SECURITY CLEARANCE SYSTEM LAX, OUTDATED, SENATE PROBE FINDS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403110002-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: April 17, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST "Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12: CIA-RDP90-06965R000403110002-4
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ON PAGE
earance system Lax,
Outdated, Senate Probe Finds
By ROBERT L. JACKSON, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON-A government at the time of the review*
security system that ants top-se- Nunn said the eview subcommittee in-
def
cret clearances to thousands of vestigation found that P. Takis
defense industry employees yees each Veliotis, a former official of General
year is lax and outdated, Senate Dynamics Corp. and now a fugitive
j g aators charge ues ay, living in Greece, had been given a
capinallin it the weakest link in pro- t p-security clearance to manufac-
tecting U.S. mi star secrets. tune nuclear-powered submarines
As a result, "some of coup- "despite inconsistent and unverifi-
try's most guarded high-technolo- able information uncovered in his
gy secrets" have been sold to background investigation."
hostile governments by defense Nunn said Veliotis headed the
contractor employees who have
been given high government secu- company s Electric Boat division;
which built the submarines, "for_%
rity clearances, said Sen. Sam several months before he was,
Nunn (D-Ga.), acting chairman of granted his clearance'' in 1977.-
the Senate Permanent Investiga- I Veliotis fled the country after he
tions subcommittee. A. *.Ain i gR2 for his alleged
subject, said a six-month subcom-
Nunn, in opening hearings on the evolvement in a $2.7-million kick-
mittee staff study found that the'
government'; personnel security .
program is "inconsistent and frag-
I- mented among many agencies."
Employees of private defense con-
tractors, the source of many secu-
rity leaks, are routinely given less
scrutiny than are full-time federal
employees who also work on .'
fop-secret military projects, he
It is people, not machines, who
must safeguard our technology,"
Sen. William V. Roth Jr. (R-Del.)
said. "Padlocks, vaults and codes
cannot. alone keep our secrets
safe.
Nunn released an internal Pen-
tagon report' completed last De- -
cember, which found serious prob-,
lems in the Defense Department's
industrial. security . program, in--
cluding. "severe manpower shortages." It said that those responsible
for granting clearances have been
overwhelmed by requests . from '
contractors, which. have run. as , .
high as 26,000 names a month.
The report said that as many as
900,000 persons now hold clearanc-
es designated at the "secret" level,
many resulting ' from routine "na
tional agency checks". conducted
more than 20 years ago. Under such -
checks, government agencies sim.
ply examined applicants' files for
any adverse Information on record ,
LOS AivGELES 'iIM S
17 April 1985
is So/d by:firms Employees: a
aback scheme.
.y. In other examples of breached
security Nunn cited the alifornia~
? cases of 'William Holden Bell, a
former Hug es t engineer
convicted of a ions. e in 1982, and
her ce w o was
convicted in 19 of assin secrets
I from TRW Inc to -Soviet agents.
Boyce who later escaped from .
prison?and rerame 'a fugitive for-
two , wu, testily before e
subcommittee ?hurs ay.
The deputy director of the Gen-
eral Accounting Office, Bill W.
Thurman, citing the huge backlog.
of clearance applications, testified
that background checks by investi-
gators at the Pentagon, the Office
of Personnel Management and the
FBI are sometimes inadequate.
Another witness identified only
?rmy sergeant testified rom_-
qq an behind an opaque screen about
exmeriences as a double agent
working with Soviet spies. During a
10-year career in which he helped
the FBI the witness said he had
teen in contact with more than 100
KGB agents from Asia and Europe
to New York and Tennessee.
"My age is clear and ample proof
of a pervasive, relentless and
skilled assault on TJ.S. military
members and government emp oy-
ees by Soviet or Soviet-sponsored
intelligence agencies," he said
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000403110002-4