was involved in the proliferation of nuclear weaponry.
Now, the facts are the facts. If China is a proliferator, then no one in the civil service should be told they have to write a position paper saying that they are not. There is absolutely no reason for Congress to pass a law requiring the administration to make a certification if they are going to just ignore the facts. If experts in their fields are going to have their careers threatened for telling the truth, then there is something seriously wrong. That is what we are here to find out about.
Page 12 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
We are going to have one final witness from the Energy Department, Mr. Robert Henson. We are going to hear him in closed session at the end of the hearing because of some security concerns. But, again, he is another witness who believes that he was punished because of what he said.
There are two very serious things going wrong here. First, experts in their fields are being ignored on some very serious issues and our national security is being threatened as a result.
Second, the experts who are fighting to do the right thing are being punished for their efforts to try to protect this country. These five people who are going to testify today are risking a lot. They are already unpopular at their agencies. Their careers have already suffered. I am going to be watching what happens after this hearing very closely. If there is even a hint of retaliation because they came here today and told the truth, this committee will not stand idly by. People will get subpoenas, they will be called before the committee, and they will be put under oath to explain if there was any retaliation and why it happened.
People who have followed this committee's work know I have not been shy about issuing subpoenas in the past and I shall not be in the future. What we are talking about here is defending ourselves against Chinese espionage and stopping the transfer of military technology to a Communist regime that is very unpredictable. We don't know what the future holds, so that is why this is important. I won't stand for people being punished and intimidated for coming before the committee and telling us what they know.
I ask unanimous consent that all Members and witnesses' opening statements be included in the record. Without objection, so ordered. I ask unanimous consent that questioning in this matter proceed under clause 2(j)(2) of House rule XI and committee rule XIV in which the chairman and ranking minority member allocate time to Members as they deem appropriate for extended questioning, not to exceed 60 minutes, equally divided between the majority and minority.
Page 13 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Without objection, so ordered.
With that, I yield to my colleague from California, Mr. Waxman.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Dan Burton follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 71 TO 88 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have especially strong feelings about the rights and proper treatment of whistleblowers. Government and corporate whistleblowers are often courageous individuals who risk everything they have, simply because they want to do the right thing, and they have been responsible for providing key information in many important recent investigations. We have a responsibility to protect these brave men and women.
There have been, of course, whistleblowers who amounted to little more than malcontents, cranks, or employees who were incapable of doing a competent job. In other cases, the seemingly scandalous story a whistleblower initially tells turns out not to involve corruption or cover-ups, but simply an honest policy disagreement between subordinate and supervisor. Since reputations can instantly be destroyed in these fights, most Members of Congress tend to be very careful in these situations and painstakingly sort through all the facts before reaching conclusions.
I think Members of Congress should be especially sensitive to the details in these cases, because we all inevitably face situations in which we disagree with our staff's recommendations. We have all had to choose between our staffs' conflicting recommendations. I recall many circumstances where I have had staff people come in, argue opposing points of view, and I have to make a judgment. I wouldn't want those with whom I eventually disagreed to then go out and say that there was some wrong motive on my part because I disagreed with them.
Page 14 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
In all of these cases, it would be easy for one disgruntled staff member to accuse any of us of making a decision for the wrong reasons and for our integrity to be questioned.
So our job today is to sift through the testimony we receive and reserve judgment until we have all of the facts.
I do want to note, however, that based on what I know so far, I am particularly troubled by the treatment Mr. McCallum has received. If it turns out that he or any of the other witnesses have been the target of retaliation intended to intimidate them from doing their job competently and honestly, I will ask the chairman to join me in putting an immediate stop to those tactics and to take whatever steps are necessary to make sure it doesn't happen to others.
I want to welcome our witnesses to the committee. I look forward to listening to their testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back my time.
Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mr. Waxman. I would ask any other Members that have opening statements to put them in the record, with the exception of the chairman of the International Relations Committee, who has a brief statement.
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for holding this timely hearing today dealing with both the reluctance of the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy, to hear the truth from career professionals about possible nuclear espionage and current concerns about the lax security in their procedures. I am gratified and saddened by the report of the Cox Select Committee on United States National Security and Military Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China and the courage of our Nation's career professionals working at both the Departments of Defense and Energy.
The advances in nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that China will reap from their acquisition of American science and technology directly undermines our fundamental national security. Regrettably, the administration's response to this threat to our national interest has been at best anemic. The Congress has a great deal of work to do to rectify those problems that have been identified by the Cox committee.
Page 15 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Moreover, we are extremely concerned with the retaliation which has been allowed to take place in both the Departments of Defense and Energy upon our career professionals. If it were not for these professionals, we may never have known the truth about nuclear espionage and the current lax security that still exists today.
I look forward to working with our colleagues on this committee and with the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Weldon, on legislation to protect our career professionals, working to protect our Nation's national security. Hopefully the administration will fully cooperate with the Congress in addressing this most distressing and regrettable chapter in our Nation's history.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We will now ask our first witness, Representative Curt Weldon, who served on the Cox committee and who has done yeoman's service for this country, to come forward. Congressman Weldon, we appreciate your hard work, your diligence, and your concern about our national security. We welcome you here today. You are recognized for an opening statement.
STATEMENT OF HON. CURT WELDON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would ask unanimous consent to put my statement in the record.
Mr. BURTON. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. WELDON. I would just like to speak to my colleagues and friends from the heart, because I have been involved with each of the cases you are going to hear today in one way or another over the past several years. I think it is most important that I convey to you in a very personal way my concerns.
Page 16 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
I appreciate the comments of the distinguished ranking member, Mr. Waxman. I know his integrity, and I share his concerns that before we draw conclusions we should get to the bottom of each individual case and see what the true facts are. I share that sentiment totally.
Mr. Chairman, let me say at the outset that I have been in Congress for 13 years and have served on the National Security and Armed Services Committee. It has been an area I have tried to specialize in. Defense and security in this Congress has been and is a bipartisan issue. I am proud of the fact that in the 5 years I have chaired one of the two most aggressive National Security subcommittees, Military Research and Development—with 28 Members of Congress, we have never had a dissenting vote in 5 years. I take great pride in the fact that when we do things on security issues, they are bipartisan. We look at these issues in a way of working together.
As you will hear me explain today, two of the cases you are going to be confronted with are in fact being worked in a bipartisan way by Members of both parties. These issues are serious issues and they reflect national security concerns and must be looked at.
I want to make one other comment, Mr. Chairman. The whole issue of whistleblowers coming forward is not new. It is not something that just suddenly arose in the past several years. I can remember in the first several terms that I served in Congress, there were people in the Pentagon who came to us both quietly and before congressional committeess to tell us about illegal expenditures, inappropriate activities, and investigations that were not properly dealt with. That was as serious then as it is today. So this hearing should not be looked at as something that just occurred.
This an issue that needs to be dealt with. You are going to hear stories today from the witnesses and others that I will discuss that involve people with classified status. I want you to keep in mind the protections available to employees of the Federal Government who are not in classified status, are not necessarily available to those employees who serve in a classified position. That is extremely unfortunate. I would ask this committee, because it is your oversight, to look at ways that we can protect these employees.
Page 17 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
The stories you are about to hear I think are from great Americans. They are from people who are dedicated professionals. I don't know whether they are Democrats or Republicans or even registered. But I know the quality of their work. In fact, in my job as the chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Research and Development where I have to be able to assess the emerging threats to us, and then allocate where the dollars are going to meet those future threats. We work in a bipartisan way with the professionals in the CIA, the DIA, DOE intelligence, the NSA and all the other security operations to make sure that we are getting the best information to be able to assess accurately whether or not we are putting dollars in the right place, whether the emerging threats are in fact where we are putting the dollars we have. That is especially important in this day and age when defense dollars are shrinking so rapidly. So it is critically important that we understand that people need to be able to give us honest, professional assessments without fear of retaliation, without feeling that their examination and professional judgments must fit with some predetermined policy conclusion. I don't care whether that policy conclusion is from a Republican President or a Democrat President. Unfortunately, you are going to hear some stories today, and some others I am going to ask you to followup on, that I think present some very real challenges for us. We need to understand the concerns that people have.
You are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. I will give you the outline of perhaps 8 or 10 cases. I can tell you there are scores more. I will tell you of some of the attempts that we made on the Cox committee to talk to other employees with similar concerns. As you know, I also served as one of the nine members of the Cox committee, another totally bipartisan effort. We worked hard. The Democrat members who worked on that committee were absolutely totally effective, equally effective to the Republicans, because national security was at stake. But there were some concerns raised during our investigation that you need to be aware of, that we couldn't deal with in the Cox committee that this committee perhaps can deal with.
Page 18 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Let me just go through several of the examples, Mr. Chairman, before you call up your expert witnesses.
I want to talk first of all about how this whole process came about. Five years ago, when I took over the R&D subcommittee, I felt we would work in a strong bipartisan way to assess emerging threats. I involved my ranking members, Owen Pickett and John Spratt, in every meeting, threat assessment briefing we had. A couple of patterns started emerging relative to Russia, and the threats that we saw increasing in Russia because of the instability within Russia.
