U.S. EFFORT TO PROTECT RESEARCH MAY KILL IT OFF, SCIENTISTS FEAR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000500250004-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 12, 2000
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: September 28, 1982
• Content Type: NSPR

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ARTICLE APPEA.FM CHICAGO TRIBUNE
ON PAGE 9 _,-- 28 September 1982
STATINTL
may. kin it off', 'scientists fear*
U. S. eff'ort to proteetow~es~ea~E
By Len Ackland
and Terry Atlas
PROF. HAJIME Sakai was shocked
last month when Defense Department
officials ordered him at the last min-
ute not to present two technical
papers at a scientific conference in
San Diego.
"All the information in my papers
was available in open literature or
developed as the result of our experi-
ment," says Sakai, 54, a physics
teacher at the University of Massa-
chusetts. Although his research in
atmospheric physics was funded by
the government, it was not classified
secret. Indeed, it couldn't have been-
under the university's rules that all
research results be freely and openly
circulated.
The government action against
Sakai was not Isolated. Defense De-
partment censorship resulted in more
than 90 of some 500 research papers
being withdrawn from presentation at
the 26th international symposium of
the Society of Photo-Optical Instru-
mentation Engineers in late-August.
The San Diego affair highlights the
mounting conflict between the gov-
ernment's exercise of export controls
to protect national security versus the
need to nourish the free flow of
technical information. The conflict
has broken into the open because of
the Reagan administration's broad
crackdown on dissemination of sensi-
tive technological know-how, in-
cluding information produced in uni-
versities and scientific laboratories.
"WHAT HAPPENED In San Diego
is very serious," says Gerald Lieber-
man, vice provost and dean of gradu-
ate studies and research at Stanford
University, "It is a prototype of just
the thing we fear."
Defense Department officials say
they took action because four Rus-
sians attending the conference could
have gleaned valuable information on
sensitive U.S. technology in weapons
systems and sophisticated instru-
mentation using optical systems and
The high-tech
crackdown
The U.S. government has launch-
ed a major effort to stem the flow
of militarily sensitive technology
to the Soviet Union. The last of a
three-part series examines the
conflict between limiting access
to information deemed vital to the
national security versus the need
to nourish the free flow of techni-
cal knowledge.
computers. They dispute the conten-
tion of many authors, such as Sakai,
that their papers concerned basic,
rather than applied, research.
"The sense here is that a signifi-
cant security disaster was averted by
the action taken," 'says Stephen
Bryen, deputy assistant secretary of
defense for trade and security policy.
Scientists and academicians inter-
viewed by The Tribune don't dispute
the government's need to control crit-
ical military technology. And they
agree that the Soviets, whose closed
society inhibits the flow of informa-
tion, benefit from contact with the
open Western countries. But they add
that Russian scientists have good
ideas and that the administration un-
derestimates the value of even limit-
ed U.S. access to Soviet know-how
and that nation's scientists.
THE SCIENTIFIC community
fears that the administration is
casting its control net so wide that it
will choke off internal as well as
external communication and thus
harm this country's ability to inno-
vate.
"The danger is that the administra-
tion will kill the baby to keep it from
being stolen," says a scientist and
longtime Defense Department consul-
tant on export controls.
Apart from the actions taken in San
Diego, the government's crackdown
is being felt elsewhere:
? A long-term, $225 million Defense
Department program funding corpo-
rate and university development of
advanced electronics to enable the
U.S. to maintain its lead in military
electronics has become a "lightning
rod attracting the concerns of the
academic community," according to
a National Academy of Science study.
Major universities have declined to
participate in this Very-High-Speed-
Integrated-Circuits [VHSIC] program
because of restrictions against having
foreign nationals work on it and
limits on the publication of research
results, the study found. .
? Plans for the Soviet Union to ship
about $1 million worth of high-tech-
nology equipment next year to the
Fermi National Accelerator Labora-
tory outside Chicago for use in a
cooperative basic science experiment
in particle physics may be jeopar-
dized by the administration's refusal
early this year to renew the agree-
ment for this and other projects that
have been in place for several years.
