U.S. Nuclear Brain Drain Feared

Layoffs At Nuclear Lab Stir Fears Of Losing Secret Info To Foreign Countries

(AP)  The top U.S. nuclear weapons design lab has laid off hundreds of workers, raising concerns about a brain drain and stirring fears that some of these highly specialized scientists will sell their expertise to foreign governments, perhaps hostile ones.

Because of budget cuts and higher costs, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory laid off 440 employees May 22 and 23. Over the past 2 1/2 years, attrition and layoffs have reduced the work force of 8,000 by about 1,800 altogether.

According to a list obtained by The Associated Press, about 60 of the recently laid-off workers were engineers, around 30 were physicists and about 15 were chemists. Some, but not all, were involved in nuclear weapons work or nonproliferation efforts, and all had put in at least 20 years at the lab.

Some lawmakers and others said they fear the loss of important institutional knowledge about designing warheads and detecting whether other countries are going nuclear.

Also, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, said job reductions at Lawrence Livermore and two other big U.S. weapons labs represent "a national security danger point." These unemployed experts might take their skills overseas, Feinstein said.

"The fact is, these are all people who are human - they have homes, they have families, they have educations to pay for," she said. "And I very much worry where they go for their next job."

The possibility is also on the mind of the nation's top nuclear weapons official, National Nuclear Security Administration chief Tom D'Agostino.

"Always in a situation where people leave under less-than-ideal circumstances, we worry about that, and it's something I assure you we're looking at closely," D'Agostino said. "I'm always concerned about the counterintelligence part of our mission, and we have an active program to go make sure we understand where we're vulnerable and where we're not."

Asked to elaborate, NNSA spokesman Bryan Wilkes said the agency is "always on guard for foreign entities approaching our employees, active or retired, but it's their responsibility to alert us to those circumstances."

The NNSA is aware of no instance in which a U.S. nuclear weapons scientist had gone to work overseas, he said.

He said the agency regards the possibility of a hostile government picking up laid-off workers as "highly unlikely," in part because these are American citizens who have responsibly held high-level clearances for many years, and because federal law provide stiff penalties - which range as high as life in prison - for divulging nuclear secrets.

In an e-mail message, Wilkes said the very notion that these scientists would sell their country out is "an insult to their personal integrity and their patriotism."

Ken Sale, a physicist laid off from Lawrence Livermore on May 23, said that taking his knowledge of nuclear weapons overseas would be unthinkable, and that he knows of no laid-off colleague who would even consider it.

But "the recent history of spying has all been money-based," Sale said. "Being concerned about expertise you wouldn't want rattling around in the whole world, and workers being desperate for a job, is a reasonable concern."

Sale worked on nuclear weapons testing, nonproliferation and nuclear-detection projects.

"The specific experience you get doing that stuff doesn't have applications outside that narrow world," he said. "It's not obvious that I will be able to be fully employed."

Sale, 51, will receive one week's pay for each of his 23 years at the lab, which is in Livermore, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from San Francisco.

For security reasons, laid-off workers like Sale immediately lost their access badges, their top-secret "Q" clearances were suspended, and they were promptly escorted off the grounds. Some, including Sale, may stay on for a few months doing unclassified work via telecommuting.

Lawmakers and others have expressed concern that wave after wave of work force reductions will diminish the lab's expertise. D'Agostino said he could not guarantee that national security would not be harmed.

With a self-imposed nuclear test ban in place since 1992, maintenance of the warhead stockpile - Lawrence Livermore's top responsibility - is performed on supercomputers. So is the task of designing a new generation of warhead, which Lawrence Livermore won the right to do last year.

The layoffs have reduced the lab's roster of experts with invaluable experience they had gleaned from taking part in actual nuclear tests, Sale and others said. "Designing, building and seeing a device go off is very different from designing a device and handing it to a computer jockey," Sale said.

Los Alamos, the New Mexico laboratory that built the atom bomb during World War II, cut its work force last year by about 550 through retirements and attrition, and Sandia, also largely in New Mexico, plans to shed dozens of workers.

[hypnotoad72]

Wickipedia is heavily peer reviewed and is an excellent starting point due to it''''s requiring contributors to provide references.


Posted by bhoogren
---------------------

Regrettably, most of my discussions have been verbal, but I will be more than happy to look for a web-based source.

I agree with your assertion about citing bibliographic -type sources for entries; just so long that actual cited information isn''t used to create an inference on the part of the reader. But then, all people need do is to click on the actual links.

I agree, it is a good start. But as with modern journalism, the facts sometimes get skewed with opinions anyway.

