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OK, this is kind of a rant, but I'm getting tired of this speculation on Los Alamos from people who've never even been there.

I am certainly no apologist for the problems of LANL (mostly self-inflicted), but you need to get your facts straight. You plainly don't know what you're talking about.

Notra Trulock absolutely was threatened and intimidated by representatives of 3-letter federal agencies in his home, w/o any warrant, on several occasions. The manuscript for his book was confiscated for over 2 years, his computers were confiscated w/o warrant, his girlfriend was intimidated at work, and her computer files were taken. And you know what? He was, and is to this day, absolutely correct in his assertions about Wen Ho Lee.

I don't know whether Tommy Hook's story is false or not, but I'm not going to engage in ad-hominem attacks on the man until we know (probably not even then).

What qualifies me to talk on this subject, you ask??

I will damn sure guarantee that I am the only person on this forum who has actually worked for and with Notra Trulcok and Tommy Hook, and I feel lucky to have done so, because well-liked or not, they were always honest with me.

There is some back-story to Tommy Hook that may be playing into this. Before assuming his position as an auditor and a LANL employee, he was the #2 Manager for the Protective Force contractor at LANL, and was in reality the effective leader of the organization.

He was not well liked by the leaders and the rank-and-file of the union because he was a bull-nosed negotiator, and a lot of people lost their jobs for what the union maintained were minor things.

We also had the singular distinction of being the very first DOE guard force to go on strike (4-6/1989).

LANL and DOE apparently thought they could head off the strike by getting Tommy out of the picture and, in the hopes of a solution, gave him a job as an Auditor the Friday before we were scheduled to walk out on strike. The union's response was to walk out anyway, and issue "We're off the Hook" t-shirts for us to wear on the picket line.

If you don't think DOE or LANL can apply pressure in a number of unique ways, you are at best naive, at worst a fool.

When you have 10 State Police officers with shotguns tell you to leave a place of lawful assembly, you don't really argue, you just go.

Or when a co-worker who didn't strike (a scab??) shows up at your picket line, and points his shotgun at you and your friends, you open your eyes a bit.

After being on strike for nearly 70 days (not my 1st choice, but you've gotta do what you've gotta do), and seeing some of the things we faced, I gained a new perspective on "labor relations" from both sides.

Now, all of that said, I never had particular axe to grind w/Tommy because he was always fair in his dealings with me personally. I also believe that however hard-nosed and controversial he may have been, he never did it out of dishonesty or unethical motivations, but for the business bottom-line. I don't think Tommy Hook is an unethical man. I think he's actually ethical to a degree that most of us can't claim. If he is shown to be wrong on this, I will live, and I'll admit I overestimated him. But it shouldn't detract from his W.F.&A. claims @ LANL. Unfortunately, it will, and we'll never know if he was right about fraud.

I do however, agree that aside from being the skankiest titty bar in a state full of skanky titty bars, Cheek's is truly a combat zone.

We've done work for the former personnel director of the lab, the former director of Sandia, the former chief scientist of the Air Force and many current lab employees.

My underground test groundsurfing friend has been there quite some time and finds the explanation of traveling an hour to get a lap dance as part of intelligence-gathering "suspicious".

We have occasion to see Cheeks mentioned in the news almost as much as suicide bombings in Tel Aviv.

When the Chinese are working in the lab today, vacuumed up every scrap on our nuclear weapons through Hazel O'Leary and Wen Ho Lee, and today Bill Gertz reports Negroponte receives word Analysts missed Chinese buildup, I'm not phoning, emailing and faxing Curt Weldon and Jim Inhofe about camp stoves as suspicious line item expenses.

Notra Trulock was a threat--a direct threat--to the Clinton-ChiCom intelligence-for-campaign-donations deals.

Trulock had legitimate concerns about espionage--not fiscal malfeasance, treason--in general and Wen Ho Lee in particular.

The fact of Lee's having all that warhead and legacy code data was reason enough to put him away--let alone that he lied about foreign contacts and claimed to have destroyed or misplaced the data.

Yet Elizabeth Moler muzzled Trulock--after Vince Foster, Waco, Ron Brown, Jim McDougal and Elian Gonzales, it is proof of a merciful God that Trulock is alive to write the book I've got.

LANL is a never-ending source of comic relief vis-a-vis the Penn and Teller routines it periodically stages with its classified discs--famously found in twice-searched areas, e.g.

LANL needs an attitude adjustment for its perennial attitude of contemptuous disregard for security. That you physically defended it is on a par with the soldiers in Iraq.

What is now outrageous is that--per my landsurfing friend--the OEO requires LANL to employ Chinese nationals.

When they already have 3500 front companies employing their ant-like intel operation in CONUS, this breech is inexcusable.

I'm sure Bruce King could use the State Police in an unlawful fashion if anyone could.

I hope Negroponte can light a fire under the LANL operation--not start a controlled burn on a windy, low-humidity day new moon of May 2000, just keep our secrets from going out the door.

As for the reports on the Cheeks activities, they numbered ten according to Villanucci and Eeds, who represent the political spectrum.

As for the FBI--it is to laugh. Neighbors of Lee saw "two carloads of men who looked like they were lost on their way to a sporting event"--who then went to Lee's house (giving him a two-year head start) and in their hours there found only the flashlight they lost at the outset.

That Reno refused requests to tape and tap Lee and his computer while granting the hundreds of other requests qualifies her for a lifetime membership at Leavenworth.

Bingaman put Trie on his commission so Trie could be bagman and mouthpiece for Beijing, writing his infamous Dear President letter telling Clinton to get the carriers out of the Strait or lose the Chicom dough.

Alamo-Girl dug up a great deal on this and I spoke with Burton's counsels but legal and senate protocol--plus the Clintonista regime--prevented plumbing the depths.

Hook will still have ample opportunity to present his findings to appropriate congressional committees.

If we could recoup the billions embezzled in Medicare and Medicaid and HUD we could pay the deficit and pay your team what it's worth.

Further this deponent sayeth not.