This has occurred despite the ad-
ministration's assurance that basic
science will not be affected by tech-
nology export controls.
? Last spring the State Department
tried to restrict what Soviet robot
expert Nikolay Umnov could see on
his planned visit to Stanford Universi-
ty. After the university protested
these restrictions as unnecessary and
damaging to scientific endeavors.
State seemingly relented but then re-
fused to issue Umnov a visa. '
THE ADMINISTRATION is expan-
ding up on previous government ef-
forts to keep sensitive technology
from going to communist countries.
For example, in early 1980,. just
weeks after the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan, scientists from the
USSR and its allies were barred by
the Carter administration from atten-
ding two international conferences in
California on computer technology
STATI NWGrA=. T TE'?
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 STATINTL
1. 7i rg!9 jReIease 2001 AW%7GO Q fP91-00901 RO
ON PAGE 26 September 1982
- T -1A t -a .w. in., I - In I - In, ;% o -1-hide-trin
,Tvl~ays
to kee-p-% high in-tech secrets
V
By James Coates
WASHINGTON-Defense Secretary Caspar Wein-
berger is considering a scheme to assign the National
Guard or other military units to police the nation's
shipping docks in an ambitious drive to halt the flow of
U.S. high-technology secrets to the Soviet Union, The
Tribune has learned.
The controversial move, still being debated at top
Pentagon levels, would require amending current laws:
that are designed to prevent the sort of police-state
abuses experienced in the communist bloc.
However, it was learned, Weinberger already has
approved efforts to seek some changes in the laws to
permit Pentagon officials to provide money and tech-
nical assistance to the U.S. Customs Service agents now
inspecting packages bound for the Soviet Union and
Eastern Europe.
The issue of assigning military personnel arose be-
cause the Reagan administration successfully persuaded
Congress late last year to allow Navy and Air Force
units to help law enforcement agencies in their war
against illegal drugs in South Florida.
SPECIFIC LEGISLATION is required whenever milit-
ary manpower or money is used for civilian law-
enforcement activities. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1877
bars the military from arresting civilians or seizing
-civilian property.
Legal scholars frequently credit the act with keeping
the military out of law enforcement and sparing Ameri-
cans such nightmares as those created when the Ges-
tapo was formed in Nazi Germany.
One knowledgeable administration official stressed
that so far Weinberger has approved only provisions
that deal with furnishing money and advice to civilian
law officers.
However, the 1877 act covers even that limited Penta-
gon role in law enforcement and, therefore, legislation
would be required before the Defense Department could
become involved, he said.
i
ONCE CONGRESS considers allowing the Pentagon to
furnish money, it could broaden the scope of the pro-
gram to include assigning personnel to help Customs
agents inspect shipments. The source acknowledged that
some top advisers are urging such a step.
He explained that advocates of assigning military
personnel to police shipping docks argue that many
members of the National Guard work in the computer
industry and other high-technology areas and therefore
already have the expertise to spot sensitive shipments.
Many top administration figures, such as Asst. Com-
merce Secretary Lawrence Brady and former deputy
CIA director Adm. Bobby Ray Inman, have warned that
the drain of U.S. technology to the Soviets has seriously
impaired national security.
Inman, who retired this spring, described the loss of
secrets to the Soviets as a "hemorrhaging" and urged
such extreme measures as censorship of papers written
by scientists at colleges and universities.
O The high-technology crackdown has resulted in
690 seizures and the discovery of a Japanese
spy ring. In Business.
stolen from the U.S. Meanwhile, the U.S. has been
spending vast sums to counter these weapons.
A FREQUENT METHOD used by the Soviets to
obtain, U.S. high technology is to have agents in a
foreign country buy the Items from a U.S. company.
