_Inside the Chinese Espionage Coverup_ *Editor's note -- Energy Department official Notra Trulock appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee to describe his efforts to expose alleged Chinese spying at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Trulock testified that each time he came upon evidence of espionage, his superiors at the department -- whom he expected would want to root out and stop the spying -- instead tried to cover it up. In many papers and newscasts, Trulock's extraordinary testimony was lost amid coverage of the war in Kosovo, the Paula Jones contempt decision, and the Susan McDougal verdict. So here, in his own words before the Senate, is Notra Trulock's story.* From May 1994 to May 1998, I was the director of intelligence and the senior intelligence officer of the Department of Energy. After February of 1995 until April of 1998, I was also responsible for counterintelligence. In both of these jobs, I was assisted by two highly-respected CIA professional officers... By the spring of 1996, we were repeatedly warning about continuing targeting efforts by the Chinese against our national laboratories. Moreover, by early 1997 we had identified and warned about specific collection targets at both Los Alamos and Livermore national laboratories. I must tell you that our warnings were ignored, they were minimized and occasionally even ridiculed, especially by laboratory officials. Twice in 1997, the director of the FBI urged DOE senior officials, including Secretary Pena and Deputy Secretary Moler, that FBI investigations should not prevent DOE from taking immediate action to protect sensitive information at the laboratories. And yet for another 14 months after these warnings, these suspects continued to retain their clearances and accesses. Mr. Chairman, I am not sure that we will ever know how much damage has been done to U.S. national security as a result of this inaction. I would [also] note that over the four years, we briefed over 50 senior officials on the findings and judgments of our work...We briefed the National Security Council, Mr. Berger, twice; we briefed other members of the National Security Council. We briefed the secretary of Defense and his staffs. We briefed CIA, Director Tenet, before him Director Deutch; director FBI, the attorney general, the secretary of State. I think we briefed all of the relevant officials within the national security community.... Our conclusions were never challenged; our officials were satisfied that our assessments and analysis was comprehensive and had been thoroughly vetted...[Our] assessments came under attack only after we provided testimony to the House Cox-Dicks panel in fall of 1998. I must also tell you that beginning in early 1997, senior DOE officials, including my direct supervisor, urged me to cover up and bury this case. For months these officials refused to authorize intelligence to brief the new secretary, Secretary Pena, of an ongoing espionage investigation at one of his national laboratories. These officials argued that this case was of historical interest only and not relevant to the contemporary missions and objectives of the national laboratories. They argued further that these inquiries would harm the credibility of the national laboratories... As a consequence, it appears to us that the combined effect of these actions has been to suppress and withhold intelligence potentially important not only to the department but to also to the administration and U.S. national security. We repeatedly asked ourselves in the process of this: How could this happen? Aren't there safeguards to protect against such flagrant abuses? And in fact, intelligence activities at the department are governed by executive orders, by presidential decisions, and by congressional authorizations. And more specifically, we are governed by a set of intelligence procedures that were approved by the attorney general in 1992. Among these mandates is the role of the departmental inspector general. Executive orders mandate any persons involved in intelligence activities at the department to report what is known as "questionable activities," that is, any activity that may violate any law, procedure, policy, directives, or regulations. The inspector general, in turn, is to then investigate these questionable activities. I'll tell you that beginning in August of 1997, we reported a steady pattern of interference, intervention, and suppression of intelligence and counterintelligence issues, as well as the potential consequences. A second, more specific report was submitted in November of 1997, but no action was taken by the inspector general at that time. Three days after I made a third report to the inspector general, in May of 1998, I was removed from my position as director of intelligence at the Department of Energy... Not surprisingly, when all else fails, the Department resorted to a campaign of shoot-the-messenger. Even though the executive order expressly mandates the Department to ensure that no adverse action will be taken against any employee for reporting such