The inspection, carried out by the Office of Independent Oversight and Performance Assurance (OA), was comprehensive and performance-oriented, covering six key areas: classified matter protection and control, personnel security, physical security systems, nuclear material control and accountability (MC&A), protective force, and protection program management​​​​.

Notably, the inspection occurred concurrently with separate investigations by the DOE Inspector General, the FBI, UC, and Congress into allegations of missing government property and misuse of laboratory credit cards. However, these investigations did not influence the OA’s inspection scope, focusing instead on the protection of special nuclear material and classified information​​.

A significant revelation during the inspection was related to LANL’s inventory of accountable classified matter, where a hard drive was initially unaccounted for but later resolved. This incident, among others, was thoroughly scrutinized during the inspection, underlining the depth and rigor of the OA’s evaluation process​​.

The document meticulously details the inspection’s findings, conclusions, and assigned ratings to various security aspects of LASO and LANL. It highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the respective programs, with an emphasis on areas requiring immediate and sustained management attention​​.

For instance, while many security program elements at LANL were functioning effectively, there were identified weaknesses, particularly in the MC&A program. These deficiencies included flaws in the physical inventory process and inadequate oversight by the LANL MC&A Group, necessitating immediate corrective actions​​.

The report also underscores the need for a fully staffed Security Management Team to provide adequate direction and oversight, a challenge exacerbated by the reengineering of NNSA and the redistribution of responsibilities from the Albuquerque Operations Office to LASO. This staffing issue poses a significant risk to the efficacy of the federal oversight of safeguards and security programs at LANL​​.

In conclusion, the document acknowledges the steady progress made by LANL in addressing past security deficiencies, while emphasizing the necessity for continued management support and attention to maintain and enhance the security environment. The majority of the protection program elements at LANL were found to be effectively implemented, with some sub-elements demonstrating near-flawless performance. However, the document does not shy away from highlighting areas needing urgent improvement, particularly in the MC&A program, to restore its previous high performance standards​​.

The ratings assigned to the various safeguard and security areas reflect a predominantly effective performance across most domains, with the notable exception of the MC&A program, which was flagged as needing improvement​​.

This declassified document is a testament to the intricate balance of maintaining national security while ensuring transparency and accountability in the management of critical national assets. It provides valuable insights into the complexities of security management at one of the nation’s most sensitive nuclear facilities.

Document Archive

Independent Oversight Inspection of Safeguards and Security of the Los Alamos Site Office and Los Alamos National Laboratory, February 2003 [98 Pages, 22MB]

The post LANL’s Security Inspection: A Declassified 2003 Analysis of Safeguards and Accountability first appeared on The Black Vault.

Agencies report resource data and targets for government-wide mission critical occupations and agency specific mission critical and/or high risk occupations. These are submitted annually to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

Document Archive

Department of Energy (DOE)’s Mission Critical Occupation (MCO) Staffing Resource Chart, FY 2018 [4 Pages, 1MB]

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The post Department of Energy (DOE)’s Mission Critical Occupation (MCO) Staffing Resource Chart, FY 2018 first appeared on The Black Vault.

Section 3545 of the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) requires that each Federal agency conduct an annual independent evaluation of their information security program and provide a report to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Consistent with the FISMA statute, the Secretary of Energy,
through promulgation of U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Order 205.1,Department of Energy Cyber Security Management Program, assigned the Office of Independent Oversight, within the Office of Security and Safety Performance Assurance, the responsibility for conducting the annual evaluation of DOE’s information security program for national security systems. This report provides the results of that evaluation and details DOE’s progress in establishing, implementing, and assessing its information security program for national security systems.

This is the sixth annual evaluation report on the status of DOE’s information security program for national security systems prepared by Independent Oversight pursuant to the FISMA and the Government Information Security Reform Act (GISRA).

Document Archive

 Independent Oversight Report on the Status of the Department of Energy’s Information Security Program for National Security Systems, September 2006 [31 Pages, 8.3MB]

https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/doe/HQ-2017-00109-F.pdf

The post Independent Oversight Report on the Status of the Department of Energy’s Information Security Program for National Security Systems, September 2006 first appeared on The Black Vault.

The background to how this Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request played out is the most interesting part of this.

It started with seeing reference to the document in a bibliography about Air Force Plant 67, or the Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory.

The Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory, also known as AFP No. 67, for Air Force Plant 67 was a United States Air Force test facility located in the Dawson Forest in Dawsonville, Georgia. It was the site of Lockheed’s lab for investigating the feasibility of nuclear aircraft. The site was used for irradiating military equipment, as well as the forest to determine the effect of nuclear war, and its effects on wildlife. The area was closed in 1971 and acquired by the city of Atlanta for a second airport, but its topography was determined to be ill-suited for an airport. Documents explaining what went on at the site remain highly classified, and the entrance to the underground portion of the facility has been buried. The only objects left above ground were the concrete foundations on which the buildings and reactors were placed. (Source: Wikipedia)

I was informed that the document was controlled by NASA, and I should contact them to obtain it. So, in September of 2016, I did just that… never knowing how it would all play out.

