The White House Briefing Room
March 9, 1999
PRESS BRIEFING BY JOE LOCKHART
3:00 P.M. (L)
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Tegucigalpa, Honduras)
_________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release March 9, 1999
PRESS BRIEFING
BY
JOE LOCKHART
Hotel Maya
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
3:00 P.M. (L)
MR. LOCKHART: I've got to go quick because I guess the President is
ahead of schedule. But let me do one quick announcement, and then I'd be glad
to take your questions.
President Clinton will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to
Senator George Mitchell at the White House on March 17th, as part of the annual
St. Patrick's Day observance. The Medal of Freedom is the nation's highest
civilian honor and is a fitting tribute to the extraordinary accomplishments of
Senator Mitchell.
Q What is the President's reaction to the dismissal of the
scientist at Los Alamos who is suspected of trading secrets to the Chinese?
MR. LOCKHART: I think the President supports Secretary Richardson's
action of dismissing the employee. The Secretary did it after conferring with
the FBI on the status of the ongoing investigation. As you all know from
Secretary Richardson's comments yesterday, the Department of Energy had already
taken steps in relation to this employee, including suspending security
clearance and moving him from a classified work place to a nonclassified job.
So I think the President supports the move
that Secretary Richardson made.
Q Well, Vice President Gore has now decided -- he said
that he thinks it's George Bush's administration's fault and the
Reagan administration's fault for letting this kind of activity
-- and then your administration has signed an executive order in
January of '98 tightening procedures at Los Alamos.
MR. LOCKHART: Right.
Q Did this happen on somebody else's watch?
MR. LOCKHART: Well, I think the case in question here, the
alleged transferring question, was something that happened in the
early 1980s. I think the administration, in 1997, after having
some concerns about the vulnerabilities that the labs brought to
our attention proceeded to launch a vigorous assessment, using
the CIA and other assets in our national security operation to
look at ways to make sure that this alleged transfer would not be
able to happen now.
They took a number of steps. There was a presidential
decision directive issued in February of 1998 that has taken a
series of important steps to address any vulnerabilities in the
DOE lab system.
Q Joe, there are some people in Congress, though, who
believe -- and are saying off the record or on background -- that
the gentleman who was arrested, this Professor Lee, is apparently
not considered to be, by the intelligence and law enforcement
people, a major player -- that he is, in effect, perhaps even a
scapegoat.
MR. LOCKHART: Well, I don't have any information that would
support that. I think Secretary Richardson acted properly.
There is an ongoing investigation into this issue, looking at how
technology may have been transferred in the 1980s, but I'd have
to refer you to the FBI for details on that investigation.
Q Joe, does the President have any reaction to the
sinking of the two boat loads of Haitian refugees, or Haitian --
and will there be any shift in the priority of using the Coast
Guard to crack down on human smuggling, as opposed to drug
smuggling?
MR. LOCKHART: Well, I'm not aware of any shift. But,
obviously, this was a tragic incident with the loss of life, I
believe, of more than 40 people, but I'm not aware of any shift
in our policy.
Q Joe, back to the Chinese transfer issue. Don Nickles
says that it looks like he's going to need to hold an
investigation because he believes there's a real concern the
administration kept the information about this from Congress.
MR. LOCKHART: No, I don't think so. I think the
administration moved rapidly in 1997 when this came to our
attention, took the steps we needed to, to develop safeguards
against any illegal transfer, and Congress was kept fully
informed. There were a series of briefings from the Department
of Energy, starting in 1996, going through 1998, where I think
there were a half a dozen briefings on this issue to the relevant
committees in Congress.
Q Well, if you knew about this for so many years, how
come he was fired only after it came out in The New York Times?
MR. LOCKHART: I think as Secretary Richardson pointed out,
as I think some people at the FBI have pointed out, this was part
of an ongoing investigation and they, in their judgment, thought
it was better to move forward in this way and to try to gather
information with this gentleman in his job.
Q Joe, Congressional critics are also saying that even
after two GAO reports and the heightened security initiatives
that you spoke about, there's still a serious security problem at
that laboratory because of hundreds of thousands of e-mails, for
various other reasons, there's still a big problem. Do you
recognize that as the risk?
MR. LOCKHART: We have instituted a series of very new and
very tough counterintelligence operations to try to look at the
vulnerability of the DOE labs. We're certainly willing to work
with Congress, with the Cox committee to see if there to see if
there are other steps that need to be taken. We have taken this
very seriously over the last two years. We've taken important
steps to tighten security at the Department of Energy labs. But
if there's more that needs to be done, we'll do more.
Q Joe, if there is enough evidence to fire this guy, why
isn't there enough yet to arrest him, and what's the difference
in standards?
MR. LOCKHART: I would refer you to the FBI on their ongoing
investigation. My understanding from Secretary Richardson is the
reason he was fired was lack of cooperation with the
investigation.
Q What about the $900 million for the emergency relief
down here? Do you think, or does the President think that his
trip will free up that money? And he has refrained from making
the same political comments you have about what's holding it up.
MR. LOCKHART: I think as people become aware of some of the
things that we've seen, that the President has seen, some of the
stories, some of the devastation that we've witnessed over the
last two days, it's certainly our hope that we can work through
some of these issues that have bogged down the debate on moving
the supplemental emergency bill forward.
Q But, Joe, it's not about the merits of the aid, it's
about how to pay for it.
MR. LOCKHART: This, what we've seen in the last two days,
is the textbook case for emergency spending. This is something
that could not have been foreseen. And we don't think we should
pit one program against another program when we have a clear
emergency here. This aid is needed; it's an urgent situation.
The stories are heartbreaking that we've heard over the last few
days, and we believe that it's in the best interest of our
partners down here, our friends down here, that we move forward
quickly.
Q Joe, the House Appropriations Chairman Bill Young today
said the Republicans would require outlines for the possibility
of a deal to get it passed. And you said that it would require
that money would be put into a special U.S. controlled fund so
that the State Department and AID would have direct pull over how
it got spent. Is that acceptable to you?
MR. LOCKHART: I haven't seen that proposal. But I can
assure members of Congress on these issues that we take extra
care and work with the governments in question in these countries
to make sure that the money is used appropriately and spent
wisely. That has been the case, I believe, with the money we
already sent down here. I think you saw today some of the
results. We crossed a bridge today because of what the Marines
were able to do here. And we're going to make sure that the
money is spent wisely.
I think, more importantly, is we need to move forward and
get this process done with. We need to get the money freed up
and we need to get it down here where it can be used.
Q Hey, Joe, if you all want this to move quickly and the
price of moving quickly is offsets, are you all prepared to look
at other offsets? Or is it just offsets in general that --
MR. LOCKHART: Well, I don't have the latest of what's going
on back in Washington on this. We think, particularly on the
Central American money, this meets directly the definition of
emergency funding. And what we don't want to do is start pitting
programs against it when there's an emergency down here. And I
think the President believes very strongly and it's only been
reinforced by what he's seen over the last two days, that we need
to move forward quickly.
And I think, as he said yesterday, he's looking forward to
when he returns to Washington, getting with the leadership and
trying to get this issue worked out.
Q Where is Secretary Richardson? Is he with the
President?
MR. LOCKHART: He will be here this afternoon or this
evening.
MR. LEAVY: I think he got snowed in, because of the snow in
Washington. He may not come down until tomorrow.
.................
END 3:10 P.M. (L)
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