Many foreign citizens can obtain the U.S. licenses and
other permits for export that are denied to Soviets and
citizens of other communist bloc countries.
A second tactic is to ship, the materials in question
without obtaining a license.
In both cases, the Customs Service needs inspectors
trained in the technologies being used to separate the
legitimate shipments from those in which diversions a-e
attempted.
Officials noted that a year ago, when Pentagon of?i-
cials began exploring a possible role in the technology
drain, only four Customs agents were assigned to this
task.
Since then, the Treasury Department - the agency
that controls the Customs Service - has assigned mo-e
than 100 agents to inspect shipments for high-technology
violations.
THE STEPPED-UP enforcement scheme - called"
Operation Exodus - has halted the illegal sale of more
than $50 million worth of sophisticated devices, said a
Treasury spokesman.
To date. the Pentagon's only role has been supplying a
loose-leaf notebook filled with pictures and technical
descriptions of which computer chips, lasers, transisto-s
and other items may not be shipped to potential adver-
saries.
These books, called "mushroom books" by Customs
agents, often enable an untrained law officer to spot
diverted shipments. "That's as far as we can go le-
gally," said one top Weinberger aide.
He acknowledged that Weinberger has decided to
press Congress for a bigger role at the request of
Treasury Secretary Donald Regan. The Treasury secre-
tary had complained to the Defense secretary that he
was having trouble persuading an economy-minded Con-
gress to budget additional enforcement funds.
Brady, assistant secretary of commerce for trade
administration, has long wa.rned that many of the
Soviets' major weapons were developed with technology
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~-= RADIO TV REPORTS, IN
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEW CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 656-4068
FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
STATINTL
Morning Edition
STATION WAMU-FM
NPR Network
DATE September 24, 1982 6:30 P.M. CITY Washington, D.C.
Intelligence Reporting in Central America
CARL KASELL: The House Intelligence Committee released
a 47-page report yesterday criticizing certain aspects of
American intelligence reporting on Central America. NPR's Bill
Buzenberg says that the House study found serious lapses in the
objectivity of some intelligence reports.
BILL BUZENBERG: The issue raised by the House report is
this: Has the Reagan Administration's tough policy on Central
America skewed intelligence reporting on that region? American
intelligence agencies would answer no. But the report by the
House Oversight and Evaluation Subcommittee says yes, in some
instances.
Subcommittee Chairman Charles Rose of North Carolina
says their findings were released yesterday over the objections
of intelligence agencies in order to prod them in public.
REP. CHARLES ROSE: We generally give them nothing but
praise. But on occasion we find some things that we think neec
to be corrected.
BUZENBERG: -What needs to be corrected, Rose says, arc
instances where intelligence reporting on Central America appear
to bend to Administration policy.
REP. ROSE: There were some overstatements, some
oversimplifications, some almost misinformation in some cases,
that if continued could fall into a pattern of having the
policymakers driving the intelligence, rather than the
intelligence being independent.
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ARTICi- l?FFEARED
ON PAGE _-
TIE WASHINGTON POST
23 SEPTA 3ER 1982
Experts _Hack Fund for, Sov'iet
Studies
By Michael Getler
Watihington Post Stall Writer
Ainericati government, military and university
specialists warned yesterday that the nation is in-
danger of losing its older scholars in Soviet affairs
.without -replacing them with enough fresh talent
at a time when a new generation of leaders is
.About to'emerge in Moscow.
The specialists gathered on Capitol Hill to tes-
tify before a Senate subcommittee headed by Sen.
'Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), who is cosponsoring a
bill that would use government funds to set up a
$50 million endowment to support advanced So-
viet steadies in this country.
"The hard truth is that our national capacity to
analyze the views and actions of our primary ad
wersary ... is seriously eroding," Lugar said.
'Nearly half of the recognized academic experts,
currently working on Soviet affairs will be dead or
retired by the end of the 1980s, and there are few
new students to replace them." _ __ --~
Lugar, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations
European affairs subcommittee, claimed that the
Soviets have more than 7,400 specialists on Amer-
ica working with 12 Moscow research institutions.