I came to meet a DOE career employee whose name is Jay Stewart. Jay is in the audience today, Mr. Chairman. He is not a witness, but he will make himself available to come in. His career has been basically, I don't know whether he will agree with this, but I think ruined because of simply doing his job.
Now, Jay served as a professional in the Department of Energy intelligence operation for 16 years. He was given the highest award that is given by this Government to a career intelligence employee, the highest award. He was recognized for his expertise as a foreign intelligence officer in assessing the stability of Russia's nuclear stockpile, of assessing Russia's nuclear program, and whether or not the internal turmoil in Russia should cause us to be concerned because that increasing threat might eventually be used against us or that technology might be transferred to a rogue state or a nation that perhaps is not necessarily a friend of ours.
Jay headed up a program called Russian Fission. In December 1992, he led a classified conference on this subject matter which was widely attended by military intelligence and policy communities. In fact, when Hazel O'Leary came in in 1993, he briefed her in February. He was asked then to go over to NATO and to personally brief the Secretary General of NATO, Manfred Woerner, which he did. Manfred Woerner was so concerned, but impressed, with what Jay's briefing was about, that he sent a classified cable back to the State Department which this committee can access. It is available, I will give you the citation, which shows Manfred Woerner's concern as the head of NATO about what Jay Stewart's operation was telling him.
Page 19 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
A short time after Jay briefed Manfred Woerner, he was approached by a new appointed Director of DOE's Office of Intelligence and Arms Control, Jack Keliher. This was a political appointee. All papers, briefings, agendas, conference video and audiotapes from that conference involving Jim Schlesinger and intelligence agents from the CIA, DIA, and intelligence community were seized, locked up, and shredded. We have the name of the person who shredded them, who said that publicly. Keliher said the Secretary told him, the program Russian Fission was ''politically sensitive'' and could ''embarrass the President.'' He further went on to say, ''If any materials from the National Defense University Conference which Jay Stewart ran were ever leaked to the press, somebody would be fired.'' He then said Jay Stewart's work was ''ill informed,'' contained ''inaccurate assumptions and conclusions,'' and could not be referred to because it ''gave the wrong impression of the situation in Russia.''
That may be the case, as Mr. Waxman said, but somebody needs to look at why Jay Stewart's materials were shredded, why information relative to this classified conference were basically taken away so that a proper analysis could not occur.
Jay was an outstanding career employee of Energy. He eventually lost his job, he was shifted over, in spite of having been given the National Intelligence Meritorious Unit Citation, the Presidential Meritorious Executive Rank Award, and ultimately the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the highest award an intelligence officer serving this country can get.
I tried to get an Armed Services investigation of this several years ago when Jay first approached me. Unfortunately, the Department of Energy found out about that, in my own opinion and in comments brought to me by some employees. There was a meeting within DOE to kind of circle the wagons and get a uniform response, which may have been the correct response, I don't know that. I can tell you three brave DOE employees, and I will give you their names, who corroborated everything Jay Stewart said.
Page 20 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
If you have read the book ''One Point Safe'' by Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, one of the chapters in there documents the work by Jessica Stern, one of our key nuclear experts in this administration and previous administrations. She too documents what Jay Stewart has said.
Mr. Chairman, someone needs to get to the bottom of the Jay Stewart case. I want to publicly acknowledge Jay Stewart. He is in the back of this room, if any of you would like to meet him. He is not testifying today because your focus is on China, I understand that, but I would ask you to followup on Jay's case because it is something worthy of consideration by this committee.
I followed up in my own committee by having Russians come in. I first of all had Brookings scholar Bruce Blair. I had a leading Russian environmental activist, Alexi Yablokov, a personal friend of mine, testify in Congress. I had General Alexander Lebed, who is currently the Governor of Krasnoyarsk, and former KGB agent Stanislav Lunev, each come in before my committee and testify. They all corroborate the concerns in Russia that Jay Stewart was trying to warn us about before his operation Russian Fission was basically eliminated and done away with. By the way, one of Jay's assistants during that early process was none other than Notra Trulock.
Mr. Chairman, the second case I would like to talk about is a national intelligence estimate which focused the debate of this country on emerging missile threats to America in 1995. You may remember there was a lot of contention about whether or not we faced a threat to our own security at home by a rogue nation such as North Korea. I asked for an intelligence estimate, along with at that point the head of BMDO, General Malcolm O'Neill. For a year, we pressed the CIA to give us that assessment.
For the first time we know of, and this was documented by the General Accounting Office in a study we had done, the CIA did not go through its normal pattern of releasing a national intelligence estimate. They leaked the result to two Members of the Senate for use in debate on the Senate floor before the report was complete. Those two Senators, who are opposed to missile defense, used that report as the basis for voting against the national defense authorization that year, which was 1995. The President then directly referred to that report when he vetoed the national defense authorization in 1995. For 3 years that report became the basis of the assessment of threats to the United States in terms of long-range ballistic missiles.
Page 21 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
We were livid, Democrats and Republicans on the committee, because we knew that the CIA was not looking at the instability in Russia and we called into question the process they used. The GAO confirmed in a written report that the process they used for that NIE was not like any other process that had been used for an intelligence estimate. Certainly the way they released it, in a political forum, we never release NIEs. That is a classified document. In this case it was released.
We then as a Congress in a bipartisan vote convened the Rumsfeld Commission, 5 appointees of the Republicans, 4 appointees of the Democrats, including the former CIA Director under Bill Clinton, Jim Woolsey. They met for a year. They analyzed what the CIA had done. Their conclusion was unanimous. Just like the Cox committee, it wasn't 5 to 4, 7 to 2, it was 9 to 0, including opponents of missile defense on that panel. They all said the CIA was way off base, that that report was incorrect, that the threat from North Korea was here today. We saw that verified last August 31 when North Korea shot off the Taepo Dong I three stage rocket over Japan, which now the CIA publicly acknowledges can hit America, right now today. The CIA, in an unprecedented event, Mr. Chairman, reversed themselves.
This was the basis of the debate in this country for 3 years over whether or not missiles were a threat to our security. This NIE, the CIA now admits that what was said in 1995 was incorrect. Bob Walpole, who heads strategic services on ICBMs for the CIA, now publicly acknowledged the threat is here today.
Because of that challenge of the CIA national intelligence estimates, the flood gates opened. People started to come to us on the Armed Services Committee expressing their frustration with the lack of ability of giving honest, open professional judgments about emerging threats.
One example: I focused on Russia, as many of you know, starting from the days that I graduated with a degree in Russian studies. I have been there many times.
Page 22 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
I heard about a brief that was available through the Department of Energy intelligence services by a scientist at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory on continuing research work being done by the Russians on five technologies that they could break out with that could harm our security. So as the chairman of the R&D committee, I thought I better get this brief. I called the person working on this project for 7 or 8 years, in fact I will give you his name.
This individual, who is a scientist at Lawrence Livermore, had been working on this brief called Silver Bullets for a number of years. His focus was on emerging Russian technologies that we needed to be aware of.
When I called him, he said, ''Congressman, I would love to come back and brief Members of Congress.'' I said, ''It is going to be bipartisan.'' He said, ''No problem, I would love to do it.'' That was in July 1996. He said, ''I will go through my chain of command to come back and brief you and let them know there is a formal request.''
Mr. Chairman, I never heard anything. August 20, 1996, I got this letter. This is the envelope it came in. Postmarked 21 August 1996. Can I read the memo?
Mr. BURTON. Yes, sir.
Mr. WELDON [reads]:
Congressman Curt Weldon, 2452 Rayburn Building, House Office Building, Washington, D.C. Dear Congressman, as a concerned citizen, I hope that you will pursue the briefing with Dale Darling. Dale has been pressured to cancel the briefing. I would appreciate it if this note was kept confidential to your office. Thank you.
August 20, 1996.
I eventually got the brief, but you know how I got the brief? I had to hold this letter up in a hearing when Secretary of Defense Perry came before our committee and I had my 5-minute question time. I said Secretary Perry, I respect you, you are a good and decent man. Do you agree with Members of Congress being denied briefings on emerging threats coming from Russia? He said absolutely not, Congressman. I went on to explain this. Secretary Perry got us the approval 7 months after I requested it to have Dale Darling come in and brief Democrat and Republican Members of the House.
Page 23 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Dale Darling has been back several times since. We continue to engage him. We didn't use that material to go out and create some scare tactic with Russia, but it was important to the process of us understanding what is happening in Russia, that all is not rosy, that there are problems there.
Let me talk about a couple of CIA cases. These individuals are not here. One will not show because his career is still in jeopardy. He is a lifetime CIA agent, one of our experts.
