-Caveat Lector- Panel Holds China Espionage Hearing By JIM ABRAMS .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) -- An Energy Department intelligence officer says he was blocked from acting and reporting on an alleged case of Chinese espionage at a nuclear weapons lab because of concerns about the lab's reputation and the administration's China policy. Notra Trulock, whose charges are the subject of an internal investigation by the department, spoke at a rare open hearing on the spy case held Monday by the Senate Armed Services Committee. Elizabeth Moler, former deputy secretary and acting energy secretary for a short time in 1998, strongly disputed Trulock's claims that she kept him from briefing the House Intelligence Committee. The committee wanted information on the case of a scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico suspected of passing nuclear weapons secrets to the Chinese in the 1980s. Testifying after Trulock at Monday's hearing, she said she never saw a memo from Trulock in which he requested permission to brief the panel, and that charges she prevented the briefing because of possible negative repercussions for the administration's China policy ``are absolutely false.'' Republicans have criticized the lax security at the national weapons labs and say they want to find out whether the administration downplayed the spy case and Chinese acquisition of other sensitive technology. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the armed services panel, criticized Moler prior to the hearing for working to block and then trying to water down security reforms he sought at the labs in 1998. She responded that she was an ``enthusiastic supporter'' of efforts to better protect secret work carried out by the labs. Trulock said that in 1997, when he tried to take action in response to the then-developing Los Alamos case, his proposals ``were ignored, they were minimized and occasionally even ridiculed.'' He said he was told by department officials that further inquiries into the matter could hurt the credibility of the national labs and affect their budgets. Trulock said he gave Moler's assistant a memo in July 1998 with a request from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla., for a briefing on the case. When there was no response in the next week, he said he asked Moler personally and she responded that Goss' committee was ``only interested in harming the president on his China policy.'' Trulock said he was willing to take a polygraph test to confirm his statements. Moler countered, ``I have never denied a request by Mr. Trulock, to my knowledge, to brief'' the committee. She said that in the same month she did turn down a senator's request for a briefing because the matter was by then in the hands of the FBI, which has been conducting a criminal investigation. Since the case became public earlier this year, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, who took over the department late last year, has imposed new security measures for the weapons labs and said he has ordered an internal investigation into Trulock's charges. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