While he gave no comparable - U.S. statistics,
Lugar said that fewer than 200 Americans will
complete doctoral-level training in Soviet studies
this year.
Referring to the proposed legislation; Dr. How-
ard R. Swearer, president of Brown University,
told the panel that "if you don't do something like
this soon," the structure of expertise on Soviet
matters built up over the last 20 to 30 years will
begin to crumble."
'The best, young people are not going into it"?
anymore, Swearer said, as funds from private or
ganizations such as the Ford foundation, which
once spent $40 million a year on such studies but'
now spends about $2 million, seem "gone forever."
Graduate student competence in the Soviet lan-
guage is also on the decline, he :aid.
Retired admiral Bobby Ray Inman, former dep-
uty director of the Central Intelligence Agency,'
testified that while the United States was good at
technical intelligence, there have been many times
when the country was "subject.to surprise because
we did not understand events," and there have -
been "many,; occasions when we underestimated
what the Soviets would~..eventually do.".
The fault, he said, frequently could be found in
the tendency of well-intentioned analysts to do-
"mirror-imaging" based on ? their experience but
not on a real understanding of what.motivates
individuals in-other societies.
i Maj. Gen. William Odom, assistant.Army chief
of staff for intelligence and a member of the
_;'White House National S'ecurity Council -staff
under. President Carter, agreed- that "the big in-
telligence failures of the 19802 and 1990s .... are
likely to be in analysis"
Odom bemoaned the boom-to-bust nature of
Soviet studies in this country'-and said the crucial
need is quality rather than quantity. -
The endowment is meant to be self-sustaining
after the initial appropriation, with interest from
the $50 million supporting .the studies.
. Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500250004-5
 STATINTL
Release 2001 /9,& QKCIA-RDP91-00
6 S??P?'E: BEd 1982
NSA installation at Yorkshire, England. ?A sprawling network of listening pasts, satellites, computers and antennas
~veiling the Secret NSA
udging by the sheer -size of his operation,
J America's most important intelligence
officer is an Air Force lieutenant general
named Lincoln Faurer, the director of the
National Security Agency. It is Faurer's
NSA-not the CIA--wh'chowns and oper-
ates the bulk of U.S. in:ell igence-collection
systems: everything f rcm "aquacade" satel-
lites in orbit 22,000 miles above the Indian
Ocean to massive "antenna farms" cached
in the West Virginia ,ills. The global com-
munications the NSA intercepts and de-
codes give the government its single most
important source of intelligence. NEWS-
WEEK has learned, for example, that during
the Falklands war, the NSA broke the Ar-
gentinecode-allowing crucial information
to be passed to the British about the disposi-
tion ofArgentine forces.
For all its influence, NSA remains the
least known of the intelligence agencies. For
most Americans, the National Security
Agency does not exist--or is fuzzily con-
fused with the National Security Council.
That is exactly the way NSA wants it, since
success in eavesdropping depends on the
target's naive belief that no one is listening.
But that is about to change with the publica-
tion this month of a new book, "The Puzzle
Palace," by Massachusetts lawyer James
Knowledgeable sources say Bamford's
tome is chockablock with errors that will no
doubt allow NSA to denounce it as "grossly
distorted" or "wildly exaggerated." But
Bamford has nevertheless painted a fasci-
nating picture of the massive agency that
commands the largest share of the secret
U.S. intelligence budget, will soon have
more floor space at its Fort Meade, Md.,
headquarters complex than any U.S. agen-
A new book tells how
America's largest
and most clandestine
intelligence agency
spies on the world.
cy save the Pentagon, and churns out 40
tons of classified documents a day.
