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| MISSING DATA | |
 June 13, 2000  |
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Two hard drives containing classified nuclear data disappeared from Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory. Margaret Warner leads a discussion with DOE director of counter-intelligence and the L.A.Times national security correspondent on this possible second breach in a year.
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MARGARET WARNER: Now, more missing secrets at the Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Lab. Reports surfaced last night that two highly classified computer hard drives were missing from a vault at the national laboratory in New Mexico. It was the second major security breach at the labs in a year. The news provoked sharp criticism of the Department of Energy -- which runs the country's nuclear weapons labs-- at a congressional hearing this morning. President Clinton also expressed concern. We take up the story now with Edward Curran, director of the Department of Energy's Office of Counter Intelligence and Bob Drogin, national security correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. We'll start with Mr. Drogin. Welcome, Mr. Drogin. First, tell us about these two hard drives. What was on them? What was the data on them? |
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| Nuclear hardware unaccounted for | ||||||||||||||||||||
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MARGARET WARNER: Let me interrupt you just one second just so I understand what is on them. So, basically, they are kind of a road map how to diffuse a nuclear weapon say if it fell into the hands of terrorists. BOB DROGIN: That's apparently correct. MARGARET WARNER: Now, go to the chronology.
MARGARET WARNER: Now, go back to when was it last seen from your reporting or from what you've been told? When were they actually last seen, and then go on to when they were found there. BOB DROGIN: They were apparently last seen on April 7th, when there was an inventory in the vault, and then someone went in -- two people went in on May 7, a month later, to take them out, because a fire was about to run over the lab, and they wanted to get one of these kits out and get it out of harm's way.
BOB DROGIN: That's correct. MARGARET WARNER: Okay. BOB DROGIN: So they went in just before midnight on May 7. They grabbed these things and suddenly discovered it wasn't there. So, they took another one of the kits and stored it somewhere else. The lab itself was closed until May 22 at which point they went back in and two days later launched their own search. For reasons that are still unclear and that have infuriated the Congress, they didn't tell the lab director apparently until much late later that month, and he did not notify the Secretary of Energy until June 1. He then -- the Energy Department then brought the FBI into the case and they have now launched a very large criminal investigation into this case. |
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MARGARET WARNER: Now you were actually also there during this period right as the fire was starting. Describe the atmosphere there. BOB DROGIN: The lab itself is in a very rugged and very remote and
very beautiful area. It is on the side of a mountain in Northern New
Mexico and there are all of these volcanic fingers from come off the
edge of a mesa and the fire -- as we all know -- was started on May
4th as a MARGARET WARNER: And then so the building that this vault was in was one of the buildings evacuated? BOB DROGIN: Well, all of the buildings were evacuated except for their security guards and their emergency personnel. This vault is in the "X Division." The wonderful name it is the nuclear weapons design center it's actually is my understanding when I was there it's kind of a yellow cinder brick hallway -- rather dingy on the third floor of the administration building at Los Alamos. There is a vault there, a waking vault where they apparently kept the hard drives. MARGARET WARNER: And this is the same division apparently that Wen Ho Lee worked in. BOB DROGIN: That's correct. That's correct. There doesn't seem -- obviously -- there isn't any connection, Wen Ho Lee was the scientist who was fired last March and arrested last December for downloading qualified information from the X. Division but he has been in jail since last December awaiting trial. |
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MARGARET WARNER: Now, today the Department of Energy officials were worked over pretty thoroughly at this congressional hearing which had actually been called before these reports came to light because there seem to be larger concerns. How does what came out today fit into what you understand about congressional concerns about this whole security issue?
MARGARET WARNER: And it seemed as if at today's hearing they felt that in general DOE hadn't responded quickly enough. BOB DROGIN: Well, part of the concern was that DOE, itself, was not notified for three weeks after these hard drives were found to be missing. MARGARET WARNER: All right. Thank you, Bob. |
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BOB
DROGIN: They are about the size of a deck of cards. They are used by
a group called the NEST -- The National Emergency -- Nuclear Emergency
Security Teams. What they do is they assist the FBI in investigations
of terrorists threats involving nuclear weapons, these two hard drives
are taken out by the team and used when there is a problem. They were
last seen on April 7 -- when there was an inventory at the lab. 
BOB
DROGIN: It seems to be a case of a cross between Harry Houdini and the
Katzenjamer kids. What you have is the hard drives were stored in a
locked container in a locked bag inside a huge locked walk-in vault
at the Los Alamos lab. This vault is about -- picture this: It's about
10 to 20 feet in size. To get in you have to have passwords and all
kinds of clearances, there are censors in case there is an unauthorized
breach of that lab. That said, apparently the lab doesn't require anyone
who gets into the lab to sign out if they take anything from the lab.
And that's what seems to have happened. This stuff disappeared, though
it was noticed that it had disappeared on May 7. 
MARGARET
WARNER: Was it also -- I think today in the testimony they were suggesting
that also they thought if there were a nuclear accident during the time
or nuclear incident or terrorist incident during the time that the fires
had the labs closed up, that they wanted to make sure they had the road
map, right?
controlled
burn. As it approached the lab, it started obviously -- sparked massive
concern. They organized an evacuation in a remarkable spirit of cooperation.
They got 12,000 people as I recall out of Los Alamos in about four hours.
I don't think we could have evacuated my office in that time frame,
and without any fender benders or fist fights or all of rest of it,
but people ran for their lives really from the lab and from the community
and were in the allowed back in until more than two weeks later. There
was quite a lot of damage at the lab. This fire forced them to evacuate
a number of the buildings where they still had guards that ran over
their command post. It caused a great deal of damage. 
BOB
DROGIN: Well, the hearing today is the first of what are going to be
a series of hot - white hot kinds of hearings. I think there are three
or four scheduled for tomorrow. Essentially what happened is the Wen
Ho Lee case sparked enormous concern. There were allegations that there
were Chinese spies essentially running rampant at the lab and its security
was being ignored. Chinese espionage was never confirmed but the concern
was real and Secretary -- I'm sorry Secretary Richardson promised that
there would be zero tolerance for security infractions and now you have
this kind of incident.