DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON
SECTION: THE POLITICS OF PERSONAL DESTRUCTION
SUBSECTION: RONALD REAGAN
Revised 8/5/99
RONALD REAGAN
Salon 4/99 Joe Conason "...Instead of placing stricter controls on access to the national laboratories, however, the Reagan administration issued an executive order in 1987 that loosened controls so that scientific advances could be more easily commercialized by the private sector. That order also gave freer entry to foreign citizens and corporations. Then in 1988 an alarm arose from within the government: The General Accounting Office reported to Congress that security procedures to protect sensitive data at the national labs were fearfully lax, and needed immediate improvement...."
EO12591 (Reagan administration) Source: The provisions of Executive Order 12591 of Apr. 10, 1987, appear at 52 FR 13414, 3 CFR, 1987 Comp., p. 220, unless otherwise noted.By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, including the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986 (Public Law 99-502), the Trademark Clarification Act of 1984 (Public Law 98-620), and the University and Small Business Patent Procedure Act of 1980 (Public Law 96-517), and in order to ensure that Federal agencies and laboratories assist universities and the private sector in broadening our technology base by moving new knowledge from the research laboratory into the development of new products and processes, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Transfer of Federally Funded Technology. a. The head of each Executive department and agency, to the extent permitted by law, shall encourage and facilitate collaboration among Federal laboratories, State and local governments, universities, and the private sector, particularly small business, in order to assist in the transfer of technology to the marketplace. b. The head of each Executive department and agency shall, within overall funding allocations and to the extent permitted by law: ...Sec. 8. Relation to Existing Law. Nothing in this Order shall affect the continued applicability of any existing laws or regulations relating to the transfer of United States technology to other nations. The head of any Executive department or agency may exclude from consideration, under this Order, any technology that would be, if transferred, detrimental to the interests of national security...."
1988 General Accounting Office found lax controls over foreign visitors at weapons labs. LA Times 3/14/99 Bob Drogin New York Times 3/17/99 Jeff Gerth
June 1993 U.S. Department of Energy ORDER Washington, D.C. DOE 5634.3 6-14-93 SUBJECT: FOREIGN OWNERSHIP, CONTROL, OR INFLUENCE PROGRAM 8. CONCEPT OF OPERATIONS. This paragraph lists requirements for eligibility for a facility approval or safeguards and security activity, identifies factors that shall be considered in determining whether an offeror/bidder or a contractor is or may be under FOCI, prescribes procedures for accepting a FOCI determination rendered by another Federal agency, and outlines procedures for processing and rendering determinations. a. Eligibility Requirements. (1) A U.S. organization effectively owned or controlled by a foreign government is ineligible for a facility approval or a safeguards and security activity unless the Secretary of Energy determines that a waiver is essential to the national security interest of the U.S. (2) An offeror/bidder that is owned, controlled, or influenced by a foreign interest from a sensitive country identified in DOE 1500.3, FOREIGN TRAVEL AUTHORIZATION, and DOE 1240.2B, UNCLASSIFIED VISITS AND ASSIGNMENTS BY FOREIGN NATIONALS, shall not be eligible, in some cases, for a facility approval or safeguards and security activity. SA-10 will make the determination. (3) An offeror/bidder that is owned, controlled, or influenced by a foreign interest from a nonsensitive country shall be eligible for a facility approval or safeguards and security activity provided action can be taken to effectively negate or reduce associated FOCI risk to an acceptable level. (4) The chairman of the board and all principal officers of the U.S. organization(s) to be cleared for a facility approval or safeguards and security activity must be U.S. citizens residing within the limits of the U.S.