He came to me because he has a relative that worked for me. He is an expert assigned to monitor our policy involving the U.S. involvement in peacekeeping missions. He was assigned to the panel that drafted the Presidential Decision Directive 25 dealing with the use of force in peacekeeping efforts. This analyst revealed to his superiors that an intelligence leak was occurring in Somalia that compromised United States security.
So he did what he was supposed to do. He said we have got to watch and be careful that we are not giving classified capability to the NATO countries that could eventually be leaked out and used against us. He was doing his job. He objected to what was being done, and instead of being praised for what happened, he was asked to submit to a drug test, a medical exam for brain tumors, and a psychiatric evaluation.
Mr. Chairman, I have heard of that kind of activity in Russia, where they used to charge people with crimes against the state and commit them to psychiatric institutions. I have never heard of a professional intelligence analyst in this country being asked to undergo a psychiatric examination.
Ultimately it took a group of seasoned attorneys, whom I have met with several times, to bring an abrupt end to his harassment and ensure his exoneration, which has occurred today. This individual will come before your committee, but only under the conditions of his attorneys. I have given your committee staff his name and you know the process that this gentleman needs to go through. I want it to be bipartisan. This is not a partisan issue.
Page 24 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Another example, and this is something that every member of this committee understands. Remember when Benjamin Netanyahu told us that he had evidence that Israel had documents linking up the Russian Space Agency headed by Yuri Koptev and the Iranians on building medium range missiles? That was a major national headline in this country.
Well, we had been briefed in the Congress by the then Director of the CIA Nonproliferation Center, Dr. Gordon Oehler. He came over and briefed members of the Intelligence Committee, the International Affairs Committee, and the Armed Services Committee about Russia's involvement with Iran. He told us that this is a concern, because Iran is going to build a medium range missile that is going to threaten Israel. The Israelis were absolutely outraged over this, and so was Congress.
The distinguished gentleman from New York, Ben Gilman, along with Jane Harman, introduced a bipartisan Iran missile sanction bill. We went down to the White House twice. I was invited by Al Gore twice, once before the House vote and once before the Senate vote. There were 11 Members of Congress there, Senators and House Members. He pleaded with us not to have this vote come up on the floor. When he finished, I said Mr. Vice President, it is too late. The Congress feels we are not doing enough to stop the proliferation from Russia which Netanyahu and Gordon Oehler told us about.
The House voted 396 in favor of that bill, the Senate voted 96 to 4 in favor of it. The President's veto could have been overridden, but Speaker Gingrich didn't want to bring the bill to the floor in the September before the elections. A little known fact, but I was there with AIPAC when AIPAC was talking to the Speaker about the veto override. It was his choice not to bring the bill up.
But the point is Gordon Oehler had no intention of retiring. But when he told Congress about the cooperation between Russia and their space agency with Iran on the Shahab 3, which was supported by the Israeli Government publicly, which they knew about, he felt so much pressure that he took early retirement. Again, you might want to talk to Gordon Oehler, recognized in both parties, recognized by liberal arms control groups as an outstanding expert on proliferation. He felt the pressure because he was simply telling us in a private way about problems that were occurring with Russian technology transfers.
Page 25 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. Chairman, let me get to Jack Daly. I work with the military all the time, I know my colleagues and friends have a high regard for our military personnel. Lieutenant Jack Daly has served a distinguished career in the Navy for 16 years. He is a Navy intelligence officer.
On April 4, 1997, he was flying in a helicopter on an intelligence mission with a Canadian pilot. They were monitoring Russian trawlers off the coast of Seattle that we felt were tracking our nuclear submarine fleet, and they knew these trawlers were not bringing cargo into ports or taking cargo out, so they were highly suspected of being there for intelligence gathering purposes for Russia.
In one of their missions on April 4, while flying over this one trawler, there was a flash of light from the trawler which was later found out to be a laser. Lieutenant Daly and the Canadian officer's eyes were damaged by a laser device being pointed at them in the helicopter. We don't know whether that laser was being used to detect the capabilities of that helicopter, and Lieutenant Daly can give you the reason, and he is willing to come before this committee, by the way. I met with him yesterday again. But the fact is we had a military officer who was personally harmed by a Russian vessel. I can tell you following Lieutenant Daly's incident there was an inspection. The inspection only took place in the public parts of that ship. Up until now and recently, we haven't been able to see the classified documents relative to what we did as a Nation to respond to Lieutenant Daly's problem.
If you read the book ''Betrayal'' by Bill Gertz, in the back of that book, and this is unfortunate that he did it, but Members need to understand he has released classified documents. The first four or five classified documents are the internal memoranda from Strobe Talbott and the current Ambassador for the United States in Moscow, Ambassador Collins, relative to Jack Daly's case. The highest level of our government knew the severity of the Jack Daly incident. What did we do? We went after Jack Daly.
Page 26 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Prior to this incident, he had received the highest commendation a Navy officer can receive in serving his country. On the following evaluation after this incident, he received one of the lowest commendation levels that can be garnered by a Navy officer.
Let me give you the quote of what his direct superior officer said to him in the course of following up on this laser incident, ''You don't know the pressure I am under to sweep this under the rug.''
Mr. Chairman, if that is true, that is not America. It is not America, if Navy personnel doing their job and protecting our people feel that when they come forward and they are injured personally, that they are going to be the scapegoat because of some larger policy issue.
Mr. Chairman, I can tell you that Jack Daly and the Navy officer who has never been talked to, never, are willing to come before your committee, and I would ask you to bring both of them in.
Mr. Chairman, in terms of the other witnesses you are going to have today, just a couple of comments, because I know their cases, a couple of them I am working with personally. I want to first of all acknowledge the distinguished work of our friends, both Fred Upton and from the State of Pennsylvania, my good friend Ron Klink. They have taken up the McCallum case, they have written Dear Colleague letters, they have written to Bill Richardson in a bipartisan way. They have asked, as Mr. Waxman has, for a full explanation of why Mr. McCallum has been treated the way he has.
I did a special order on Mr. McCallum several weeks ago, and something came to me through e-mail that kind of surprised me. I didn't ask for this, it just came to me. I know the fellow who wrote it, but it is surprising, because of all the pressure he has been under and the fact that he has really come out as a champion for the administration on cleaning up our labs. I would like to read the very brief e-mail to you.
Page 27 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
This is about Ed McCallum's case.
Thank you for bringing attention to this miscarriage. I have worked with Ed for several years and have always found him to be professional in every way. The allegations against him by the Department are inexplicable. I have little doubt that the Department's actions are part of the broader pattern of harassment and retaliation against any and all whistleblowers concerned about national security issues. Sincerely, Notra Trulock.
Mr. Chairman, the McCallum case is an example of a system gone wrong. You are going to follow that up with the witnesses from DTSA, two outstanding people, Mike Maloof and Dr. Peter Leitner. These two individuals are career technical experts. Again, they are not partisan, they are not in favor of any one point of view. Their job is to assess technologies that come back to harm us.
If you question them, I ask you to ask Dr. Leitner, and they both testified before the Cox committee, if he ever had an incident where a recommendation he made in his computer was changed by someone above him while he was on vacation from a no recommendation to either a positive recommendation or another recommendation.
Ask him about the changes within the agency and the pressures brought to bear on them as professionals. Both Mike Maloof and Peter Leitner are outstanding employees.
Now, I can't verify all the accuracy of what they are going to say, but that is what this committee can do. I implore my friends on both sides of the aisle, this is not a partisan issue. These are security concerns. These need to be issues that we deal with because I don't care if the next President is a Republican or a Democrat. We need to have good solid intelligence information to deal with threats that we see emerging.
The other cases, I think, are of equal concern, the cases involving Livermore and the cases involving Los Alamos and the case involving Mr. Fox.
Page 28 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. Chairman, I would just ask you and I would implore the distinguished ranking member and all of the members of the committee to work with us. I think there is some need for some legislative change. I will make two suggestions, and I am not a policy expert in this area. I will let you all decide how to handle it.
My understanding is that today, a Federal employee who has classified status, cannot take advantage of the Merit Systems Protection Board. They are specifically excluded because they are in a classified position.
One of the things I would suggest that you might look at is to ask the Merit Systems Protection Board to set up a separate process just for those employees who have classified intelligence status, to give them a means of going through a process to protect their rights.
Second, I would ask you to consider whether or not it is worthwhile that we put into place legislation requiring every Inspector General to establish an office of employee advocacy so there can be a separate office within the IG's office that would be an advocate for the employees. I can tell you, if you talk to the employees I mentioned here today, and the ones that are not here, they are going to tell you in some cases the IG's office do not and cannot do the job. Maybe it is time to put into place a separate internal entity in each IG's office just for employee's advocacy, especially for those who have classified status.
Mr. Chairman and Mr. Ranking Member, I thank you for your time. I appreciate the sincerity with which you are taking this hearing. I have tried to make this as bipartisan and nonpartisan as I can, because I want to continue to work with friends on both sides of the aisle to solve these problems. I say again, these problems have existed in previous administrations. Chairman Dingell did a fantastic job in previous years in exposing problems involving whistleblowers, and I have applauded him publicly for that. I would ask this committee to do the same. Thank you.
