FAS | Secrecy | News ||

June 1999

• White House Statement on Declassification, May 27. "The Administration strongly objects" to a proposed limit on spending for declassification, which "would cripple the President's effort to declassify information which has lost its national security sensitivity and is over 25 years old."
• Speech by DCI George Tenet, June 28. "I believe that when you hear about our commitment to the safety of Americans everywhere ... you will conclude that as a taxpayer, the best dollar your government spends is spent on intelligence."
• China Spy Report Is Melodrama by Stephen I. Schwartz, Newsday, June 24. "The Cox report's most sensational findings have been uncritically accepted despite a stunning lack of evidence to back them up."
• The Formula for Invisible Ink Will Remain Classified by Katherine Pfleger, St. Petersburg Times, June 23. "At the Central Intelligence Agency, information is never too old or insignificant to keep secret."
• Secretary Richardson Testifies Before the Senate about DOE Security, June 22. "I'm looking forward to working with the Congress and Senator Rudman on ways to make things better."
• Yeltsin Delivers Declassified Russian Documents on JFK Assassination, White House Press Briefing, June 20. "I'm sure that those documents will be reviewed carefully and all interesting elements will be made public," said National Security Adviser Berger.
• Secret U.S. Information Found on Hungarian Garbage Heap, Agence France-Presse, June 16. "A classified US military data cartridge has been found in a scrapyard in Budapest, the US Embassy in Budapest confirmed Wednesday."
• Nuclear Secrets: Steal This! by Dan Stober, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August. "Efforts by U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories to archive electronically half a century of nuclear weapons research and development data may inadvertently create an espionage target of unparalleled proportions."
• Freeman Dyson on the PBS NewsHour, June 16. "Look at the way we go into a panic about bomb secrets being stolen by the Chinese. There aren't any bomb secrets. I mean, that's all a lot of nonsense. The bombs are pretty much the same in China as they are here."
• Human Rights Leaders Support Human Rights Information Act, statement by Rep. Tom Lantos, June 16. "The Human Rights Information Act orders the declassification or release of U.S. government documents about human rights violations when the U.S. receives a request from a bona fide truth commission or judicial authority."
• DOE Appoints Security 'Czar', June 16. "Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson today named General Eugene E. Habiger as the Director of a new high-level Office of Security and Emergency Operations."
• Report of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board on Security Problems at the U.S. Department of Energy, June 15.
• Statement by Energy Secretary Richardson on the PFIAB Report on DOE Security, June 15. "I have strong reservations about the Board's recommendation to establish a semi-independent or independent agency for nuclear weapons matters."
• Statement by the President on Security at DOE Weapons Labs upon release of the report of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, June 15.
• DOE Announces Report on Foreign Visitors, June 8. "The broad scientific benefits of international collaboration at the Department of Energy's (DOE's) national laboratories make it essential to the scientific and technological strength of the United States."
• House Limits FY2000 Expenditures for Declassification. The House of Representatives imposed annual declassification spending caps on DoD ($20 million) and on DoE ($8.5 million), June 9.
• Cox Amendments on Proliferation and Export Controls. Amendments to the FY2000 Defense Authorization Act offered by Rep. Chris Cox, June 9.
• Rep. Dana Rohrabacher Blasts Openness and Declassification on the House floor, June 8. "After reading the Cox report, one is struck by the mind-boggling loss of our country's most deadly secrets."
• Rep. Curt Weldon Asserts (Falsely) That Hazel O'Leary 'Leaked' the Design of the W87 Warhead on the House floor, June 8.
• Rep. Curt Weldon Expands Even More Upon the Cox Report on the House floor, June 8.
• Rep. Curt Weldon Expands Upon the Cox Report on the House floor, June 7. With darts for former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary and the Clinton Administration.
• Interagency Group on Nazi War Crime Records to Meet June 24 "The Nazi War Criminal Records Interagency Working Group (IWG), established by President Clinton under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, will hold its first public forum at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles on Thursday, June 24, from 1-5 p.m."
• National Archives To Open Additional JFK Materials, NARA press release. "On Tuesday, June 1, 1999, the National Archives at College Park will make available to the public additional documents related to President John F. Kennedy, in accordance with the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992."
• Tiananmen Square, 1989: The Declassified History, a document reader from the National Security Archive.
• Chinese Surfer Downloads U.S. Nuclear Data by Michael Laris, Washington Post, June 1. "Fang logged on to the Internet and immediately bounced to the Web page of the Federation of American Scientists, a Washington-based group concerned with weapons proliferation and other issues."
• China Say U.S. Nuclear 'Secrets' on Internet by Matt Pottinger, Reuters, June 1. "China sneered Monday at allegations it stole U.S. nuclear weapons secrets, saying warhead technology is readily available in libraries and on the Internet.... At a Web site registered to the Federation of American Scientists (http://www.fas.org), he showed graphics and data on the dimensions and yields of nuclear bombs included in the Cox report."