Potholes And Polygraphs
MADELEINE JACOBS · Chemical & Engineering News · 1999
I was driving home from work the other day on Reno Road, a street that winds through a beautiful residential section of Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, Reno Road is afflicted with recalcitrant potholes—big, ugly, gaping breaches in the road that surprise you as you're admiring the manicured lawns and lush gardens. These potholes get patched with asphalt—and occasionally with metal plates—but they are never really fixed. Eventually, they open back up. The pothole problem was on my mind as I read this week's cover story by Senior Editor Jeff Johnson, which examines the Department of Energy's approach to security at its three weapons laboratories—Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories—in the wake of still unproven allegations that secrets concerning nuclear weapons were lost to the Chinese (see page 20). I don't intend to trivialize the importance of security at DOE, but in fact, this is one government agency—if you include its predecessor ...