Page 29 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
[The prepared statement of Hon. Curt Weldon follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 1 TO 6 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Mr. BURTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Weldon, for a very thorough analysis of many problems. You may rest assured that our legal staff will contact those people and have them come in, and we will undoubtedly have more hearings on this.
Mr. WELDON. I forgot one other point.
Mr. BURTON. I would ask you to request to put the memo or e-mail from Mr. Trulock into the record.
Mr. WELDON. I ask unanimous consent to put it in the record.
Mr. BURTON. Without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 89 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Mr. WELDON. When you bring up Mr. Maloof and Dr. Leitner, let me mention this point to you. The bipartisan Cox committee recognized that we had serious problems within DTSA, and wanted to talk to the employees in that agency. We asked as a bipartisan committee that we thought maybe these two were just exceptions and maybe the other employees would discount what they were saying, which is the point Mr. Waxman raised. Maybe they are examples. So I recommended to the full committee, these are all in private sessions, that we ask the Department to allow us to bring in DTSA employees. They said no. I then came back and said can we do a random selection? Just randomly pick employees and bring them in for the committee in a classified way to talk to them. They said no.
Page 30 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
On page 213 of the Cox committee report, which all of you got, I would like to make sure this is in the record, there is a separate paragraph, and I would like to read just the title of it to you. It is entitled, ''Inability to Survey Defense Technology Security Administration Employees Regarding Agency Management Issues.''
We were denied the opportunity to talk to any other DTSA employees besides these two.
Mr. BURTON. Well, we will ask unanimous consent that that part of the Cox report be included in the record, because it is relevant. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information referred to follows:]
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 7 TO 8 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Mr. BURTON. I think you covered this, and I will not belabor it because you covered this very, very thoroughly, but why do you think, as a person who has analyzed this, why do you think these kinds of patterns are emerging in these agencies?
Mr. WELDON. Mr. Chairman, I don't have the long-term answer to that, but let me just say as a student of Russia who probably is Russia's toughest critic but their best friend, who wants Russia to succeed, and supports every program the administration has, they call me to get the votes for this and I deliver on this every year, to support all their initiatives, I want the same objective that Bill Clinton and Strobe Talbott wants with Russia and China, but I think there is a fundamental problem here. I think the fear has been we don't want to do anything that might be perceived to be an embarrassment of President Yeltsin or President Jiang Zemin.
Let me give you another example. I was going to mention this in my testimony, but didn't. During the last several years, and it started under the Bush administration, we didn't want to embarrass Yeltsin with the reforms. So when we caught Russia violating arms control agreements, which all of us have voted on and supported, we didn't call into question those violations.
Page 31 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
I did a floor speech last July where I documented 37 violations of arms control agreements by China and Russia. This wasn't prepared by me, it was prepared by the Congressional Research Service. These were cases where Russia and China were sending off chemical, biological, nuclear, machine tooling, and other technologies to Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, North Korea, India, and Pakistan. Out of the 37 times, we only imposed the required sanctions twice. We waived the sanctions each time.
I was in Moscow in January the year President Yeltsin was going to be reelected and was meeting with Ambassador Pickering. The Washington Post had just reported a front page story about the illegal transfer of Russian guidance systems to Iraq. So I asked the Ambassador, what was the response when you asked the Russians about the transfer of accelerometers and gyroscopes? He said Congressman, I can't ask that question. That has got to come from Washington.
I came back and wrote to the President at the end of January. He wrote me a three-page letter in March. He said, Dear Congressman Weldon, these allegations that the Post has raised are serious. If they are true, they would be a violation of the MTCR and we will take aggressive action. But we have to have proof. We have to know it took place.
Now, the Israelis knew it took place, and we knew it took place. I didn't know at the time. Our intelligence community had 120 sets of these devices. Here are two of them. One is an accelerometer and one is a gyroscope. You want to examine them? They have Russian markings on them. They were clipped off of Russian SSN–19 missiles. They are long-range missiles that were used in their submarines aimed at American cities. We caught Russia three times sending these to Iraq. We never imposed the required sanctions.
We were given the assurances, and I can tell you that Gary Ackerman and Tom Lantos and a bunch of Democrats were very aggressively involved in this transfer. We were assured that there will be an internal investigation done in Russia that will result in criminal prosecutions. That never happened. So Russia transferred three times these devices that we know of to Saddam Hussein to improve the accuracy of their missiles.
Page 32 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. Chairman, I just think that we didn't want to raise that issue that year because Yeltsin was running for reelection. We were so concerned over the past 8 years of not embarrassing Boris Yeltsin that we didn't call into question when Russia was in violation. We didn't want issues to surface that would maybe embarrass Russia.
Mr. Chairman, I am a friend of Russia, and I will go to the wall with Russia for anybody, but you can't ignore reality and you can't punish innocent Federal employees for doing their job because what they are saying we don't want to hear.
That is not the way you base your security policy. Yes, Russia has problems. It doesn't mean we want Russia to be the evil empire. China has problems. I am going to vote for MFN for the President. I am going to be opposed by many of my colleagues on our side. I want to engage China. But our Government has got to set the tone. We have to understand it is not wrong to be strong and consistent and transparent with these two countries. I think you get weaker when you ignore that.
So my bottom line feeling is that we have just been so preoccupied with not wanting to embarrass each country, that we don't allow issues to rise that we think may cause problems.
Mr. BURTON. Let me just ask you a real quick question about these two devices that you have there on the table, because those are objects that can maybe make the point.
These were given by Russia, sold by Russia, to Iraq?
Mr. WELDON. Given or sold, we don't know.
Mr. BURTON. Given or sold. But on three separate occasions you said?
Mr. WELDON. Twice we found them in the Tigres River Basin. Once with the help of our allies in that area that I can't name, they were given to us.
Page 33 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. BURTON. The point is, these were more accurately targeted missiles——
Mr. WELDON. Against Israel.
Mr. BURTON. And could they be used beyond Israel?
Mr. WELDON. Absolutely. These are long-range guidance systems. Iraq does not have the capability to build these systems. Neither does Iran. They have to get this technology from either the United States, Russia, or now China, even though China got some of its technology from us. So here you have Russia giving this kind of sophisticated technology out, and we catch them, and we don't want to ask them about it. We want to pretend it didn't happen. You can't do that. I am not an enemy of Russia. I am a friend of theirs.
Mr. BURTON. I think you made the point, and I appreciate that.
Mr. Waxman.
Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Weldon, what you had to say was very interesting. I think it is unprecedented, however, that you were given 20 minutes to make an opening statement. I have never seen that happen before, and I hope the chairman will allow all the witnesses to speak as long as they feel they want to, because otherwise what we will be doing is showing favoritism to a Member of Congress and telling witnesses they have to be restricted in what they want to say.
Mr. WELDON. I apologize. As a teacher I tend to talk too long.
Mr. WAXMAN. But on the other hand, it is impossible, as a former chairman, to have a hearing where everybody gets to talk as long as they want to talk. Usually there are time constraints.
You have raised a lot of issues. I have no knowledge about these cases, and you feel very passionately about them. I hope the chairman will look into them, because if there are situations where people are being retaliated against because they have information that ought to be made public or ought to be given to the Congress, then I think that it is of great concern to us. But I just want to raise some skepticism about an issue, just to point out there may be two sides to the question.
Page 34 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
You said you are going to vote for MFN. Many of your colleagues, even on the Republican side, may not. Suppose I sat down with my staff and I said, well, let's talk about this issue. Should I vote to continue trade relations with China, as we have had it in the past, or should I vote to withhold that kind of privilege as a way to protest China's human rights, China's activities in proliferation of weapons, and China's spying on the United States? How else can I as a Member of Congress express myself?
I go back and forth with my staff, and one of my staffers decides when I reach the conclusion that he ought to go public, she ought to go public, and say I am doing it for the wrong motives? That perhaps I am voting for MFN for China because I don't care about human rights, or I am voting against MFN for China because I don't care about the economic interests of businesses in the United States?
Do you think your staff should be allowed to do that?
Mr. WELDON. My staff I hire, and I want them to have their own opinions. I don't hire the people in our intelligence community and they don't change from administration to administration. I would assume their loyalty to their job and their professionalism is giving us their best judgments.
Mr. WAXMAN. I don't disagree with you. The point also has to be, how do you run an agency? How do you make any kind of decisions in an agency on policy matters if everyone is free to go out and express their opinion and accuse those who reach a different opinion of being disloyal?
Mr. WELDON. You make an excellent point. They shouldn't do that and shouldn't go public, but they shouldn't be harassed, have their job ended, be demoted, have their documentation shredded. I agree with the gentleman.
Mr. WAXMAN. We are obviously arguing on a theoretical level. I don't know fully about the individual cases we may hear from today. But in my mind, there have to be some situations where people, whether they are career or political appointees, when the policy is articulated, can't go out on their own, to criticize it and then try to have it portrayed as someone being disloyal. I assume all the points you raised are not just unique to the Clinton administration.
