Our most secret work on our most powerful weaponry is coming to a screeching two-day halt. This despite Energy Secretary Bill Richardson's previous public assurances that the barn door had been locked, now that China has our warhead secrets. When Congress's Cox Committee on Chinagate submitted its classified findings six months ago, President Clinton assigned Piffiab's chairman, former Senator Warren Rudman, a Republican, to do the usual White House whitewash. However, to my surprise, Rudman delivered the most damning excoriation any White House has ever directed at its own Administration. Saturated with cynicism, an arrogant disregard for authority, and a staggering pattern of denial . . .
Strong letter follows.
But then the runaway White House panel ripped into the Department of Justice and F.B.I. for failing to investigate security lapses. And it lacerates the Department of Energy. He says he'll recommend the President veto our proposed reorganization. Instead he has just appointed another general to be another czar, a time-worn public relations palliative. The weakness of the unprecedented Piffiab blast is that it is long on harsh judgment but short on fresh information.