1994 To reduce costs and processing backlogs, the Los Alamos and Sandia laboratories implemented a partial exception to the Bush Administration's DOE Order 1240.2b that allowed them to largely avoid the background check process for foreign visitors to the Labs. Since then, DOE has obtained background checks on about 5 percent of the visitors from sensitive countries to these two laboratories. (GAO/RCED-97-229)
September 1996 DOE Security: Information on Foreign Visitors to the Weapons Laboratories (Stmnt. for the Rec., 09/26/96, GAO/T-RCED-96-260).Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed unclassified visitsby foreign nationals to the Department of Energy's (DOE) nuclear weapons laboratories. GAO noted that: (1) the average annual number of foreign visitors to these DOE laboratories has increased 55 percent since 1986;(2) in 1996, the number of foreign visitors may increase to over 6,700;(3) DOE designates some countries as sensitive due to national security, terrorism, regional instability, or nuclear proliferation concerns; (4) the average annual number of foreign visitors from sensitive countries has increased 225 percent since 1993; (5) 93 percent of these visitors came from China, India, Israel, Taiwan, and the states of the former Soviet Union; (6) DOE has changed its visit approval and background check requirements since 1988; (7) DOE has delegated the laboratories authority to approve visits that do not involve high-level foreign visitors, sensitive subjects, or secure areas; and (8) DOE only requires background checks on visitors from sensitive countries who are on assignment or involved in sensitive subjects or secure areas, but it has permitted two laboratories to omit background checks for visitors on assignment. http://www.securitymanagement.com/library/000292.html
April 1997 Tommy D. Chang, NN-10 The following are the Office of Energy Research (ER) comments on DOE Order 1240.2B per the request by Kenneth E. Baker dated April 15, 1997: The request for comments did not include DOE Notice 1240.2, dated 11-29-93; or the Memorandum by David Pumphrey, dated 7-21-94. Both of these should be incorporated in the revised order. The Notice made a number of modifications to DOE Order 1240.2B and stated, "DOE 1240.2B will be revised to reflect these modifications." This action abolished the terms "sensitive facility" and "security facility" and focused the reporting requirements on "Security Areas", excepting property protection areas. ER strongly endorsed this modification and recommends it be incorporated in the revision as stated. The modification was explained in the notice as, "Since open communication is fundamental to the economic vitality of the international community, this notice removes necessary impediments to the free flow and exchange of ideas and technology." In addition, there have been no actual problems identified at ER facilities as a result of this modification. As such, there is no need to change what we are currently doing. The memorandum by David Pumphrey, dated 7-21-94, modified the sensitive country list. ER would continue to support this current list. In place of this list ER would support the elimination of a sensitive country list. ER would have no objection to documenting ALL visits by foreign nationals where the visit involves access to a "security area" or "sensitive subject". ER does not support any changes to the sensitive subject list. ER does not support expanding the order to include export control regulations. Export control is the reponsibility of the Commerce Department, as such, DOE should not be establishing policy in this area. ER would support the delegation of authority to the field elements for approving visits. The focus and concern by congress has been nuclear nonproliferation, in particular, foreign visitor controls at Weapons Laboratories. When the DOE Order was implemented it was in response to congressional concerns and recommendations in the GAO report of October 1988. The revised order should only be written to address foreign visitors to the weapons laboratories. ER strongly recommends the continuation of the exclusions from the Order that are currently in place at ER non-weapons laboratories. Bill Nay - 301-903-6576 Office of Energy Research http://www.jlab.org/exp_prog/SLCCC/order12402b.html?undefined
