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EMD-79-109 1 (1979-09-21)

handle is hein.gao/gaobaazsv0001 and id is 1 raw text is: COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES WASHINGTON. D.C. 20548 IRESTRCTED - Not toe b4 MOSE .ud he M @WRI ER 21, 1979 Accountig Officte exiopt ts the boo% ef .cif XpPrOval by the Ofroe of Covgre.-sssai QI~Mttens, The Honorable John Glenn T). Chairman, Subcommittee on Energy, Nuclear Proliferation, and Federal Services Committee on Governmental Affairs United States Senate RELEASED Dear Mr. Chairman: ED0I F5 Subject: The Depr.t n_ -g's Erroneous Declassification of Nuclear Weapons Design Documentj (EMD-79-109) From 1971 to 1976 the Atomic Energy Commission conducted a large-scale program to review the old classified documents in its inactive files, declassify as many as possible, and make them available to the public and the scientific commu- nity. Two recent incidents raised doubts about the conduct of the program. In May 1978 and again in'kay 1979 an indi- vidual entered a publicly accessible library in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and obtained weapons design documents which had been erroneously declassified. This report responds to your July 12, 1979, request for an investigation of the events surrounding these erroneous declassifications, and for our assessment of the damage which may have resulted to U.S. efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons. The specific declassification mistakes which you men- tioned and which have attained notoriety are the result of simple administrative and clerical errors. But these errors are indicative of how the large-scale program which declas- sified nearly 1.5 million documents from 1971 to 1976 was conducted. Some of the erroneously declassified documents con- tained information which was of a very sensitive nature. Also, the opportunity existed for the public to get access to this information. Records are not available to determine if these documents were ever sought by members of the public, except during the two Los Alamos incidents; nevertheless, such attempts cannot be ruled out. The most sensitive docu- ments erroneously declassified are acknowledged as having the potential to be very helpful to a country developing nuclear weapons. (301543) 1111111 011111 1 110490 B-165546 46 6 16(4 10,

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