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A Proper Sense of Proportion
By Christopher G. Adamo
October 13, 2003

Does the term "W-88" ring a bell with anyone? Only a few years ago, the W-88 was the most sophisticated warhead in America's nuclear arsenal... a distinction it may still hold. But on Bill Clinton's watch, plans for the W-88 somehow fell into the hands of the Communist Chinese.

A breach in national security of this magnitude has not occurred since the days of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Yet throughout the unfolding of events indicating a cataclysmic hemorrhage in American technological secrets during the Clinton years, the mainstream media responded with yawns of indifference.

Nor was the W-88 leak the only major compromise of critically sensitive information. Under the headship of Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary, the security apparatus of the Los Alamos scientific laboratory became a "politically correct" joke, despite the fact that it is where the nation's most secretive state-of-the-art weapons research is conducted and archived. Fearing that workers at the lab who held lower security clearances might somehow feel inferior to those with higher classifications, she restructured the lab's system of color-coded badges so all were identical in color and appearance, thus negating the ability to identify individuals who should not be allowed access to highly classified material.

Under her headship, as well as that of her successor, Bill Richardson, Chinese penetration of American security was determined to be absolute. Computer hard-drives were "lost" on numerous occasions, followed by phony announcements of relief once they were "recovered," on one occasion behind a copy machine. Hard-drives can themselves be easily copied, and the information on them transferred in an extremely short period of time. Thus, the retrieval of a missing hard-drive in no way suggests that the security violation has been corrected. Yet again, the major American media dozed in its apathy.

Of course Chinese warheads, no matter how sophisticated, are no serious threat to America unless they can be "delivered" to its shores. But the Chinese needn't fear this obstacle for long, since Clinton Commerce Secretary Ron Brown was quick to come to their rescue. Assuming control over technical data relating to commercial space operations, he authorized the transfer of critical missile and rocket technology from Loral Space systems, under the chairmanship of Clinton crony Bernard Schwarz, to the Chinese. In this manner the Chinese were rendered fully capable of constructing and operating intercontinental ballistic missiles to carry their new and improved nuclear warheads to American soil.

In defense of this enormous breach of American technology, the Clinton Administration responded with the bogus claim that such information was only being used for "civilian purposes." Yet anyone with even a cursory knowledge of space science knows that the technology required to launch a satellite is essentially identical to that needed to deliver nuclear warheads. Only the targeting information in the vehicle's computer needs to be altered to direct it from an orbital objective to a ballistic path. Prior to the Saturn-class boosters of the Apollo program, every major space launch vehicle in NASA's inventory was a ballistic missile, modified only insofar as how its payload was attached. Certainly, the Clintons knew this as well.

During the Clinton presidency, the flow of vital American technological information out of the country was only ever exceeded by the flow of illegal foreign campaign contributions (primarily from the Communist Chinese) into the campaign coffers of the Democrat party. Yet to revelations of such enormity, the media rarely responded with anything but the briefest and mildest degree of curiosity.

It is against this backdrop that the recent scandals, so loudly decried by Democrat operatives and their collaborators in the media, show themselves to be far more the result of political opportunism than any mortal threat to national security. While, as a result of breaches throughout the '90's, American cities are now vulnerable to Chinese warheads and the missiles needed to carry them, those shrill Democrats on Capitol Hill, accompanied by their friends the network anchors, seek to create the impression that America is only imperiled as a result of sixteen words spoken by the President in his State of the Union Speech, and the fact that columnist Robert Novak gained access to the identity of a CIA agent whose name was already on pubic record as a result of her husband's personal biography.

Though any breach of security represents a problem requiring correction, it bears repeating that selective "outrage" is merely hypocrisy. By such displays, Democrats and their liberal media cohorts are proving this once again.