Bush on Los Alamos: 'I will bring this sorry chapter to a close'

June 18, 2000
Web posted at: 6:13 a.m. EDT (1013 GMT)

KISSIMMEE, Florida (CNN) -- Texas Gov. George W. Bush on Saturday blasted the Clinton administration's handling of top-secret nuclear information, vowing to close "this sorry chapter" unfolding at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Speaking before a group of veterans, Bush, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, said administration policies had contributed to troubles at the lab.

Most recently, the Department of Energy, which runs the facility, has been embarrassed by the disappearance and sudden reappearance on Friday of two hard drives containing classified nuclear secrets.

The drives, each the size of a deck of playing cards, were being electronically examined Saturday to determine whether they are the same drives that have been missing since at least May 7, when Los Alamos employees prepared to evacuate the facility due to wildfires in the surrounding New Mexico countryside.

Drives found behind copying machine

The drives were found on Friday behind a copying machine in a secure area of the laboratory that had previously been searched, sources told CNN. It was not known whether the drives ever left the building.

Despite their safe recovery, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said Friday afternoon he would continue an investigation into the matter, and he promised disciplinary action would result.

The Energy Department's admission that the drives were missing early this week prompted a new round of congressional hearings into security at the nation's top nuclear laboratory, where the first atomic bomb was constructed in 1945.

Nuclear secrets should not be 'lost and found'

"America's nuclear secrets should not be a matter of lost and found," Bush concluded. He promised to correct the problem if elected to the White House.

"I will bring this sorry chapter to a close in my administration," Bush said.

"Our national labs will be secure again. Our vital information will be sealed again. And our nuclear secrets will be secret again."