Although he doesn't mention it in his
book, Bamford once worked as a clerk for
the naval security group, which operates
many of NSA's listening posts, and also
y
g
ange.
en
s re
at
ons with
Bamford.* Bamford, 35, unveils in eye- of eavesdropping on Americans. He insists NSA eventually soured, Bamford turned to
"glazing detail the organization and installa- that nothing in his book came from his own other sources. He scoured more govern-
tions of "America's most secret agency"-a association with NSA and that none of it is ment archives and talked to several former
worldwide network of satellites, listening classified. But thegovernment belatedly has NSA officials, including former director Lt.
posts, computers and antennas that can, reclassified some of the* nf n t e
Bamford imp]/~F}~ froi 11R?" ,aS B sZWdi &7it:h 1'a 9~~ ~~TU *fhc first time
international telex, telegram and telephone "not to publish or communicate the infor- the physical layout and organization of the
conversation_ oration," which it says was mistakenly re- massive NSA complex at Fort Meade. The
served as an informant for the Senate Intel-
ligence Committee during its investigation
cannot reclassify documents, bit a new ex
ecutive order, which took effect Aug. 1,
claims the government can do just that. Th
debate is not an 'idle one. The maximumf
penalty for publishing classified informa-1
tion about communications intelligence is a t
$10,000 fine and 10 years in prison.
Careless: Classified or not, Bamford
found much of his information gathering,
dust on library shelves. As he tells it, his first
break came when he was going through
papers at the George C. Marshall Research
Foundation in Lexington, Va., and came
across a copy of an unclassified NSA news-
letter for "NSA employees and their fam-
ilies." Bamford successfully argued that if
NSA relatives could read the newsletters, so
could he-"I'm as good as somebody's
cousin," he says-and the agency allowed
him to pore through more than 6,000 pages
of newsletters dating back to 1952. Al-
though sensitive information had sup-
posedly been deleted, the censors had been
careless. Names that were blacked out in
headlines appeared unmasked in the body
of the story and bits of seemingly harmless
information led him to major discoveries.
An obituary of one NSA employee, for
instance, noted that he had once been sta-
tioned in Yakima, Wash.-alerting Barn-
ford to the existence of an NSA listening
complex tucked away in the vastness of an
Arm
firin
r
Wh
hi
l
i
 STATINTL
Y
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ARTICLE APPP ARED
ON PACE
SCE R M of the week
'Remote Censoriuo': DOD Blocks Symposium Papers
Copyright 11982 by Science News, Science Service, Inc.
The federal government moved swiftly
and dramatically last week to block the
presentation of about 100 unclassified sci-
entific papers at an international sym-
posium on optical engineering in San Di-
ego. The Department of Defense requested
that the papers be withdrawn for security
reasons, DOD officials said, primarily be-
cause scientists from the Soviet Union
were present at the meeting. Most of the
U.S. scientists and engineers affected did
not learn their presentations had been
canceled until they arrived at the confer-
ence. At the same time, the Department of
Commerce sent an early morning tele-
gram Aug. 22 -just hours before the start
of the meeting-warning conference or-
ganizers that any presentation of "strate-
gic" information might constitute a viola-
tion of the Commerce Department's regu-
lations covering the export of technology.
Scientists from 30 countries attended the
conference, the 26th Annual International
Technical Symposium of the Society of
Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers
(SPIE).
The actions prompted widespread con-
cern among those at the meeting about the
future of international exchange of scien-
tific information at similar conferences.
The government has in the past cen-
sored scientific papers through its normal
classification process and other screening
methods, and it has even evicted Eastern
Bloc scientists from several "sensitive"
meetings, a Defense Department official
acknowledges. These latest actions, how-
ever, appear to be unprecedented in their
timing, in the large number of papers re-
moved and in the scope of the papers' con-
tent. Prior to the last-minute notifications,
none of the papers - although all were
under DOD contracts'-had been deemed
sensitive enough in the area of weapons
development to have been classified.
