Notra Trulock Booksigning Thursday, Feb. 6 in Washington, D.C. for Code Name Kindred Spirit

Olsson's Books ^

[kristinn]

Thursday, February 6 at 7:00PM • Notra Trulock • At Olsson's Metro Center, 1200 F St, NW, 202-347-3686

Former Director of the Intelligence at the U.S. Department of Energy, Notra Trulock discusses his new book, "Code Name Kindred Spirit: Inside the Chinese Nuclear Espionage Scandal." Mr. Trulock describes how he came to suspect Chinese spies were compromising U.S. security and how the trail led to Wen Ho Lee. After Mr. Trulock came forward with this information, it forced the Clinton administration to address the security breaches in our natoin's nuclear weapons complex.

[Registered]

bttt

[Doctor Stochastic]

Energy Secretary BILL RICHARDSON personally OK'd the starting of fires, during the annual windy season, around a Los Alamos Nuclear Lab he represented in Congress for 11 years =

This is false. LANL recommended against the fires as did the Forest Service. The National Park Service set the fires anyway. (I'm no fan of Governor Richardson, but charges ought to be accurate.)

[Doctor Stochastic]

You show a remarkable lack of knowledge of Los Alamos.

[FreeTheHostages]

You show a remarkable lack of knowledge about Los Alamos.

[FreeTheHostages]

Well, he's there to talk about his book.

[FreeTheHostages]

Registered, this is just wonderful. It's a done deal, sir.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Why don't you explain, then? Tell where you get your information?

[Registered]

I've been waiting for you to educate us all...how long do we wait?

[FreeTheHostages]

LOL, I know something but not a lot, and I'm always happy to learn more. I know a physicist who used to work there, another physicist who knows someone who works there, and a freeper who knows someone who is a manager there. "Why don't you explain, then? Tell where you get your information?" See, it's that kinda silly, quarrelsome attitude that I mocked by repeating your sentence back to you. I hoped you would see its effect on yourself and reflect upon whether it's an appropriate mode of civilized discourse. My post, in fact, indicated that I wanted to learn more about that phenomena. It wasn't a "I know it all" post and it wasn't in that tone of voice. My last response to you was an insincere mocking of such know-it-all arrogance from someone who doesn't claim to know-it-all, and I'm sorry but not surprised that you couldn't figure that out when I repeated your line back to you.

[FreeTheHostages]

LOL, I think we have to go through the "dance of the credentials" and establish the academic credentials first. Sigh, this could be a while. Did you pack a lunch?

[Doctor Stochastic]

About the fire?

That's public record. The National Park Service wished to re-create a "ancient meadow" that existed some 30,000 years ago. LANL weather people recommended against this "controlled burn" as the temperatures were about 10 degrees above normal, the winter had been very dry, and the winds were high. (The joke was that the NPS needed two boxes of matches; the wind kept blowing them out.) NPS set the fire anyway. The wind came up, the fire got out of control and burned (unusually) downhill. The smoke looked like a low-lying black thundercloud, with a line of flame at the bottom. The firefighters had a good firebreak bulldozed, but burning embers were sailing hundreds of yards over the firebreak. The fire hit the outskirts of Los Alamos during the day (21,000 evacuated in 6 hours, 3 one lane roads, one dirt). That night, White Rock was evacuated, (12,000 people, 6 hrs, 1 one lane road.) Los Alamos lost about 200 houses.

I don't know if the meadow was restored.

The whole event shows up on things like "Discovery Channel" or "The Learning Channel."

[sauropod]

Thx for telling me about this. I cannot make it, but will try to attend the next one.

HRP

[Joy Angela]

Iraq has an ally out there somewhere.

Is it China?

Little Iraq stands up to the U.S.A.

[FreeTheHostages]

Bumping the thread. Mr. Trulock is a FRiend.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

I don't think I'll be coming; I've been up for over 24 hours already...

[ntrulock]

Thanks for bringing this up. I actually was one of the prime instigators behind the Russian Fission project. I first persuaded Jay Stewart in the early 1990s to start the project, then he picked me to brief the Energy Secretary, and take the DOE lead on a national intelligence estimate, the first one written on russian nuclear safety. I also took Steward to NATO to brief the SecGen. He simply tagged along. The problem was Stern's presentation was that she was purveying old news. We had already been working on Russian instabilities for probably two years at that point; I had put together the Russian Fission workshop that featured speakers like Jim Scheslinger, etc. Now along comes Stern two years later like she invented the problem. The briefing in question was sophmoric at best. I went back to Los Alamos for an extended period for personal reasons and when I got back to Washington, the Clintonites had buried the program. That part is correct; but to allege that someone who led the charge on nuclear safety in Russia and instabilty helped shoot down the problem is a bit much. So sorry, wrong guy. But that's ok, I heard worse.

[Poohbah]

Did you ever talk to the Cockburns about it?

From what I've seen out there, even "sophomoric" material containing "old news" was far better than what the Clinton team had chosen to listen to (i.e., nothing).

One thing that bugs me is how many agencies were willing to just not look very hard at this issue right after the fall of the USSR. Hell, I was a freshly-mustered-out Marine Sergeant, from a non-intel assignment (and one that didn't involve nukes, either), and my first thought in 1991 when the USSR vanished was "gosh, what's going to happen to the nukes? Anyone going to sell some of them nalyevo?"

[ntrulock]

Didn't know anything about it until I read it all in their book, after it was published. We started looking at instability in russia in late 1990. And kept pushing the nuc safey issue throughout 1990s. There were some very bitter battles inside govt between those worried about russian instability and those who "saw no evil." Clinton admin. politization of this issue was just another of the clinton scandals.

[Poohbah]

We started looking at instability in russia in late 1990. And kept pushing the nuc safey issue throughout 1990s. There were some very bitter battles inside govt between those worried about russian instability and those who "saw no evil." Clinton admin. politization of this issue was just another of the clinton scandals.

I see.

I got the impression at the time--again, as just an average citizen who tried to stay informed about national security matters, no security clearance or anything--that a lot of folks at State and Defense from 1990 to 1995 or so just didn't want to grapple with the issue because it was just likely to be too messy.

We had a joke when I was a Marine that everything at the Subic Bay Naval Base Complex was stolen, it just hadn't been carried off yet. I wonder if that's the story with the XUSSR nuclear stockpile...

[ntrulock]

You are right. There were a lot of people at State, Defense, etc., who just couldn't deal with the implications of a break up of the FSU. "see no evil" right? Over the decade, the Russians got better at security for their warheads, but there is still lots of concern about securing their fissile material. Powell was right in saying the only thing missing from Iraq's program is fissile material and the great fear has been the transfer or procurement by the Iraqis of same. Doesn't appear to have happened, but my confidence in that judgment is about 50/50.