I believe this may hold the record for how many times a SINGLE FOIA request was passed back and forth between agencies. In fact, in 9 months, this was the journey:

NASA->DTIC->NASA->DOE->DTIC->NASA->DOE->NASA->DOE

The oddest thing is that I was told by NASA they didn’t have the document – but when it was all over — the DOE told me it was NASA who gave it to them for review. Confused? Yeah, so was I!  I had to get The Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) at the National Archives & Records Administration (NARA) to help me with the request. Although I didn’t hear back from them directly, I assume they played a role in finally getting them to stop playing “hot potato.”

Now, on to the document.

According to the record:

In nuclear missile components, the combination of cryogenic temperatures resulting from the use of liquid hydrogen as the propellant fluid and nuclear radiation is expected to produce effects on the engineering properties of mnterials that are new both to materials engineers and to missile design engineers. Before reliable
systems can be designed, these effects on the properties of materials must be known.

To meet this requirement, Lockheed Nuclear Products outlines in this proposal to NASA a program for a study of the combined effects of nuclear radiation and cryogenic temperatures on the engineering properties of pertinent materials that may be used in the construction of nuclear missiles.

This proposal includes an analysis of the state-of-the-art relative to the effects of cryogenic temperatures, nuclear radiation, and low-temperature annealing on the engineering properties of materials. The rationale for choosing the temperatures, integrated radiation doses, radiation under stressed and unstressed conditions, materials, and specific tests to be used in the test program is presented.

These specific tests will include evaluation of engineering design characteristics and the determination of fundamental. properties of the materials of interest; these will be compared to give extrapolation of limited data. Conceptual designs and the basis for the selection are given for the cryostats, special test equipment
and instrumentation, and the refrigeration equipment. Presented also is a preliminary study of a method for reducing gamma heating and radioactivation in the reactor cryostat and virtually eliminating any perturbation of the reactor during Insertion or removal of cryostate from the reactor beam hole. Also included is a preliminary analysis of the factors that could possibly affect the safety of reactor operation. And a test program based on the concepts and equipment
discussed is presented. It includes materials to be tested, types and number of tests to be made, the number of specimens to be tested for each determination and the statistical basis for establishing this number, and the methods for preparation and selection of Individual test specimens. The capabilities of Lockheed Nuclear Products as the prime contractor and Arthur D. Little, Incorporated, as the major subcontractor include pertinent experience of the two companies,
resumes of the personnel available for the project, the project organization, and facilities available to the project. Furthermore, a schedule for the entire program is presented.

Document Archive

 Proposal Nuclear Radiation Effects on Materials at Cryogenic Temperatures, July 1959 [279 Pages, 46.1MB]

The post Proposal Nuclear Radiation Effects on Materials at Cryogenic Temperatures, July 1959 first appeared on The Black Vault.

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, we have witnessed the dissolution of an empire having over 40,000 nuclear weapons, over a thousand metric tons of nuclear materials, vast quantities of chemical and biological weapons materials, and thousands of missiles. This Cold War arsenal is spread across I I time zones and lacks the Cold War infrastructure that provided the control and financing necessary to assure that chains of command remain intact and nuclear weapons and materials remain securely beyond the reach of terrorists and weapons-proliferating states. This problem is compounded by the existence of thousands of weapons scientists who, not always having the resources necessary to adequately care for their families, may be tempted to sell their expertise to countries of proliferation concern.

In order to assess the Department of Energy’s part of current U.S. efforts to deal with this critical situation, in February 2000 Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson asked former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker and former White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler to co-chair a bipartisan task force to review and assess DOE’s nonproliferation programs in Russia and to make recommendations for their improvement. After nine months of careful examination of current DOE programs
and consideration of related nonproliferation policies and programs of the U.S. Government, the Task Force reached the following conclusions and recommendations.

To continue reading, reference the .pdf below:

Document Archive

 A Report Card on the Department of Energy’s Nonproliferation Programs with Russia, dated January 10, 2001 – by Howard Baker, Lloyd Cutler [86 Pages, 2.9MB]

https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/doe/HQ-2017-00673-F.pdf

The post A Report Card on the Department of Energy’s Nonproliferation Programs with Russia, dated January 10, 2001 – by Howard Baker, Lloyd Cutler first appeared on The Black Vault.