Defense Department spokesman James
Freeman told SCIENCE News that "it was
determined that most of the [withdrawn]
papers were covered by the international
traffic in arms regulations. And for those to
be presented in an international forum
which would include Soviet and Eastern
European participants. [the papers] would
require a munitions license approval be-
fore being presented. The information in
SCIENCE NEWS
4 September 1982
most of the papers would have been help-
ful in the design and development of
equipment on the U.S. munitions list."
In addition, Freeman said, the action
came late because many of the papers
were not submitted to the Defense De-
partment until two or three weeks before
they were to be presented. He added that
contractors were "not as careful as they
should have been" in recognizing the sen-
sitive nature of the contents.
However, a Defense Department official
closely connected with the action con-
firmed that it represents a "step-up" in en-
forcement, resulting from a "growing sen-
sitivity, on the part of the Central Intelli-
gence Agency and others, toward the
Soviet acquisition of Western technology."
The official, who asked not to be identified
by name, also said the incident "is really a
result of the Reagan Administration['s]" at-
titude toward the release of scientific in-
formation to the Soviets. But a spokesman
for George A. Keyworth II, President Rea-
gan's science adviser, said Keyworth
"hadn't heard anything about" the events
in San Diego.
Joseph Yaver, executive director of SPIE,
said he was surprised at the number of pa-
pers involved and the swiftness of the gov-
ernment's measures. "A significant num-
ber of U.S. government-sponsored papers
were withdrawn on very short notice,"
Yaver said in a telephone interview from
SPIE's headquarters in Bellingham. Wash.,
on the basis that the required clearance
procedures had not been fully completed
by the authors and that it was not in the
national interest to allow the papers to be
presented under these circumstances."
Yaver said the situation was "totally be-
yond the control of the society. SPIE re-
grets that many of those in attendance
were unable 'to obtain the information
which might otherwise have been avail-
able." He added that SPIE will work with
the government to "assure that a similar
situation need not occur again."
Along with DOD's action, the Commerce
Department's telegram had a chilling ef-
fect on conference participants. Although
the telegram was seen by many of the at-
tending scientists as a form of intimida-
tion, a Commerce Department spokesman
said it was simply a reminder to adhere to
the department's regulations governing
technology export. "Saturday night [Aug.
21] at midnight, the people [in Commerce)
who sent the telegram out told me -
which is what we normally do with this
sort of thing - simply that the teleg am
was alerting them [conference organiz rs]
to the fact that they should refer to the
regulations and make sure they comply
with them," said Henry Mitman of Ithe
Commerce Department's Office of Export
Administration and International Trade.
While the Commerce and Defense (de-
partments' actions were not related offi-
cially, they both seem aimed at research
into optics, particularly involving infrared
light, and microelectronics research. Even
though many projects in these areas do
not apply directly to weapons develop-
ment right now, the Defense Department is
concerned about the potential applf ca-
tions to systems that are maybe three, five
years down the road, maybe longer." said
the DOD official. "People are starting to
think, 'What could be of help in the
weapons system development by a pc ten-
tial enemy-namely the Soviet Unionh'"
SCIENCE NEWS has learned that one of
the papers withdrawn from the sym-
posium dealt with small. deformable mir-
rors, which would be used in creating
large (3- to 5-meter) mirrors to beam a
laser to a satellite and then down to sub-
merged submarines. "You don't have a
bunch of dummies that the Soviets Send
over to these technical meetings," ,said
one of several Defense Department offi-
cials who reviewed the paper. "Why give...
I won't say aid and comfort to the enemy...
but why help them out?"
The apparent escalation of the govern-
ment's science-related security measures
follows repeated warnings by former Dep-
uty Director of the CIA Admiral Bobby R.
Inman and others of the potential da gers
in giving the Soviets access to U.S. to hni
cal and scientific research (SN: 4/3/ 2, p.
229; 1/16/82. p. 35). And this is not the first
time the government has taken security
measures involving SPIE. Several months
ago, U.S. Customs held up a Japan-bound
shipment of books containing the pro-
ceedings of a previous SPIE symposium.
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1- -)