The American Spectator 5/99 John Roberts II "....Contrary to Mr. Clinton's recent statements, security at the labs was extremely tight in the mid-eighties. In 1985, Energy Secretary Herrington initiated the most massive increase in security spending at DOE in two decades. In the mid-eighties, Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), then chairman of the House Energy Committee, held oversight hearings probing whether terrorists could penetrate nuclear weapons sites. Dingell's hearings meant there was a good chance that Congress would give DOE funds to improve security. Edward V. Badolato, Herrington's deputy assistant secretary for security affairs from 1985 through 1989, was told one of his first tasks at the Energy Department was to evaluate the security problems first-hand. He quickly pulled together a team of half-a-dozen specialists. Over the next thirty-odd days, they surveyed all 58 facilities which make up the nation's nuclear weapons infrastructure. Badolato's recommendations resulted in Operation Cerberus, a $1.5-billion comprehensive security program. The overhaul spanned the gamut from instituting new physical fitness and marksmanship qualifications standards for plant security guards to high-technology safeguards. At Rocky Flats, four miles of barbed-wire fence line was replaced with PIDS, the Perimeter Intrusion Detection System, a state-of-the-art integrated microwave and multi- sensor system. "If a mouse went through that line," Badolato recalls, "we knew it!" Operation Cerberus did more than tighten physical access to the weapons plants and nuclear labs. Fighting espionage was a key element. In his March 19 news conference, President Clinton asserted that the U.S. is not certain that China employs espionage to probe our nuclear secrets. But China's interest was no mystery in the mid-eighties. "I can tell you as a fact that the Chinese visiting scientists would consistently ask, 'Do you have any Chinese-American scientists here?'" Badolato says. "And then they would want to meet these people, get their names. We knew what they were up to." ...... Herrington's response was to ask for FBI counter-intelligence agents to be detailed to the Energy Department to work closely with Badolato's teams. One result of the close cooperation between DOE and the FBI was Operation Tiger Trap, a sting to draw in and thwart foreign spies before they got past Operation Cerberus's sentinels. The details remain classified, but Badolato confirms that Tiger Trap snared "a lot" of would-be nuclear spies. The FBI also kept close tabs on scientists traveling overseas. In one case in the eighties, a man carrying classified information had second thoughts during his overseas flight. Unaware that he was under FBI surveillance, the suspect went to the airplane restroom, tore up the papers he was illicitly transporting, and flushed them down the toilet. Thinking he was safe, he returned to his seat. But when the plane landed the FBI retrieved the documents and built a case against him. Counter-intelligence agents monitored the lifestyles of those with access to the most sensitive data. After one scientist purchased a sailboat and in other ways spent beyond his means, he was placed under FBI scrutiny. The vigilance was thorough. "The FBI was doing an excellent job," Badolato says. But after Operation Desert Glow, the change in atmosphere was detectable....."
American Spectator 5/99 John B. Roberts II "...Inside the U.S. intelligence community, the targeting of America's nuclear secrets is a well-established fact. During John Herrington's tenure as Energy secretary in Reagan's second term, Chinese efforts to infiltrate Energy Department facilities were constant and persistent. So were similar efforts by the Russians, the South Africans, and the Israelis. Herrington knew how important cooperation between the FBI and DOE was in preventing foreign espionage. So when at the end of the Reagan administration Bush's incoming FBI director, William Sessions, wanted to meet for a briefing, Herrington readily agreed. Sessions, a former federal judge, knew little about DOE's national security mission. Herrington gave him an overview and urged Sessions to "get read into and briefed up" on the secret side of the department's activities. Sessions promised he would. Sessions's tenure as FBI director was less than six months old at the time of Operation Desert Glow. Herrington was incredulous when he learned about the Rocky Flats raid. At a reception in California, the former cabinet member confronted the FBI director. "Why are you sending the FBI out to Rocky Flats," Herrington asked in straight Marine Corps fashion, "when we have problems in this country with drugs, with crime, with espionage in Silicon Valley?" "You know," Sessions answered defensively, "these are high priority cases, too." Herrington still bristles at the government's prosecution of the weapons plant managers. "They put the pedal to the metal for us," he says, referring to Congress's and the administration's orders to match the Brezhnev-era Soviet build-up by accelerating weapons production in the eighties. "They were only doing what we told them to do." The new management culture looked upon those same executives and scientists with a mixture of suspicion and disdain--as, at best, useless relics of the Cold War; and at worst, environmental criminals and pro-bomb fanatics. Security and morale in the nation's nuclear weapons infrastructure plummeted as a result Insiders say there is a direct correlation between the cultural shift at DOE and the degradation of security that permitted China to steal the secrets of one of the most advanced nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal, the W-88 warhead...."
