Polygraphs For Nuke Workers

Nuclear weapons scientists and other Energy Department workers reportedly have started taking lie detector tests.

According to a newspaper report, the department has tested the first of 5,000 government workers handling highly classified nuclear secrets. Energy officials say it could take four years to complete an initial round of examinations.

The department began administering polygraphs in response to allegations that Chinese spies stole nuclear weapons secrets from government labs, the Washington Post reported Monday.

According to the paper, it's the first wholesale use of lie detectors outside the CIA and the National Security Agency.

The University of California, the direct employer of many of the country's nuclear weapons scientists, already has told the government it objects to the broad use of lie detector tests, and Energy Secretary Bill Richardson told the Post that he expects lawsuits over the issue.

Meanwhile, the head of a presidential panel on nuclear weapons security says security problems within the Department of Energy can't be fixed without creating a new, semi-independent agency to oversee nuclear arms programs.

But Richardson said he is successfully confronting the security lapses revealed in investigations of suspected Chinese spying at weapons laboratories, and that no new agency is needed.

"We are ready to have a beefed-up security entity within the Department of Energy that is stronger," Richardson said. "What I don't want is a new agency that is autonomous that does not report to me."

But former Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H., who chaired a panel of the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board that issued a highly critical report of the DOE's counterintelligence efforts last week, said the department has failed to carry out two key security measures that President Clinton ordered 16 months ago.

It has yet to fully implement polygraph tests for scientists at the labs and tighter security checks for foreign visitors, Rudman said. "The attitude of people within that department, in that bureaucracy, is astounding," he added.

Rudman, meanwhile, is expected to receive a good reception Tuesday when he testifies to Congress on his panel's recommendation that the weapons program become semi-autonomous, reporting only to the energy secretary.

"I agree with the Rudman report," said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "We've said all along that the labs are not safe today. They're not safe tomorrow."

Richardson, he said, is trying to "seal the leaks at the labs. He's trying to bring accountability to the labs. But I believe it's going to take statutory change to do it. I don't believe ultimately he can do it just by himself."

Shelby said Republican Sens. Frank Murkowski of Alaska, Jon Kyl of Arizona and Pete Domenici of New Mexico would try to attach lnguage on such a separation of powers to an intelligence spending bill coming before the Senate soon.

Richardson said there were still problems to resolve but "we have had dramatic improvements." He said he ordered a two-day standdown at all the nuclear labs to test security measures, and that he plans to dismiss some people responsible for security lapses in about three weeks.

Richardson last week also named retired Air Force Gen. Eugene Habiger, the former commander of all U.S. strategic nuclear forces, to head security operations at DOE.