PRINCIPAL WITNESSES WHO APPEARED IN PERSON OR SUBMITTED DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD Report to the chairman on security clearances granted to personnel from the Status of "Stilwell Commission" Recommendations as of February 1988 SECURITY CLEARANCES FOR SOVIET EMIGRES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, DC, Tuesday, February 9, 1988. The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2 p.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bill Nichols (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BILL NICHOLS, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM ALABAMA, CHAIRMAN, INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE Mr. NICHOLS. The subcommittee will come to order. In May of 1987, Mr. Hopkins and I directed the staff to conduct an investigation into the policies and procedures of the Department of Defense for issuance of security clearances to Soviet emigres. The investigation was initiated at the request of Congressman Kasich who first identified this problem for us. Early in the investigation the investigators advised us that the security clearance issue applied not only to Soviet emigres, but also to other foreign persons, and thus we expanded the scope of inquiry to include security clearances given to personnel from any one of 29 designated countries, which, as we shall find out, is defined by the Department of Defense as one whose national interests are adverse to those of the United States of America. We have reviewed the staff report, and we find a number of the conclusions contained therein that are quite disturbing to me and other members of the committee. Over the past several years we have seen an alarming increase in the number of espionage cases resulting in the compromise of some of this Nation's most sensitive information. It is therefore imperative, we believe, that those people who are entrusted with keeping the Nation's secrets are trustworthy. I believe the Department of Defense is moving in the right direction in tightening security; but as the staff's report indicates, currently there are quite a large number of non-U.S. citizens with security clearances, which is a direct violation of the regulation. Also of concern is the fact that because of inadequacies in the Department of Defense data bases, Defense officials cannot say with any degree of certainty whether all non-U.S. citizens with clearances have been identified. Today we will hear testimony from Mr. William Fleshman of the Investigations Subcommittee staff on the results of their review, |