LOS ALAMOS, N.M., June 14 -- Several managers were placed on paid leave at the Los Alamos National Laboratory to ensure an independent investigation into how two hard drives with classified nuclear weapons information vanished, a spokesman said Wednesday.
Retired rear Admiral Robert Wertheim, a private consultant and former senior vice president for science and engineering at Lockheed, Corp., will head up the review for the University of California, which operates the lab for the Department of Energy, spokesman Kevin Roark said.
The paid leaves are not punitive or disciplinary in nature, he said, but only intended to ensure the independence of the UC review. They are effective until the UC review and other investigations are completed.
Roark would not say how many managers were placed on paid leave, although some news sources have reported six were involved.
"The individuals placed on leave represent the management chain of command -- from group leader up to the office of the laboratory director -- who have some responsibility and/or accountability relevant to this incident," he said.
Roark said under UC personnel policies the names of the managers would not be made public. If any corrective action is necessary, he said it would come after completion of the investigations.
The FBI has joined the investigation to determine how the hard drives vanished from a vault at the lab. The loss was discovered May 7, but not reported to senior labor officials for 24 days.
Lab Director John C. Browne has said he believes "human error" was involved and not espionage.
"There certainly is no evidence that suggests espionage is involved, (but) you can't rule it out," Browne told the Albuquerque Journal. "It appears it either might involve human error or a lapse in judgment.... We're hoping that these disks still could show up."
Gen. Eugene Habiger, the DOE's chief of security, has suggested in congressional testimony that officials at Los Alamos delayed reporting the loss in hope that they could find the missing hard drives.
After interviewing more than 200 employees at Los Alamos, however, lab officials failed to turn up the hard drives and had to come forward with a report to high-level managers.
Browne said he was not informed until June 1.
The loss was discovered when members of the Nuclear Emergency Security Team went to the vault to remove the hard drives as a forest fire raged near the laboratory in northern New Mexico. They intended to secure the tapes in case they were needed during the fire, Browne said.
The NEST team can use the hard drives to dismantle nuclear weapons in emergency situations.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, a former New Mexico congressman, is a growing target of DOE critics who say he is partially responsible for the security problem because he has delayed reforms at the agency.
They contend Richardson frustrated start-up of the National Nuclear Security Administration by insisting on "double-hatting" his chiefs of security, counterintelligence and oversight with similar jobs in the new agency, the Journal said.
