DOE security chief finds only minor problems at Nevada Test Site

"I did not find any significant problems," said Eugene Habiger, a retired Air Force general and former commander in chief of the U.S. Strategic Command,

"I found a dedicated cadre of professionals who are dedicated, patriotic Americans," he said.

Habiger said one of the minor problems he encountered during his tour was a security monitor that was off by 1 hour, 8 minutes in marking the time on its recordings. The problem was linked to software and he ordered it corrected immediately.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson appointed Habiger last month to the new job as director of the Office of Security and Emergency Operations.

Habiger said his biggest chore is to "regain a special trust of the American public."

"Because of a series of events, we have come very close to losing that special trust," he said during a briefing at the agency's North Las Vegas office.

"We're lucky if we have four months to change the culture," he said.

Habiger also said polygraph tests are warranted in some cases.

Polygraphs are being administered to some employees at the weapons labs at Los Alamos and might also be required of some critical positions at the Nevada Test Site, an agency spokeswoman said.

"There is a lot of emotionalism with having to take polygraph tests. I've been there. They ask you four questions, all having to do with national security," Habiger said.

"This is not a tough examination. Anybody in DOE who can't answer four questions about national security ought to find another day job," he said.

Habiger said the DOE already has taken appropriate physical actions to ensure that secret weapons data can't be copied or extracted from computers inadvertently.

He said he will have the weapons complex's cyber security revamped by September 2000 with safeguards against what he called "insiders" downloading nuclear weapons design secrets from classified computers.

Richardson appointed Habiger on June 16 in the aftermath of allegations that China had obtained crucial details about neutron bomb designs in the 1980s and mid-1990s through leaks at the national laboratories in Los Alamos, N.M., and Livermore, Calif.

A suspect in the foreign espionage case, former Los Alamos lab employee Wen Ho Lee, was fired in March by Energy Department officials who claimed he violated security regulations. No charges have been filed against Lee but a grand jury has reportedly convened in Albuquerque to probe the matter.

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