July 8, 1999

Memorandum To: Jack F. Kemp

From: James G. Prather. Ph.D

Subject:  US National Security Impact Analysis:

Release of "Redacted" Cox Committee Report

The issue before the Cox Committee was: In light of the numerous interactions between the citizens and organizations of the People's Republic of China [PRC] and citizens and organizations of the United States "as trade and other forms of cooperation have bloomed," has the PRC acquired "information and technology, including sensitive National Security secrets" that the US Government ought not to have let them have?"

Although comprising but a small part of the Cox Committee Report, the Chapter entitled "PRC Theft of US Thermonuclear Warhead Design Information" has created something of a firestorm within Congress, the Media and the Public. The principal charge leveled in that chapter was that the People's Republic of China had "penetrated" our weapons Labs more than 20 years ago and has since stolen "classified" information on every currently deployed warhead.

Since the classified report was filed in January, the Director of Central intelligence and, independently, the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board [FIAB] have reviewed all the evidence and FIAB Chairman Rudman has testified that, because of Department of Energy and Laboratory management failures, there existed an environment of "lax security" at the Labs that would have made such "thefts" relatively easy, but that there is no hard evidence that any such "thefts" did occur.

Why would it have been relatively easy for the PRC to "steal" "weapons secrets" from the US weapons Labs? Upon taking office, the Clinton Administration began to implement three important--from the standpoint of nuclear weapons proliferation--policies; [1] Shoring up the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (UN-IAEA) Nonproliferation Treaty based Regime with the Comprehensive Test Ran Treaty; [2] Establishing International Openness and transparency with respect to US nuclear weapons inventories and programs; [3] Engaging the PRC nuclear weapons establishment through our Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear weapons establishment.

In other words, the Clinton Administration for the first time ever [1] told the world that we were never going to develop or test or build another nuclear weapon; [2] told them how many nuclear weapons we had and what they were; and [3] invited the PRC weapons scientists to come over and cheek us out.

The Cox Committee Report and the Rudman FIAB Report both made a number of recommendations, all of which were oriented towards improving physical security and reorganization of the DOE management structure. With uncharacteristic speed, both the Administration and Congress have already enacted or implemented most of those recommendations. But it seems nothing is being done to reverse the three Clinton Administration policies that brought the alleged "lax security environment" to the present state of crisis.

If the PRC has managed to "steal" "design information" on every one of our currently deployed nuclear warheads, then each of these Clinton Administration policies is partially to blame. And though the threat, past and present, of PRC "espionage" to our National Security is almost certainly considerably less than the public no doubt believes at this point, in making haste to "fix" the climate of "lax security" at the Labs, the Administration and Congress may well prevent our weapons labs from turning once again to effectively address the Number One Threat to US National Security; the potential proliferation of Russian nuclear weapons materials, nuclear weapons technologies, and nuclear technologists.

In light of your concern about the Russian politico-economic system and your interest in our programs to provide financial and technical assistance to help the Russians dispose of all their excess weapons grade plutonium, you asked me to review the Cox Report and associated testimony, analyses and articles.

As you well knew, I have had decades of experience in the "weapons business", at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory [1], Sandia National Laboratory[2], the Pentagon[3], and on Capitol Hill [4], and have in recent years been associated with Congressionally mandated programs [5] to assist the Russians prevent the proliferation of nulear materials, technologies and technolotists.

I know at first hand the weapons development process from basic research through acquisition to deployment, as well as the physical and professional environment at each step along the way. In particular, I understand the difficulties all policy making officials, especially Members of Congress and Staff, have in weighing the inevitable conflicting "technical" arguments that are made on every National Security issue, program or system.

Although I had for most of my career access to the highest levels of "classified information", none of those "clearances" are active at the moment and so far as I know, I did not have access to any "classified" information in preparing my review. But I know enough about the DOD and the DOE systems for protecting "sensitive" information, to know that the authors of the Redacted Report have also had difficulties weighing conflicting arguments about what is "sensitive" and what is not, what is "classified" and what is not.

The principal flaws of the Cox Report--which do not occur in the FIAB Report--have resulted from the Committee's inability to properly weigh these conflicting and sometimes imprecise "technical" and "legal" arguments. My analysis will be mostly an attempt to explicate what the Cox Report would have said if they had been able to properly weigh the conflicting arguments.