WorldNetDaily 5/27/99 J.R. Nyquist "...Seventeen major espionage cases were brought into the limelight between 1984 and '85 alone. Consequently, the year 1985 became "the Year of the Spy." Among the more spectacular cases of the 1980s: 1) Edward Lee Howard, a CIA employee, fled to the Soviet Union after his espionage was discovered; 2) The infamous Walker spy ring consisted of Navy Warrant Officer John Walker, his brother Arthur Walker (a retired naval officer), and Jerry Whitworth (Navy radioman). The Walker spy ring went undetected for 17 years; 3) Glenn Souther, a Navy satellite photography expert, is believed to have stolen the Navy's nuclear war plan. He successfully escaped to the Soviet Union in 1986 where he was given the rank of major in the KGB.... In December of 1984, then-FBI Director William H. Webster stated, "We have more people charged with espionage right now than ever before in our history. ..." The spies we caught in the 1980s were military and intelligence personnel. At the time, nobody was looking at the American business community, or at our politicians. We know that politicians around the world have been recruited and blackmailed by the Chinese and Russian intelligence services. Can we honestly assume that our country has been immune to this sort of penetration?..."
The Political Review 5/27/99 D. K. Zimmerman "...The Washington Post is being fed documents declassified expressly to spin the Cox Report. For example, it recently reported that in 1988, there was a low- level analysis that China was initiating extensive espionage to gather nuclear technology and there were suspicious similarities between an American warhead and one of their most recent warheads. Senate Minority Leader, Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota), went farther on national television, claiming that Presidents Reagan and Bush knew of Chinese espionage and did nothing. Sounds treasonous, no? He went on to praise this administration because Clinton took action when he found out about it. Reflect on that for a moment. The White House is busy digging up and leaking obscure classified documents which actually only confirm that during previous administrations low-level staffers were only beginning to suspect Chinese espionage. There is no evidence -- none -- that either Reagan or Bush, nor any of their cabinet-level officials were ever presented with evidence of a criminal act. On the other hand, Clinton, his National Security Advisor, and various Assistant Secretaries of Energy have conspired to lie publicly and under oath about how many years Clinton personally knew of proof of espionage, yet did nothing besides cover up. Daschle finds this laudatory? ..."
The Political Review 5/27/99 D. K. Zimmerman "...GAO investigations criticized security at the national laboratories during President Reagan's administration. His administration examined the issue and, in less than 30 days, began a $1.5 billion program to fix the known problems in 1988. Ah, counter White House spokesfolks, but it was Reagan who issued the 1987 directive loosening all security controls at the labs to allow outside visitations, to include foreign nationals. Only problem is, they "overlooked" the portion of Reagan's directive specifically exempting all national security material....."
The Political Review 5/27/99 D. K. Zimmerman "...When Clinton took office, labs implemented exceptions to a Bush order, dropping requirements for some foreign visitors' background checks. Within two years, GAO reported the annual number of foreign visitors increased 55% from 1986 levels. Sensitive country visitors have increased 225% since 1993. Ninety-three percent of those came from China, India, Israel, Taiwan and the states of the former Soviet Union. DOE actually permitted two laboratories to omit background checks for such visitors on assignment.
New York Times 5/30/99 "...Now that a congressional committee has released its three-volume, 872-page techno-thriller on the theft of atomic secrets by Chinese spies, much of Washington is agog. But the uproar overlooks an arresting fact. For more than a half decade, the Clinton administration was shoveling atomic secrets out the door as fast as it could, literally by the ton. Millions of previously classified ideas and documents relating to nuclear arms were released to all comers, including China's bomb makers..... Back in 1993, when the terrors of the Cold War were still fresh, the administration decided that the best way to keep the nuclear arms race from heating up again was to get the world's nations to sign a test-ban treaty. The idea was that even if a country knew how to make a bomb, it couldn't perfect new ones and build up advanced forces without physically testing new designs. So development of new weapons would be frozen, ending the vicious spiral of nuclear move and countermove. Releasing many of America's nuclear secrets was seen as an essential part of this strategy, since it would signal a new global order in which nuclear know-how was suddenly and irreparably devalued and real security would lie in the collective knowledge that nobody was able to push weaponry beyond the known boundaries. What had been gold would become dross, and the atom would lose power and prestige. Driven by such logic, the administration made public masses of generalities about nuclear arms, even as specific weapon designs were kept secret..... In response to the China scandal, the Clinton administration has stopped all declassifications, beefed up security at the national weapons laboratories and adopted a conciliatory tone. Last week. as the House select committee released its report, President Clinton called protecting atom secrets "a solemn obligation." But in private, administration officials say the openness was smart after all, its advantages even now outweighing its risks. They insist that its crowning jewel, the test ban, while admittedly shaky, still has lessened the risk of new atomic advances, making it a potent force for international good....."It would be nothing short of miraculous if the openness has not seriously damaged U.S. interests," said Frank Gaffney Jr., a Pentagon official during the Reagan administration who now directs the Center for Security Policy, a research group in Washington. Since 1993, officials say, the Energy Department's "openness initiative" has released at least 178 categories of atom secrets. By contrast, the 1980s saw two such actions. The unveilings have included no details of specific weapons, like the W-88, a compact design Chinese spies are suspected of having stolen from the weapons lab at Los Alamos, N.M. But they include a slew of general secrets....."
