ACDA AIDE FAULTED ON SECURITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807560020-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 20
• Publication Date: November 4, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807560020-7
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE -.
ACDA Aide
Faulted on
Security
By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Administration officials
are seeking permanently to
lift the security clearances
of an employe of the U.S.
Arms Control and Disarma-
ment Agency who allegedly
mishandled about 500 doc-
uments, including some of
the U.S. government's most
sensitive top-secret intel-
ligence about Pakistan's ef-
forts to build a nuclear
bomb.
The employe, Kathleen
Strang, improperly removed
the documents from a stor-
age vault at the State De-
partment, repeatedly left
them overnight in an open
safe accessible to dozens of
people without security
clearances and then ignored
several warnings from su-
pervisors over a period of
months, according to por-
tions of an internal investi-
gative report filed in a re-
lated suit in U.S. District
Court here.
Strang said she had com-
mitted only a technical in-
fraction of regulations and
no harm had resulted, ac-
cording to sources familiar
with the case.
U.S. security officials
have no evidence that any-
one saw or took any docu-
ments from Strang's safe.
But the internal investiga-
tive file alleges that she
gave portions of some sen-
sitive documents to officials
of the South Korean govern-
ment in September 1984,
apparently hoping to prove
that Pakistan was develop-
ing a nuclear bomb and thus
discourage the South Ko-
reans from providing any
technical assistance that
might aid the Pakistanis.
WASHINGTON POST
4 November 1986
Strang said she gave only
unclassified material to the
South Koreans, sources
said.
In July 1985, U.S. officials
removed Strang's safe from her
fourth-floor office at the State De-
partment and then spent months
conducting a damage assessment.
Inside the safe, sources said, the
officials found documents bearing
the code-words UMBRA and MO-
RAY-terms used for highly sen-
sitive communications intercepts
gathered by the National Security
Agency. They also found computer
floppy disks with other documents
stored on them. The investigative
file alleges that Strang used a sec-
retary without a proper security
clearance to transcribe classified
information onto the disks.
When Lt. Gen. William E. Odom,
director of the National Security
Agency, heard about the matter, he
sent a handwritten letter to
ACDA's director, Kenneth L. Adel-
man, calling what the investigators
found one of the worst security vi-
olations he had ever seen, accord-
ing to sources. Odom threatened to
cut off ACDA's access to sensitive
intelligence unless immediate and
severe steps were taken, the
sources said.
The case has caused particular
concern among U.S. intelligence
officials, who said someone with
access to the documents could draw
a full portrait of the methods and
techniques used by U.S. intelli-
gence agencies to monitor nuclear
tests and weapons developments in
other countries, including the So-
viet Union.
"Other than early warning intel-
ligence on a surprise attack, it's the
most vital function we perform,"
said a senior Reagan administration
intelligence official.
Disclosure of an allegedly serious
breach of internal security inside
the ACDA came after several high-
ly publicized efforts by the admin-
istration to block leaks of classified
information, including a threat by
Odom and CIA Director William
Casey to prosecute news organiza-
tions that disclose secret "commu-
nications intelligence." Much of the
material in Strang's safe was based
on communications intercepts, ac-
cording to sources.
At the time Strang's safe was
seized, her security clearances
were suspended and she was placed
on leave, with pay, from her job in'
charge of monitoring the Pakistani
nuclear program.
An internal ACDA panel recom-
mended that her clearances be re-
voked permanently. She has ap-
pealed that decision to Adelman,
and he held a closed-door five-hour
hearing on her appeal yesterday but
made no final decision, sources said.
Strang also filed a lawsuit under the
Freedom of Information and Priva-
cy acts, seeking monetary damages
and demanding deletions from her
personnel file; this lawsuit resulted
in the placement of portions of the
investigative file in court records.
Strang declined to comment on
the case.
ACDA security chief Berne In-
dahl, who conducted an internal in-
vestigation, said in a memorandum
that "all the material in her safe,
marked or unmarked, was consid-
ered by State's [intelligence divi-
sion] to be compromised. Classified
material was taken home, to meet-
ings and overseas. Classified ma-
terial was provided to foreign gov-
ernments without proper author-
ization." Indahi's memo is contained
in the court papers.
In response to questions, the
ACDA released a brief statement
confirming that a safe was "seques-
tered" on July 1, 1985, as part of a
security investigation of an un-
named employe.
Strict regulations govern the use
of classified material by federal of-
ficials, in part because intelligence
officials assume that hostile coun-
tries attempt to place agents in jan-
itorial, secretarial or other routine
jobs at certain federal agencies.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807560020-7
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807560020-7
As the agency that is responsible
for all arms control issues, the
ACDA receives sensitive m orma-
tton rom a over the government:
policy papers from the White
Ouse, Ante p ence reports from
NSA an the CIA, technical ata on
nuclear technology from the De-
partment of Energy.
The most sensitive data is code-
worded and is supposed to be avail-
able only to those with a need to
know. At the State Department,
such code-word material is kept in a
sixth-floor vault where authorized
officials can read it, but not remove
it.
One of Strang's coworkers, who
was not identified by name, was
quoted in the investigative file as
saying: "During mid-1984 to mid-
1985 she had almost t
t
l
o
a
contempt
LT. GEN. WILLIAM E. ODOM for routine security procedures. I
... threatened to end ACDA's access was usually the first one in the of-
fice in the mornings. Many times I
would find her safe not only un-
locked but wide open .... [ asked
her about this situation. Her re-
sponse was to the effect that if I
wanted her safe locked I should do
it myself."
The investigative file also out-
lined the-circumstances surround-
ing the South Korean incident. Carl-
ton B. Stoiber, a former ACDA of-
ficial, said that during a September
1984 arms control meeting in
Seoul, Strang "gave classified infor-
mation to' the Korean government
that was not cleared. It was very
unsettling .... I was shocked and
upset at her conduct. I swore I
would never send or have her on a
delegation again."
Another person at the same
meeting said, "I was amazed she
passed out the classified informa-
tion to the Koreans. I was wonder.
ing how much damage this may
have caused and whether or not I
should rudely take from the Ko-
reans the papers she had just
passed out."
Stoiber reported the incident by
cable to the State Department
when it occurred, one official
said.
According to sources, Strang and
her attorney have said that some of
her fellow workers have a personal
grudge against her and this ac-
counts, in part, for the allegations.
Staff researchers Ferman Patterson
and Barbara Feinman contributed
to this report.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807560020-7