Page 35 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. WELDON. I think I made that point fairly clear in my statement.
Mr. WAXMAN. People have been criticized by their superiors, in fact discharged by their superiors, both in the Bush administration as well as the Clinton administration and the Reagan administration and at other times as well, for the same reasons you have outlined.
Mr. WELDON. In fact, I praised Chairman Dingell for his work.
Mr. WAXMAN. Well, as I said in my opening statement, which was all too brief in comparison to you and the chairman, I had to say what I had to say and I said it, and that is we need to be protective of whistleblowers, because whistleblowers do give us information that ought to get out, and in many cases they are very courageous, and I fully support that concern. On the other hand, I just want, as you do, a way to be sure that we are dealing with truth and not criticizing people because they have taken different policy positions or are acting improperly as people disagree.
Mr. WELDON. I agree.
Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am not using my full 5 minutes.
Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mr. Waxman. Mr. Shays.
Mr. SHAYS. I just want to publicly say, Curt, I thought your presentation was really outstanding. What I take particular satisfaction in, is you have been someone who has labored in the vineyard year in and year out, not just issued press releases, done really substantive work, and we are seeing the fruit of your labor. It is extraordinary in so many areas. You are, for instance, a strong supporter of an alliance, good working relationship with the former Soviet Union. You have more contacts in the Soviet States than most people in the administration. So as one Congressman to another, I just want to say to you, I am really in awe of how long you have labored in this area, how you have kept it to yourself for so long, not issued press releases, not made an issue of this, just done your homework like no one else has.
Page 36 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
As a result, you know a heck of a lot more than almost anyone that I know on these issues. So your testimony was very valued.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Shays. If you will yield to me or if you will give me time to respond and just say that Steny Hoyer, who is my co-chair on the Russian initiative, has been laboring long before I was in Russian relations. It is a bipartisan effort.
We supported the administration. I was proud to go over to Moscow to help the administration convince the Russians that our policy in Iraq was the right one, and the administration knew what I was doing because I felt it was the right thing.
What we are doing is right for the country and it is not meant to try to create any undue embarrassment for anybody, but I appreciate your good comments, Mr. Shays.
Mr. BURTON. Does the gentleman yield back his time?
Mr. SHAYS. Yes, sir.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman yields back his time.
Mr. Wise.
Mr. WISE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Weldon, I was interested in your presentation because I often tell groups at home that the Congress is like a giant university, in the sense that you can't come here and specialize in everything but you have got to specialize in a few things, and then you develop expertise and people come to respect you. And you certainly have done that in the national security area, and I think that is very important.
It is just like I learned a long time ago, since most of us have to stand uphill in West Virginia, I learned not to spend a lot of time on agriculture and I leaned to others, and by the same token on national security I look to you and to others on both sides of the aisle; whereas, I hope to focus on transportation and matters that are important. But I want to thank you very much for your presentation.
Page 37 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
There was one point that you made that I think points out some complexities, and I wanted to take it up with you for just a second, if I could. You spoke about, a number of times, where it was observed that Russia is probably involved in selling to Iraq, and the United States didn't take action, didn't impose sanctions.
I, like you, have been a supporter of MFN. I am wondering about it at this time, because I keep saying each year that I am waiting to see further progress be made. So I am wondering about MFN for China.
But it is also the case that I think there are a number of incidents where China clearly, and even some of the investigations that the chairman and this committee have done, where China makes you wonder about whether we ought to say no to get their attention, but we haven't. And you voted the way you have and I have voted with you, incidentally, in that area, because we felt that the complexity was such that while this was bad and we had to call attention, whether it was human rights or missile proliferation or whatever it was, that we needed to stay engaged. So that could also be the administration's rationale on the Russian situation as well.
Mr. WELDON. No, I understand. As I said, Mr. Wise, I have supported the administration's engagement with Russia. In fact, I have encouraged them to do more. I am trying to get them to help establish a Russian mortgage housing financing system for the Russian people. I have been working on that for 2 1/2 years.
I think we have to—I think many of our problems in dealing with Russia and China are of our own creation. We think we can't talk to them—when things occur that they shouldn't be doing, we should be confronting them with that; not walking away and pretending it didn't happen. I think they lose respect for us.
You know, Russians understand when you are honest and open and tell them what they are doing wrong. They respect you for that. But when you don't tell them and when you pretend it didn't happen, I think they lose respect. So I support the administration's engagement policy. I think it is the right policy. I think in many cases our own government has failed itself, and I say the Congress with it. I am not just trying to blame the administration. There are some times where Members of Congress in both parties have pressured the administration in the case of China to lower the export controls, you know, but I mean there is a problem here that we have to understand. As Mr. Waxman said and you said, it is very complex, it is not easy, but I am convinced that we need to continue to engage both countries.
Page 38 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
They are not going to go away and it is not going to get better if we ignore them. I think it will get worse. But we should engage them on our terms and we should engage them around people like the two professionals sitting behind me, or the five, to basically tell us what we can transfer and what we can't, and when they try to get stuff that they shouldn't get, then we hold them accountable, and when they sell this kind of stuff, we slap their hand.
Mr. WAXMAN. Will the gentleman yield to me?
Mr. WISE. Sure.
Mr. WAXMAN. Let's look at Russia as an example. The United States could have determined, and probably should have determined, we were better off with Yeltsin winning that election than Zyuganov winning the election.
Mr. WELDON. Absolutely.
Mr. WAXMAN. And having restoration of the Communist party.
Mr. WELDON. Absolutely.
Mr. WAXMAN. So if the administration sees that there is information, if it is presented in a certain way, could have consequences in Russia——
Mr. WELDON. Absolutely.
Mr. WAXMAN [continuing]. Aren't they responsible, as the ones running our foreign policy, to make sure that we don't do harm in Russia? Let's say someone within the Department, a career person, wanted to hold Russia accountable, which is proper, but hold them accountable in a time and in a manner that could have adverse consequences. He may not/she may not be thinking of the bigger foreign policy picture and the U.S. policy, which is not set by career people in the Department, but by the Secretary of State acting under the President of the United States?
Mr. WELDON. No, I agree with the gentleman. I would say that is the prerogative of the President and the administration and the State Department, but this was 4 years ago. The election took place 4 years ago. We never followed through, and the Israelis know this. We never followed through to hold this agency, these entities, accountable for what they did.
Page 39 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. WISE. Can I get my time back so I can just close up? Thank you.
Mr. Weldon, I just want to thank you again and just say that I agree in the case of both Russia and China, they need to be held accountable. I think what we have both been saying is, maybe in roundabout ways, there are often other factors that determine how you hold them accountable and when.
Mr. WELDON. Yes.
Mr. WISE. I appreciate that. Thank you.
Mr. BURTON. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Horn.
Mr. HORN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I want to say you have done a brilliant job, as you usually do, Curt. I have learned in the last 7 years in the House of Representatives where the experts are, and you are truly on the list of the top three or four, we all know that, and you do operate on a bipartisan basis, and those are the people around here that get respect and get things done, and I think you have proved this morning you have both.
I think, Mr. Chairman, it is outrageous when professional career servants who are doing their duty, as they see the right to do that duty, are squashed by any administration, and I would hope this committee would treat a Republican administration like they would treat a Democratic administration.
If the Congress cannot get the information it needs in executive session or whichever way, then we have got a major problem in this country. We cannot base our decisions on simply propaganda from either a Republican or a Democrat administration.
I realize that often there are people more loyal than the king, shall we say, and that is true. We have seen that over the years, but we need that information to make judgments. And if we let that fail and people do get harassed, driven out and even sent off to what I think the FBI used to do, Boise, ID or Montana or someplace, that is just plain wrong and we have got to make sure that doesn't happen.
Page 40 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Thank you very much for coming.
Mr. BURTON. Mrs. Mink.
Mrs. MINK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I too want to join my colleagues in commending you, Mr. Weldon, for your expertise and knowledge that you have brought to this committee. I think you have raised some very interesting questions that this Committee on Government Reform must look into.
Saying that, I think I have to concur with the ranking member, Mr. Waxman, in saying that there is a big difference between a disagreement on policy and the way in which an executive agency deals with those disagreements in terms of harassment and intimidation and demotions and all sorts of matters that—or manners in which they can deal with these individuals. And I think that that is really within the prerogative of this committee to investigate and correct, if necessary, if these behaviors are a part of the systematic procedure to try to coerce their experts and their specialists into a political—a politically correct kind of recommendation or a management decision. Then we would be denying the opportunity to gain and benefit from expertise if we are conditioning their expertise to following a particular line that may be the policy line of a current administration.
So I think that the issues that you bring before us are very important, and I would hope that the committee would pursue those from that vantage point than an inquiry as to whether the policy was correct or incorrect.
Mr. WELDON. No, I understand. And I agree.
Mrs. MINK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mrs. Mink.