[Latrocinor]

Wikipedia''''s article may be correct, but most people tend to say to not treat that site as containing the unbridled, unbiased, unmolested truth.

Posted by hypnotoad72
.. .. ..
MOST people don''t say that at all. SOME people do. If there is a poll in existence to support you assertion I would like the reference to it.

Wickipedia is heavily peer reviewed and is an excellent starting point due to it''s requiring contributors to provide references.

For the Miniscribe story we have the following references that anyone may follow:

* Cooking the Books: How Pressure to Raise Sales Led MiniScribe To Falsify Numbers 1989 Wall Street Journal article about the fraud
* 94-1592 U.S. v. Wiles, 95-1022 U.S. v. Schleibaum Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals decision regarding the criminal case
* Fraud Is Cited at Miniscribe. AP. New York Times (1989-09-13). Retrieved on 2007-10-12.

[hypnotoad72]

Here''''s a good link to a brief summarry of the story:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M
iniScribe

Posted by bhoogren
---------------------

Wikipedia''s article may be correct, but most people tend to say to not treat that site as containing the unbridled, unbiased, unmolested truth.

[Latrocinor]

"gkc99,
Your assertion on H1B workers are completely unfair and untrue. They were brought here in nineties not because you want to help them. They were needed to fill the need to advanced all the technologies you are enjoying. Reason - Many US born people like you think science and math are for geeks and the school is do to sports. "--Posted by sepa2

.. .. ..

You are dead wrong. Corporations wanted cheap engineers and tech people and the influx of cheap foreign engineers started in the early 80''s.

The Engineering societies sounded the alarm over and over but no one believed them. I first read about it in the IEEE Spectrum in my Junior year in College in 1983.

By 1986 it was insane with layoffs and companies failing left and right.

Google the Miniscribe brick if you want to see how American business was back then.

Here''s a good link to a brief summarry of the story:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniScribe

[rf35]

Not to worry, folks. They can always get jobs as advisors to the government. If they can get hired by Haliburton, they are sure to have a job as long as the Republicans hold power.

[acolton1]

Well now that there are so many scientists that can build a bomb and know about nuclear stuff we will not need to worry about it. Every country on the face of the planet will have war heads by the year 2025 and if we all push the button at the same time Earths Atmosphere will go from a nice comfortable tempature to about 3 or 4 thousand degrees in a few seconds.

Now THAT TURE GLOBAL WARMING.

[downsteamjim]

To Nancy Naive: Don''t worry about North Korea. Jimuh Carter has taken care of that problem. If they drop a nuclear bomb it will make a peace symbol not a mushroom cloud and Jimuh will get another Nobel prize.

[hypnotoad72]

Vote Nobama. This country needs socialized everything. Pay your doctors socialized wages and see how fast they seek others places to practice. Begin paying your scientists a socialized wage and see how fast they fleee to the highest dollar paid. There is no pride in a job well done any more in America. look at what you''''re going to elect President... A Lawyer without a practice and no senatorial track record. Get real, America. He''''s not offered one, not one piece of legislation into effect. He has the worst attendance record of any senator seated. This is what you want as President? You deserve what you''''re going to get.

Posted by maxify55
------------------------

Some people like to take pride, but management says "time is money, get it done cheap".

I''m not discounting or discrediting your opinion, which has some truth in it, but the whole situation isn''t one-sided. There are many facets that need polishing.

[hypnotoad72]

Well, we offshore jobs and the countries we offshore to don''t have the same regulations.

gkc99 is right on the money and the whole situation is saddening.

Especially for the geeks. :)

[gkc99]

"gkc99,
Your assertion on H1B workers are completely unfair and untrue. They were brought here in nineties not because you want to help them. They were needed to fill the need to advanced all the technologies you are enjoying. Reason - Many US born people like you think science and math are for geeks and the school is do to sports. "--Posted by sepa2


Bzzt! Wrong! I was there. Corporations were laying off middle aged American scientists so they could bring in cheap Asian labor. Many U.S. workers who''d dedicated 10 or 20 or 30 years to their careers had to train their Chinese or Hindu successors. Once these Asians learned the job, they took their skills and the jobs back to their own countries. My employer at the time closed a laboratory in the U.S. that employed over 500 scientists and engineers, then reopened a lab with the same function in Mumbai, India.

The U.S. children of the ''50s were inspired to become scientists, and devoted many years to it.

Then they were tossed out like used Kleenexes thanks to people like Dianne Feinstein and Bill Clinton.

So get your facts straight.