The Nuclear Weapon Characteristics Handbook, dated September 1990, was first requested in June of 2009, and it was not until February of 2017 that it was finally released. Nearly EIGHT years passed from the point of requesting, to actually receiving the below document.

The following was written by A. Nareth as an introduction to the document found below:

For more than forty years, deterrence has been the cornerstone of US defense policy, consisting of a stockpile of nuclear weapons and the missiles} aircraft, and artillery to deliver them. Sandia National Laboratories’ special mission, as part of the Department of Energy, is to ensure that nuclear warheads meet the highest standards of operational capability, reliability, safety, and control.

With this review, we discuss Sandia’s role in weaponizing nuclear explosives, the historical development of the stockpile and our monitoring and evaluation activities. We include a discussion of the important safety and use control aspects of nuclear warhead engineering. Our net assessment concludes that today’s stockpile is effective and reliable but that important work remains to be done to make it as safe and secure as evolving technologies permit.

In its history, the stockpile has been shaped by strategic doctrine that has evolved from massive retaliation to flexible response as the intemational situation warranted. Until recent years, arms control and strategic defense have not been major components of strategic design because of technical limitations. Today it is dear that deterrence, as represented by the stockpile, will be bolstered by new aspects of national security policy that are now technically or politically viable.

It is fair to assume that the stockpile will not grow; indeed, it is quite possible that new arms reduction agreements may reduce the number and types of weapons deployed. However, the responsibilities associated with maintaining a competent nuclear weapon arsenal will continue to be formidable. Its deterrent value must be sustained. Safety is of paramount importance: a single accident involving a nuclear explosion or dispersal of nuclear material would be a catastrophe, and could badly damage or terminate public support for a nuclear deterrent. In addition, we will continue to pursue improvements in command and control: the President must have flexible, exclusive, and unencumbered command of our nuclear forces.

Ensuring quality effort and product is a major initiative for the Laboratories. Quality is conformance to requirements … in the case of nuclear weapons, ensuring quality means meeting requirements of performance, schedule, and cost. We are striving to improve our designs and the manufacturing procedures for the nuclear weapons complex so that we do meet these goals, and we will increase our efforts to streamline some of these processes.

One aspect of nuclear weapon quality that is of particular concern is reliability. Assessing nuclear weapon reliability is an evolving process. Our assessments are updated through periodic laboratory and flight testing of samples of each weapon in the stockpile- a process allowing us to see the effects of new technologies and more demanding requirements. We recognize that smaller and safer weapons, and those with greater military capabilities, may be less reliable if we are not vigilant throughout each weapon’s lifetime- through development, production, deployment, and retirement. I am personally committed to continuous improvement of quality to ensure that reliability is high and is in balance with safety and control.

The stockpile of the first forty years of the nuclear age was designed during a cold war. During the next forty years it must be designed to foster stability, nonproliferation, and peace. I believe our policy makers may begin to think of the stockpile not in terms of deterring war, but in terms of maintaining peace. Modern weapons must be militarily appropriate, safe, secure, and survivable. A “peacetime stockpile” must offer an appropriate level of deterrence and fit with arms control, verification, strategic defense, and conventional force strategy as part of an integrated national security posture.

Declassified Document

 Nuclear Weapon Characteristics Handbook, September 1990 [90 Pages, 18.5MB]

https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/nnsa/NuclearWeaponsCharacteristicHandbook.pdf

The post Nuclear Weapon Characteristics Handbook, September 1990 first appeared on The Black Vault.

Since 1970, various corporations and public agencies in the United States have received extortion messages involving nuclear devices, materials, and facilities. Further, although the United States has enjoyed relative freedom from terrorism, internally, other countries have had to cope with increasing terrorist activities, including attacks on nuclear facilities. In 1974, the Energy Research and Development Administration established the Nuclear Emergency Search Team (NEST) to help deal with deal with peacetime nuclear accidents and address the technical, behavioral, and operational problems generated by nuclear extortion threats. NEST is now under the jurisdiction of the Department of Energy (DOE) .

Among the thorniest problems is deciding if a threat is credible and, thus, merits deployment of NEST. Then, once the decision to deploy is made, NEST must assist FBI efforts to locate the threatening substance or device and the extortionists, and possibly negotiate with them. In 1977, DOE and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) funded a project that brought together specialists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Syracuse Research Corporation, and The Rand Corporation. Under the technical direction of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, t~is project has developed
an operational capability to assess the credibility of nuclear threat messages. This assessment provides the basis for deployment decisions and the initial operational guidance for the NEST team after deployment.

The Report

 Using Stylistic Analysis to Assess Threat Messages, October 1985 [66 Pages, 8.5MB]

https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/nuclear/usingstylisticanalysis.pdf

The post Using Stylistic Analysis to Assess Threat Messages, October 1985 first appeared on The Black Vault.