Is there further questioning of the witness?
If not, thank you very much, Mr. Weldon, for your testimony.
Mr. WELDON. Sorry I took so long.
Page 41 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. BURTON. It has been very, very helpful. We really appreciate it.
Mr. WELDON. I owe you one, Henry.
Mr. BURTON. We have a vote on the floor. Since we have a vote on, rather than start with the next panel I think we will go vote and come right back and we will start with the next panel as soon as we return. So please excuse us. We stand in recess until the fall of the gavel.
[Recess.]
Mr. BURTON. The committee will reconvene. We have members that will be drifting back in because the vote has just concluded on the floor on the final passage of the flag burning amendment.
So I would like to have the five witnesses, Mr. Bransford, Lieutenant Colonel McCallum, Dr. Leitner, Mr. Maloof, and Mr. Fox come forward.
Is Mr. Fox here?
Mr. MALOOF. Yes.
Mr. BURTON. I guess we don't have it in order here. Where is Mr. Maloof? Where is Mr. Fox?
Mr. MALOOF. I think he stepped out for a minute, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BURTON. We probably ought to wait for Mr. Fox because I need to have you sworn in.
Everybody run and check the men's room, or wherever he might be.
Would you all please stand and raise your right hands, please.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. BURTON. Be seated.
Lieutenant Colonel McCallum, we will start with you. I understand that we are going to allow each one of you 10 minutes because your story is going to take a little bit more time than normal. So you have 10 minutes to testify.
Page 42 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Mr. BRANSFORD. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BURTON. Yes.
Mr. BRANSFORD. My name is William Bransford. I am Colonel McCallum's attorney and I would request permission to make just a very brief statement before Colonel McCallum talks.
Mr. BURTON. Proceed.
STATEMENTS OF LT. COL. EDWARD McCALLUM, DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF SAFEGUARDS AND SECURITY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, ACCOMPANIED BY WILLIAM L. BRANSFORD, ESQ., SHAW, BRANSFORD, VEILLEUX & ROTH, WASHINGTON, DC; PETER LEITNER, SENIOR STRATEGIC TRADE ADVISER, DEFENSE THREAT REDUCTION AGENCY; MICHAEL MALOOF, CHIEF OF TECHNOLOGY SECURITY OPERATIONS, DEFENSE THREAT REDUCTION AGENCY; AND JONATHAN FOX, ESQ. ARMS CONTROL SPECIALIST, DEFENSE SPECIAL WEAPONS AGENCY
Mr. BRANSFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Yesterday afternoon, I received a surprising fax from Mary Anne Sullivan, General Counsel to the Department of Energy, a copy of which I provided to committee staff. I received this fax in the afternoon, even though I had previously notified the General Counsel that Colonel McCallum's written testimony was due to the committee before 10 o'clock yesterday morning.
General counsel's letter limits Colonel McCallum's ability to respond to the Department of Energy's charges against him. We interpret the letter as allowing Colonel McCallum to make a general denial about his disclosure of classified information, but not to reinforce his position by any specific information, even if he can do so with reference to unclassified guides and procedures. We hope the committee understands Colonel McCallum's situation.
He has been placed in an untenable position. He is being told he cannot defend himself; he cannot tell this committee why the Department of Energy is wrong, even though the Department of Energy did not itself follow its own procedures.
Page 43 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Under current law, the Department has unbridled power to make classification decisions without review and then use that authority to retaliate against executives like Colonel McCallum who tell them about specific threats to the health or safety of the American public.
For these reasons, we have drafted a legislative change to 5 U.S.C. section 7532 that would allow for interagency review of classification issues like those affecting Colonel McCallum. We offer it for the committee's consideration.
We hope the committee understands that Colonel McCallum may have to limit his answers because of the threats in the General Counsel's letter, and I would request that the letter from the General Counsel to me yesterday and the draft legislation that we have prepared be admitted in the record.
Mr. BURTON. Without objection, so ordered.
But let me make sure I understand this. There have been threats issued in this letter, and I have not yet read it, that will limit the testimony that is not classified pertaining to what Lieutenant Colonel McCallum is going to tell us?
Mr. BRANSFORD. The letter to me, Mr. Chairman, states that Colonel McCallum is not at liberty to describe in his testimony his views of the correct classification of the information in dispute, even if he can do so by reference to unclassified information. So he is very much limited in what he can say and we are very much concerned that if he doesn't limit his testimony, the Department could take action against him based upon his actions in that regard.
Mr. BURTON. Can he give this information to us in a closed hearing?
Mr. BRANSFORD. Mr. Chairman, I don't know. It is hard to say whether he could or couldn't.
Page 44 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
I would think that he could. It is my interpretation of the letter that he can make a general denial, and I think that is sufficient. I think the written testimony we provided the committee yesterday——
Mr. BURTON. All right. We will let him go as far as he can, but I just want to say that the Department of Energy and Mr. Richardson, the head of the Department of Energy, has done everything possible in his power to try to stop this hearing today. I have never seen any kind of pressure exerted like this. I mean, they have gone to the leadership of the House and everything else to try to stop this hearing, and now we are getting a letter from the Department of Energy trying to harness what Lieutenant Colonel McCallum says. I think it is despicable and I just want the Department of Energy to know this isn't the end of it. Whoever is here from the Department of Energy, this isn't the end of it. We are going to pursue this. This is baloney.
The Congress of the United States has a right to know these things, and so do the people of the United States, if our national security has been imperiled because of actions that they have taken or nonactions that they have taken.
Lieutenant Colonel McCallum, you are recognized for 10 minutes.
Colonel MCCALLUM. Mr. Chairman, Congressmen, Congresswomen, thank you for the opportunity today to speak with the committee about lapses in the Department of Energy's Nuclear Safeguards and Security Program and the Department's long history of suppression and reprisal against individuals attempting to do their jobs.
Mr. BURTON. Would you pull the mic a little bit closer? We want to make sure we hear everything you say.
Colonel MCCALLUM. DOE's arrogant disregard for national security is clearly described in the recent report on security at the Department of Energy by the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and Congressman Cox's committee report on espionage in our national laboratories.
Page 45 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
It is clear today that the DOE has sacrificed nuclear security for other budget priorities and has jeopardized national security by failing to protect its laboratories against widespread espionage or against the possibility of terrorist attack.
Over the last 9 years, I have served as the Director of DOE's Office of Safeguards and Security. In this capacity, I have been responsible for developing the policy that governs the protection of the Nation's nuclear assets, including weapons, nuclear materials from which nuclear weapons are made, highly classified information, and personnel security clearances. My office is also charged with investigating security incidents involving the possible loss of nuclear materials and the unauthorized disclosure of classified information.
You will note that these authorities did not include implementation at our sites or an oversight responsibility, which are a significant organizational flaw which I describe in my more extensive written testimony and in some of the reports that have been written for the Department.
As you may know, or as you know now, the Department of Energy placed me on administrative leave on April 19th. Some DOE officials allege that I committed a security infraction. They claim that I disclosed classified information during a discussion with a whistleblower from a DOE site.
This is not true. Based on the Department's published classification procedures and guides, these allegations are completely unfounded. I have released no classified information. I have been an authorized classifier in the Department of Energy for over 25 years, and helped develop the first classification guide in the safeguards and security area in the mid-1970's. I am also the Department's subject matter expert on the areas of tactics, use of forces and protection of our facilities.
Yet, it is strange that the Department did not consult my staff, nor me, before taking this action. They failed to follow their own procedures in investigating this incident and, indeed, in following up with an appeal before I was placed on administrative leave. In fact, the office that is designated by regulation in the Department to adjudicate these issues, the Office of Declassification, was directed not to do their duties and provide the review.
Page 46 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
This is incomprehensible. Instead, the Assistant Secretary for Defense Programs, an organization which my office has been extremely critical of in recent years because of incidents that have become public in recent months, was tasked to do the job. The outcome was not a surprise. Their approach was sophomoric, based on speculation and supposition and a clear lack of tactical technical expertise. I believe this action to be a clear and obvious act of retaliation against myself and the office that has tried to bring forward an increasingly distressing message of failed security at the DOE laboratories.
The timing of these charges shows a clear attempt to discredit and intimidate me immediately before I was to testify before the PFIAB, and most certainly before the Congress, relative to the recent espionage issues at the Department labs. I informed DOE that I had been asked to appear before Senator Rudman's panel to discuss DOE security on April 16. I was placed on administrative leave on April 19th; then called the next day and asked to delay my appearance before the panel until after Secretary Richardson could speak to them first.
What is most disturbing, although doubtlessly ironic, is the Department's defense of its action by invoking the mantra of national security. The Department has adopted this position and the position that the content of the so-called security infraction is so secret that neither congressional staffs nor my attorneys can review the information in question. It is a variation on the old adage, ''I could tell you all about it but then I would have to kill you.''