NewsMax.com 5/30/99 Inside Cover "...One of Inside Cover's favorite media whoppers about America's newfound national security hemorrhage is this: Most of the secret information the Chinese now have access to disappeared over the transom during the Reagan and Bush administrations. Not according to the actual chronology available in the Cox report. Turns out, of the eleven most serious episodes of nuke-related tech tranfers noted by the bi-partisan panel, eight took place during the Clinton years. Except for data on the neutron bomb, which China obtained during the Carter administration, not a single serious breach of nuclear security came to light before 1993. But doesn't that bolster the arguments of Clinton spinmeisters that it was this administration, and not prior Republican presidents, who ferreted out Chinese spying? Not exactly. Except for a "Walk-in"; an unidentified Chinese agent who popped up out-of-the-blue in a Far East CIA office in 1995, Clinton national security officials -- along with the rest of us -- might still be in the dark about the most serious spy case of the nuclear age. To the astonishment of U.S. intelligence, the Chinese tipster revealed that his Beijing bosses had the plans for America's deadly W-88 Trident D-5 nuclear warhead...."
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY 6/9/99 Paul Sperry "...In fact, previous administrations beefed up counterspying efforts. ''This doesn't say there wasn't spying on my watch, but we spent $1.5 billion covering counterintelligence operations when the Reagan administration came in and acknowledged security problems at the labs,'' said Frank Gaffney, Reagan's assistant secretary of Defense for international security policy. Export Controls Clinton argues, reasonably, that past administrations opened the door to satellite exports to China. But he also claims he was just following suit. Here, he's at odd with the facts. Though Reagan and Bush allowed exports of commercial satellites to China, they still worried about the Chinese military getting its hands on dual-use technology. So they maintained export licensing safeguards. The same can't be said for Clinton. If satellite technology were a present, the degree of gift-giving among the three presidents can be compared like this: Reagan provided the box. Bush provided the paper. Clinton put the technology in the box, wrapped it up, tied a bow and shipped it FedEx to Beijing...."
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY 6/9/99 Paul Sperry "...After the Challenger blew up that year, the U.S. government and industry found they could no longer rely on the space shuttle to launch their satellites. So Reagan turned to, among other countries, China. It not only had a lot of capacity but, thanks to state subsidies, cheap launch rates. For the first time, Reagan granted export licenses for satellite launches on Chinese rockets -provided the Defense Department monitored talks between U.S. and Chinese engineers. In fact, both the State Department and Defense still had the authority to reject export license applications on national security grounds. In 1991, Bush tightened controls, citing China's proliferation of missile technology. He imposed sanctions on Chinese entities, including satellite launchers. The CIA has described China's satellite launch rockets as ''ballistic missiles in disguise.'' After pressure from China and U.S. satellite makers, Bush softened his stance. In 1992, he put the Commerce Department in charge of vetting export applications for satellites - but only commercial ones. That is, only those with no military use. But in November 1996, Clinton took it one big step further. He not only removed Bush's sanctions on Chinese launchers, but put Commerce in charge of vetting applications for all fully assembled satellite exports to China - no matter their potential military use. Unlike State, Commerce no longer required Defense to monitor technical talks between Chinese and U.S. engineers. In many cases, such talks went beyond ''form, fit and function'' -basic information needed to mate satellites to rocket platforms...."
