Balancing Scientific Openness and National Security Controls at the Nuclear Weapons Laboratories (1999) / Chapter Skim
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Balancing Scientific Openness and National Security
Balancing Scientific Openness and National Security
Pages 1-12
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As a result, moratoria on foreign visits and tighter controls governing interactions with foreigners have been proposed. To provide an expedited examination of some of the issues surrounding such proposals and policies, in the hope of influencing the current debates as to how to proceed, the National Academies assembled a Committee on Balancing Scientific Openness and National Security.
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As will be seen, the committee believes that a less sweeping approach is required. In response to the allegations of the loss of secrets to China, DOE has not sought to bar all foreign contact by laboratory personnel, but has sought to tighten significantly the policies governing interactions by laboratory staff with foreign nationals.4 DOE has adopted organizational changes that are intended to give heightened prominence to security and countenntelligence,5 revised the order governing access to the laboratories by foreign visitors, provided new guidance governing "exports" of unclassified information through communication with foreign nationals, and undertaken venous actions to strengthen the protection of classified and sensitive information.
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In 1998, weapons laboratory personnel engaged in approximately 5,799 trips to foreign nations, including 1,814 trips to sensitive countries, on official business.7 6 Many of DOE's laboratories conduct only unclassified research that does not bear on the weapons program (i.e., Ames Laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, and the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Laboratory)
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In the latter category, for example, the weapons laboratones contribute to the program of fusion energy research that is aimed at harnessing nuclear fusion as a commercially viable 8 Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, Working Group on Foreign Visits and Assignments, Report of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board Working Group on Foreign Visits and Assignments (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Energy, 1999)
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Their participation, however, necessarily requires the laboratory staff to travel to sensitive countries and to engage in discussions with relevant counterparts in those countnes, as well as to host visits by their counterparts.l5 There are other aspects of international engagement by the laboratories that should also be taken into account. First, a spins of reciprocity, transparency, and cooperation with scientists and technologists from sensitive countries is essential if the United States is to implement and verify nuclear arms reductions agreements that are in its national security interest.
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national security in the years ahead. The apparent absence of any significant losses of classified information in the recent past either by weapons-lab personnel traveling abroad or through espionage by foreign visitors suggests, however, that the existing procedures gov
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For example, microelectronics companies perceive it is in their interest to share information, through full involvement in open scientific dialogue, in connection with research on the properties of materials, while simultaneously maintaining tight secrecy with regard to the design and means of fabrication of a particular microelectronic device. Similarly, biotechnology companies may encourage their technical staff to publish in the open scientific literature about scientific advances, while maintaining tight secrecy about particular products that are under development.
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Overly strict constraints on foreign interactions could affect not only foreign visitors and international meetings at the weapons laboratories, but also visits and meetings taking place at other U.S. institutions where weapons-lab personnel and visitors from sensitive countries might come into contact.
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For example, the DOE policy governing foreign visitors requires that the identities of certain visitors be checked with various intelligence services so as to enable an informed decision as to whether or how to allow visits to occur. Such a system should be implemented so that these so-called "indices checks" can be performed without undue delay.
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war efforts included many giants of scienceEnnco Fermi, Eugene Wigner, Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, Hans Bethe, John Von Neumann, Stanislaw Ulam, and others. Many of the current employees of the laboratories are foreign-born and some are foreign nationals, including individuals from sensitive countnes.
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Furthermore, international cooperation and communication related to nuclear arms control, nuclear nonproliferation, and the protection of nuclear materials bring substantial direct benefits to U.S. national security.
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