The fact that I must discuss this allegation in such a public forum is personally and professionally distressing. However, I feel compelled to do so because this action is one in a long history of suppression and reprisal against others and myself and, as such, I feel constitutes a serious and continuing abuse of power. I speak out in the trust that this committee and other Members of Congress will take the legislative steps necessary to protect individuals who continue to fulfill their responsibilities.
Many career civil servants and contractors carry on their mission despite the likelihood that should they become the bearers of bad tidings they face harassment, open threats, and the loss of their careers and certainly their reputations. These men and women are sometimes all that stand between callous risk to the Nation's welfare and individuals who choose to say whatever will deliver the most favorable spin at the moment.
Page 47 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
I am here to tell you that these civil servants and Government contractors are watching what is happening to me and the other men at this table today. They are watching because they already know what has happened to others. Men such as John Hnatio, Jeff Hodges, Dave Leary, Jeff Peters, and Mark Graff have all had their careers ruined for coming forward and addressing serious lapses of security at DOE facilities. Can we continue to allow such intimidation, neglect and indifference regarding these serious matters? I tell you, the message that our employees have received thus far is, do your duty but do so at the risk of being smeared, fired, or both.
This year, one of our best and longest-serving field Security Directors suddenly retired after attempting to take action against a contractor employee who willfully violated security procedures and admitted a Russian visitor with an untested computer to a security area at one of our facilities.
In January 1997, David Reidenour, head of security for one of our sites, retired in disgust after only 90 days on the job. Mr. Reidenour said, ''In my professional life as a military officer, as a registered professional engineer and as a technologist, I have never before experienced a major conflict between loyalty to my supervision and duty to my country and the public. I feel that conflict today.'' Men like Rich Levernier, Gary Morgan, Don McIntyre, and Jay Stewart are joined by contractor Security Directors like Bernie Muerrens and Link White who tried to do the right thing for their country but were rewarded by replacement or reprisal.
Today, men and women of conscience within the Department of Energy are falling silent because they do not see support from the top at a national level, and some simply cannot afford to go without the income they need to support their families. Mr. Chairman, these people shouldn't have to choose between doing the right thing and supporting their families.
As the Director of the Office of Safeguards and Security, my team has provided senior DOE management with sound judgment regarding security at our Nation's most critical strategic nuclear facilities. We have provided specific action plans to correct shortcomings, sometimes even though much of what we have recommended has not been welcomed nor considered politically correct now that the cold war is over.
Page 48 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
However, the steady decline in resources available to the DOE Safeguards and Security Programs, as well as a lack of priority, or indeed in many cases no priority, have allowed the Department's security posture to deteriorate to a point where its effectiveness is highly questionable.
I have included in my written testimony some references to unclassified reports from the Office of Safeguards and Security issued between 1994 and 1999, which document the reduction in the Department's nuclear security readiness. These reports are supported by hundreds of classified reports which provide detailed analysis of our sites. The information presented in the testimony I submit today is not new. The message of lax security has been repeated consistently over the last decade in reports prepared by my office, such as the Annual Reports to the Secretary in 1995, 1996, and 1997. In fact, these reports were frequently referenced and footnoted in the PFIAB report. They cite a litany of failed efforts, such as a computer security regulation that was rejected in 1995 by the laboratories and their DOE program Assistant Secretaries as too expensive. This change, which would have only required simple firewalls, passwords, and prudent business practices, may have prevented many of the losses of classified information which we have reported recently and, in fact, would have been less costly than the several days of shutdowns at our national laboratories, which we have already seen executed this year, to try to react to those losses.
The 1997 Annual Report to the Secretary points out that most of our facilities by that time were no longer capable of recapturing a nuclear weapon or a nuclear facility if it were lost to an adversary, and describes the DOE security force as a hollow force because of excessive reductions in personnel and in training to our security police officers. Storage facilities are seen as aging and inadequate, and security alarm systems increasingly obsolete. These serious deficiencies are described and contrasted against the backdrop of increased openness to our sites, increased openness to our data, increased foreign visitation to both the sites and the security areas within the sites; increased declassification of information, while at the same time facing a 30 percent increase in the amount of special nuclear material which we were required to store, and a 40 percent decrease in our budget.
Page 49 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
External reviews such as the earlier report to the Secretary by General James Freeze, or the Nuclear Command and Control Staff Oversight cite similar concerns. There have also been numerous GAO reports. However, the Department has not chosen to resolve these serious and longstanding problems.
Secretary Richardson recently announced the selection of a new security czar. Based on the Secretary's announcement, many of these ongoing concerns could be answered. However, the Secretary's statements and the actual events occurring within the Department are strikingly different. A disturbing document entitled, ''Safeguards and Security Roles and Responsibilities'' has been circulated by the Under Secretary and some laboratory proponents that would give the security czar less authority than I had in the Department for the last 10 years. Specifically, in the proposed structure, critical approvals would be delegated from the headquarters to the very laboratories that have allowed critical losses. Important security plans, as well as exceptions to national and departmental regulations, would be delegated to the field. And finally, oversight inspections would be conducted only ''for cause.''
Based on initial reviews, ladies and gentlemen, this devolution of the few authorities reserved to the Department is in direct conflict with the serious negligence identified in both Congressman Cox's report and that of the PFIAB. It is the organizational equivalent of sending the fox in to count the hens. The head of such an eviscerated organization could hardly be called a czar. This proposal developed by the labs at a cost of almost $2 million is a perfect example of the organizational and policy interference by the labs that is well documented, I believe, also in the PFIAB report. It begs the question, who is in charge?
May I have 30 seconds to close, sir?
Mr. BURTON. Yes.
Colonel MCCALLUM. Mr. Chairman, although the DOE security policy is carefully coordinated with the interagency through the U.S. Security Policy Board and is consistent with the DOE and other high security agencies, it has never been fully or successfully implemented in the DOE.
Page 50 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
The arrogant disregard for regulations and contract requirements and the long history of denial by the laboratories and DOE program Assistant Secretaries, have resulted in an ineffective program of protection and the loss of our Nation's most critical secrets.
External oversight and separate line item funding—and I would like to underscore that—external oversight, such as proposed by the Senate, and separate line item funding for security are essential if the reform which the Department is talking about is to be effective.
Meanwhile, the Department's history of harassment and reprisal has sent a clear warning that the government does not want to keep or attract its best and brightest. Despite current legislation, gaps exist in protections where classified information may be part of the issue. Willful negligence has flourished in the Department and will continue to do so as long as officials can hide behind capricious and sometimes malicious acts under the mantra of national security.
While I place no higher value than duty to my country, some forum must be identified or chartered to assure that everyone has a fair and impartial hearing when they bring out wrongdoing. All of us must have the same right to due process which we expect as citizens and as provided for by our Constitution.
Mr. Chairman, career civil servants are charged foremost with ensuring the public health and safety and the protection of our environment. However, if civil service is based solely on a personal or political whim, then the public will be protected and served only as long as it is politically expedient to do so.
It is time to accept the responsibility that we have for nuclear and national security, correct past failures and rebuild our programs. Thank you, sir.
Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Lieutenant Colonel McCallum.
[The prepared statement of Colonel McCallum follows:]
Page 51 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
INSERT OFFSET FOLIOS 9 TO 21 HERE
[The official committee record contains additional material here.]
Mr. BURTON. Dr. Leitner.
Dr. LEITNER. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I would like to express my appreciation for your collective concern over the mistreatment of career civil servants essentially for speaking ''truth to power'' concerning the systematic pillaging of the United States Defense industrial base and our Nation's most precious military and nuclear secrets by the People's Republic of China.
Appearing before you today is both an honor and a rather dubious distinction. To be victimized by my own government, particularly the Defense Department, for consistently putting the near- and long-term national security interests of the United States ahead of all other considerations, is something which I still find astounding to this day. I believe that a deadly combination of corruption, greed, careerism, indolence and possibly darker motives have brought us to this sad turning point in the nature of the military threats to the United States and countries along the Chinese periphery, extending from the Central Asian republics through the Indian Ocean and along the Pacific Rim.
My particular story revolves around my documenting evolving military threats to the United States spurred by reckless transfers of advanced Western technology, technology capable of allowing potential military rivals such as the PRC to leapfrog generations of technological development and trillions of dollars of expenditures and to field advanced weapons systems faster than our experts have predicted. I have been systematically penalized for my initiative and efforts.
From 1986 through 1990, I was consistently praised by DOD officials for my effectiveness in documenting and persuasively defending American technology security interests around the world in international negotiations, but all that changed in 1990. That is when I authored the memo and charts presented as attachment A to my written testimony. That memo pointed out dangerous flaws in the methodology DOD was using in determining which technology to drop from international export control lists. For the mere act of composing this message for my chain of command, I was summarily recalled from Paris and ordered to get on the next flight home, where I was confronted by the first in a series of DTSA managers who place their personal interests and career advancement ahead of all else. I was told, ''You are to be placed in a position of least trust in this organization: licensing.'' A remarkable statement as export licensing is the raison d'etre for the organization.