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY 6/9/99 Paul Sperry "...What's more, Commerce - primarily a trade booster - eschewed State's munitions list to screen for military use. So basically Clinton took satellites off one list and put them on another to make them easier to export. Clinton has OK'd 19 U.S.-China satellite launches - the most of the three presidents. Of those, 16 have been launched. According to a senior Pentagon official, Clinton has also taken the teeth out of the Pentagon's arms-control oversight role. In the previous two administrations, if there was a dispute between the White House and the Pentagon over technology transfers, the Pentagon usually won when China was involved. Not so under Clinton. ''We've had no successes,'' the Pentagon official said...."
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY 6/9/99 Paul Sperry "...James Woolsey, Clinton's first CIA director, said in a recent interview: ''The United States has substantially liberalized its export policy. That's one thing that has changed during this administration.'' Woolsey added: ''We've gone too far.'' In a 1993 letter to Silicon Graphics CEO Edward McCracken, Clinton wrote: ''I expect to . . . eliminate wherever possible unnecessary U.S. unilateral export control policies.'' Silicon Graphics makes high-speed computers. True to his word, Clinton in January 1996 lifted export controls on high-speed computer exports. Since then, China's gotten more than 600 U.S. high- speed computers. It had virtually none before...."
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY 6/9/99 Paul Sperry "...Around 1994, Energy's Oakland, Calif., office stripped another Livermore scientist of his security clearance after he divulged classified information at a public setting. Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary overturned the Oakland office and ''gave this guy back his classified status,'' Weldon said. In 1992, by contrast, U.S. Customs arrested Chinese spy Bin Wu for smuggling night-vision equipment used by U.S. tank crews to China. He's serving a 10-year prison term...."
Wall Street Journal 6/10/99 Michael Ledeen "....We hear from President Clinton and his defenders that he is not to be blamed for the Chinese espionage detailed in the Cox committee report, nor for the illegal transfer of missile technology to China by American corporations like Hughes and Loral, since both the espionage and the technology-transfer policy began years ago, in the Reagan era. For the most part, neither the media nor Republicans have challenged this line, Mr. Cox himself being a notable exception. But it is false. President Clinton has done two things that were inconceivable in the Reagan years: He has armed China with our best military technology, and has silenced anyone inside the executive branch who has dared challenge this policy...."
Wall Street Journal 6/10/99 Michael Ledeen "....During the Reagan years, the U.S. crafted an international system to prevent dangerous technology from going to dangerous countries. This required enormous input from professional civil servants, particularly in the military, to evaluate the impact of high-tech sales to actual and potential enemies. It would have been unthinkable for those experts to have been silenced or coerced into lying about matters that directly affected national security. Yet this has happened repeatedly during the Clinton years, as some recently uncovered documents show...."
7/26/99 New York freeper selections via email "... The story in the New Yorker was more detailed and painted Reagan as a caring person....It mentions that he was a second lieuteneant with the Army Air Force First Motion Picture Unit. When she asked for a picture of Reagan in uniform, Reagan apologized that the studio wouldn't allow him to send such a photograph - not with soldiers dying at Midway and in Silicy....She said "I had discovered a man who stood apart from his fellow-actors in basic concern and consideration"....Throughout 1948 and 1949, "Old Man Reagan" as he sometimes referred to himself in letters... wrote openly about the depression he felt after a fan named Lulanmae Imhoff, a disabled girl whom he called his "adopted sis" dies.... the article describes Reagan's mother's and Nancy's hospitality...Reagan talked about Hollywood's anti-religious attitude... describes a battle he had with a director who wanted to cut a scene showing a little girl saying her prayers....When ABC aired a sympathetic interview with Alger Hiss, Reagan was upset."I don't think the Hiss broadcast comes under the banner of news reporting.It was a plain case of allowing a convicted perjuror and spy to attack a man- Richard Nixon - who had served as Vice President of the United States....etc....lots more in the article...approximately 7 magazine pages..."