Free Republic

New Mexico Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson will go before the U.S. Senate in coming weeks as Barack Obama’s nominee for secretary of Commerce. Will Democrats in that chamber remember his performance in 1999 and 2000 as Energy secretary, when secrets disappeared from nuclear laboratories, and one Democratic senator promised to oppose Richardson for any future nomination? In the January of 1999, the U.S. House Select Committee on Intelligence published ... the “Cox Report” -- which found that China had stolen and still was stealing nuclear weapons secrets from the U.S. The committee reported that “the primary focus of this long-term,...

'Parlor Maid' tarnishes FBI Details of Leung-Smith spy case throw bureau's handling of investigation into question Details of Leung-Smith spy case throw bureau's handling By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER Twelve years ago, a team of U.S. counterintelligence operatives flew into frigid southern Manchuria to assess Chinese spying on American diplomats. Instead, the U.S. agents came to believe their own team was tracked by China's Ministry of State Security every step of their mission, which is still classified today. The first clue was an odd elevator encounter in remote northeast China, an FBI agent bumping into a California nuclear-weapons scientist suspected...

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Government scientists conducted an underground nuclear materials experiment Friday at the Nevada Test Site, the National Nuclear Security Administration said. The subcritical experiment, dubbed Piano, involved detonating high explosives to chart the behavior of plutonium in a non-nuclear explosion. It did not trigger a self-sustaining nuclear reaction, NNSA spokesman Kevin Rohrer said. Scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California completed the test at 1:44 p.m. in a cavern 960 feet below ground, Rohrer said. No abnormalities and no surface damage were reported at the vast site, about 85 miles northwest of Las Vegas....