Page 52 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
After my being banished into licensing, I began to detect a disturbing pattern of Indian acquisition of United States and British parts and components for their attempt to build a so-called indigenous supercomputer. I wrote a paper on this issue that received the support of the Defense Intelligence Agency and numerous technical experts. The DOD response: I was barred from looking at export licenses involving India.
After these two incidents, my performance appraisal dropped from outstanding to an entire grade lower. My supervisor at the time told me he was ordered by the Director and Deputy Director of DSIA not to give me an outstanding rating. He then advised me that he would lower my written communication category because, after all, it was my memos that resulted in all of this.
Earlier that year, I had been told I would be given a quality step increase as a result of my outstanding performance. This was quickly scrapped and I was denied a $2,600 pay raise. This was to be the first in a series of retaliatory financial sanctions which, in my reckoning, has cost my family between $75,000 to $100,000 to date, and over the course of my lifetime, certainly much more. The loss of income punishes not only me, but also my wife and four children.
In May 1991, I authored a technical paper entitled, ''Garrett Engines to the PRC: Enabling Its Long-range Cruise Missile Program.'' The controversy generated by this paper ran well into 1992 but eventually stopped a potentially disastrous technology transfer from taking place. The new administration was fighting tooth and nail to approve the transfer of cruise missile manufacturing technology to the PRC. While the technology transfer was prevented and the potential threat to the United States mitigated, I was nonetheless punished for my having been right.
In 1994, I wrote a technical paper entitled, ''McDonnell-Douglas Machine Tool Sales to the PRC: Implications for U.S. Policy,'' and refused a direct order to change my denial of the transfer of the Columbus, OH, B–1 bomber/MX missile/C–17 plant to China. The incident was the subject of a recent 60 Minutes broadcast.
Page 53 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Later, I co-authored a study entitled, ''Transferring Stealth Technology to the PRC: Three Pieces to the Chinese Puzzle.'' This paper revealed how the PRC was targeting United States companies for technology acquisition with surgical precision.
Late in 1995, a series of events heralded a new round of internal retaliation against me. First was the publication of my first book, ''Decontrolling Strategic Technology, 1990–1992: Creating the Strategic Threats of the 21st Century.'' The reaction of DTSA management, after desperate attempts to prevent publication of the book, was to artificially lower my performance appraisal and insert all manner of political language into my civil service rating. I appealed the rating, and while the score was raised somewhat, the political language was allowed to stand and I was again penalized financially.
In 1997, reprisals began to intensify upon the publication of my second book and my being invited to appear before the Joint Economic Committee to discuss Chinese economic espionage and strategic technology transfer. Just before the hearing was to convene, DTSA management held a Directors meeting, where it was announced that no DTSA employees would be permitted to attend that hearing, and if any applied for annual leave for that purpose, it would be denied.
It was in December 1997 that a campaign to further isolate me began; this time to confiscate my office computers, a laptop and a desktop. I was told DTSA management was afraid that I may use the computers to write testimony, books, or articles critical of DTSA actions or policies. Therefore, DTSA management reasoned, take the computers away and I will no longer be able to write or testify.
About this time, I began to see and issue denials for a large number of export licenses originating with the DOE sponsored national laboratories. These licenses were to transfer a variety of high-tech equipment with direct applications to nuclear weapons development to Russia and China. I objected then and continue to object today to these so-called lab-to-lab transfers because there was no evidence of a security plan to protect U.S. technologies from being used against us. There was no evidence that the Department of Energy exercised any credible level of control over these activities. And after meeting with lab officials, it was apparent to me that the labs had become entrepreneurial and were creating programs, as much to resolve the loose nukes program, as it was to keep themselves employed and to avoid layoffs.
Page 54 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
In 1997, I witnessed the intentional orchestration by the administration of a series of events resulting in the false certification to Congress that China is not a nuclear proliferant. This provided the Chinese legal access to many nuclear technologies to complement that which they were engaged in stealing.
I am proud to have been associated with Mr. Jonathan Fox, who had the courage to do what extremely few in government appear capable of doing these days: that is, recognizing and telling the truth.
In April 1998, I again appeared before the Joint Economic Committee to discuss continuing problems with the growing strategic threat from China. Next I was subpoenaed to appear before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in June. My Senate testimony resulted in an investigation by the Inspectors General of six agencies of the management of the export control process.
In August, I was called before the Cox/Dicks committee where I testified on the PRC threat and worked very closely with that staff, providing over 18 inches of documents and hours of follow-up interviews with staff.
Ever since these testimonies, I have been subjected to, in staccato fashion, one adverse harassing act after another; the most prominent of these, further lowering of my performance rating, attempts to isolate me from attending meetings concerning nuclear exports—particularly when the IGs were visiting the interagency meetings as part of the followup on the Senate-requested investigations—a trumped-up letter of reprimand; sick leave harassment; a falsified charge of security violation, Colonel McCallum is well aware of how that affects you; and implied threats to charge me with insubordination or defiance of authority.
These actions were deemed so serious that Senator Thompson twice wrote to the Pentagon, including to Secretary Cohen, expressing concern for his witness. In addition, the Office of Special Counsel has accepted my case for a full investigation of political reprisals and illegal retaliation.
Page 55 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
The politization of the career civil service is an extraordinarily dangerous and insidious process aimed at co-opting, bypassing or eliminating unbiased professionals. Without a nonpartisan professional civil service, this Nation will be subjected to wild mood swings and radical policy changes that will wreak havoc. The professional career civil service is, in a manner of speaking, a dampening force, or, the Ritalin in the body politic which prevents dangerous and intemperate initiatives from getting out of control.
DOD routinely engages in two questionable personnel practices: the militarization of DOD's civil service, by allowing widespread conversions of military personnel to civilian positions; and the inappropriate, possibly illegal use, of the Intergovernmental Personnel Act to directly appoint individuals without competition and avoid ceilings on political appointments. In many cases, particularly within the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, civil servants with decades of expertise in strategic weapons programs were shoved aside and demoted, while DOE lab employees were brought in to fill their posts.
Between downsizing, contracting out, military rehires, and the abuse of the IPA program, the fundamental relationship and connectedness of government to the general population is being radically altered.
I would like to call upon members of the Civil Service Oversight Committee to investigate the developments I have just described and prepare a legislative remedy to ensure that the congressional vision of the character of the career civil service and its importance to a free and open society is mirrored by reality.
In the meantime, Congress should act swiftly to ensure that the pay cap on double dipping by retired military personnel be kept firmly in place. Removing the dual-compensation ceiling will only exacerbate the problems I have outlined above.
It has been almost exactly a year to the date, June 28, 1998, that I gave sworn testimony before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee on the sad state of the export control process. It was 1 year prior to that testimony when Michael Maloof and I went to the DOD Inspector General's office to request a formal investigation of technology transfer to China and the national security threats it was creating. We were quite surprised when an IG Division Director said he was not interested in what we had to say and bluntly asked us to leave; simply threw us out.
Page 56 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
Is it any wonder that almost 10 months after Senator Thompson directed the IGs of the Defense, Commerce, State, Energy, Treasury, and CIA to undertake an extensive review of the export licensing process, that the DOD report is very weak? It does not reflect many of the issues brought up by DOD personnel.
Should I be surprised that of the six IGs directed to followup on the concerns I expressed to the committee, only one, the DOD IG, even attempted to contact me? While I spent many hours speaking to the DOD IG, the reams of evidence I presented were minimized or shrugged off with statements like, ''It is beyond the scope of our audit.''
In fact, the Air Force's preliminary review of the draft report excoriated the IG on many issues.
Tragically, nowhere in this government are analyses being performed to assess the overall strategic and military impact of these technology decontrols I described in my testimony before the Joint Economic Committee. Nor are any analyses being performed on the impact of the day-to-day technology releases being made by the dysfunctional export licensing process. Yet it is precisely at the big-picture level where the overall degradation of our national security will be revealed. Without such assessments, the government will continue to blunder along, endangering the lives of our citizens unnecessarily.
On three separate occasions, I formally recommended the creation of a modeling simulation and research branch which would be dedicated to conducting such cumulative and tactical impact assessments. To date, the only cumulative impact assessments created within DTSA are those which I undertook independently and for which I was routinely subjected to reprisal.
It is amazing to me how much time and effort has been spent on attempts to break or contain me, rather than monitor, analyze and protect our national security. I cannot begin to count the number of times I have been asked, ''How do you put up with this treatment? How do you manage to survive in that environment?'' Of course, the correct question should be: Why are people with such mean and self-serving agendas allowed to flourish, even be rewarded, for engaging in such ruthless and destructive behavior?
Page 57 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC
As with the case of the six IGs, where only one deigned to contact me regarding the concerns I expressed to the Senate, why is it that at no time over these past 9 years has even one DOD official in my chain of command called me in to hear and perhaps even address the issues I raised? Even though DOD officialdom has been summoned to testify in open hearings and respond to my congressional testimony, I have yet to be called or invited to speak with anyon