questionable activities, in fact in the middle of 1997 we witnessed the beginning of a pattern of harassment, intimidation and retaliation that has continued over the next two years. Now, let me wrap up with the following observations: First of all, based on my 25 years of experience in intelligence, I must tell you that I think the conduct of effective, non-politicized intelligence at the Department of Energy and the Laboratories must now be considered questionable. This is particularly so since the position of the director of intelligence is now to be occupied by a current, relatively junior, National Security Council official. I believe this is really a shame, because I also believe that the National Laboratories are the single best source of technical intelligence analysis on nonproliferation, nuclear deterrence and a variety of other related topics. Secondly, I am concerned that this episode does indeed raise questions about the credibility of the laboratories. Our experience throughout has been that the laboratories prevaricate, they respond with vague and evasive answers and they occasionally lie in response to our legitimate inquiries. DOE officials responsible for managing the laboratories' track record has been as bad, if not worse. In my view as a citizen, the implications of this are particularly disturbing because ultimately the armed services, the Defense Department, the administration, this committee and the Congress as a whole must rely on the credibility of the labs...And finally, I think it is legitimate to question the long-term effectiveness of various counterintelligence reforms and measures that [current officials are] attempting to implement. I must note that many of the very people at both the labs and DOE headquarters who resisted, minimized, delayed and ultimately blocked our efforts to reform are actually now in charge of implementing the fixes. Therefore, I think we must be skeptical that the labs will prove themselves over time to be capable of effective self-policing. (Posted 4/13/99) _Copyright © 1999__ __The American Spectator__.__ All rights reserved._ _Friday April 16 3:27 AM ET_ -==Energy Officials Avoided Spy Case==- * By JIM ABRAMS Associated Press Writer * WASHINGTON (AP) - Energy Department officials say they kept a House Armed Services subcommittee in the dark last year about alleged Chinese espionage at a national weapons lab as part of a policy of limiting those being told of the case. Notra Trulock, the agency's special adviser for intelligence, told the military procurement subcommittee Thursday that he was under specific orders from Elizabeth Moler, then deputy energy secretary, not to talk about the alleged Chinese theft of nuclear warhead secrets from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the 1980s. ``I did not make full disclosure'' at a closed hearing of the subcommittee last October, Trulock said. ``I apologize.'' The panel's chairman, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., said the lawmakers were ``very upset'' by the failure of Trulock and Moler, who were under oath at the time, to reply to questions about espionage at the national labs and asked, ``Why weren't we told the whole truth?'' Since the alleged spy case was revealed earlier this year, congressional Republicans have been strongly critical of what they say was the administration's slow response to the case and its failure to keep Congress adequately informed. Trulock on Monday backed up their contentions, telling the Senate Armed Services Committee that Moler last July prevented him from talking to the House intelligence panel about the case. On Thursday he said Moler edited the testimony he had prepared for the October Armed Services Committee hearing to take out references to espionage at the national labs. Moler, who also appeared at both the Monday and Thursday hearings, took strong issue with Trulock's version of events, saying she never tried to stop him from testifying and did not edit his testimony. But she acknowledged that Federico Pena, then energy secretary, had decided the agency, because of the sensitive nature of the case, should limit its Capitol Hill briefings to the House and Senate intelligence committees. She said this was ``common practice.'' She said she told Trulock to limit his testimony to the subject of security issues involved in visits to the labs by foreign nationals. Hunter reminded her that his subcommittee oversees two-thirds of the Energy Department's budget and said, ``We need candor from the department on (security) losses this country has suffered.'' ``With the benefit of hindsight,'' Moler said, ``we should have been more responsive in this area.'' The Energy Department and the FBI in 1996 began an investigation into suspicions that Taiwan-born American Wen Ho Lee, a scientist at Los Alamos, transferred intelligence on the W-88 nuclear warhead during the Reagan administration. Lee was fired from his job at the New Mexico facility last month, but has not been charged with any wrongdoing and the FBI has cautioned it may not have the evidence for a criminal case.