PANEL DISCOUNTS SCIENTIFIC SECURITY LEAKS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000200730013-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 1, 2010
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: October 1, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/01: CIA-RDP90-00806R000200730013-5
'' THE V1.-kSHIN TON POST
1 OCTOBER 1982
Security Leaks
'anal Discounts SCiE?xuuu1w
By Philip J. Hilts
Washington Post Staff Writer
The National Academy of Sciences reported
yesterday that it could discover no evidence that
U.S. security has been damaged by open scientific
discussion. _
But the panel said the nation does have a "sub-
stantial and serious" problem of technology leak-
age from ordinary, legal sales of equipment to the
Soviet Union as well as illegal sales and espionage.
The report, produced by a panel of 19 scientists
'and academics, also said attempts by the govern-
ment to censor research papers and meetings
could damage American military, economic and
technical progress.
Government officials for several years have ex-
pressed increasing concern that the Soviets are
able to gain militarily from their access to open
scientific literature and meetings in America, as
well as by the more usual methods of espionage
and illegal purchase of U.S. equipment.
Government officials have confiscated unclas-
sified papers from scientific meetings in an at-
tempt to keep the Soviets from gaining access to
them. In the most recent case in August, more
than 170 unclassified papers were censored at a
meeting of the Society of Photo-Optical Instru-
mentation Engineers.
The National Academy's panel, which had
briefings at secret and top secret levels, said vir-
tually the whole problem of leakage comes from
direct and indirect Soviet purchase of U.S. equip-
ment as well as espionage.
The panel said that according to estimates by
the intelligence community "70 percent of the mil-
itarily significant technology acquired by the So-
viet Union has been acquired through ... intel-
ligence organizations, using both overt and covert
methods. Most of the rest is acquired through
legal purchases of equipment or data."
The panel's assertion that it found no direct
evidence of technology leakage from the univer-
sities contradicts what some advisers have been
telling Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger,
said Dale Corson, chairman of the National Acad-
emy's panel.
Corson met with Weinberger this week to dis-
cuss the panel's report, and said the secretary is
"torn between his impulses" toward openness in
research "and the reports by some of his staff
there is a lot of outflow from the*
universities to
the Soviet Union."
? "In our report," Corson said, "we say there is
simply no evidence for that."
The report said that it would be better to try to
protect the nation's technological lead by contin-
ued rapid scientific advance, not by security mea-
sures that may choke off communication even
among U.S. scientists.
The panel said apart from some small amount
of government-supported research in universities
that is classified, there is also a small area of work.
"for which limited restrictions short of clessifica-
tion are appropriate." An example of this.is re-
search in which "on-campus research merges di-
rectly into process technology with possible mil-
itary application."
For this kind of situation to warrant controls,
the panel said it must meet all four of these tests:
it must be rapidly developing technology; it must
have direct, identifiable military application; it
must be seen to provide the Soviets a near-term
[within five years] military benefit, and the only
possible source for the information must be the
United States.
-1M
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/01: CIA-RDP90-00806R000200730013-5