The Aldrich Alert

by Gary Aldrich - Volume 1 Issue 1

In 1993, Bill and Hillary Clinton brought with them to the White House a disrespect for security protocol that still permeates through out our Government to this day. They permitted those with only temporary security passes to routinely enter highly sensitive areas. They stonewalled efforts to properly identify possible security risks. Moreover, they routinely violated security protocols themselves.

When I detailed these national security risks back in 1995 in my book - Unlimited Access, we were only beginning to see the ramifications of Clinton’s lackadaisical attitudes towards security.

That same naive and irresponsible attitude is finally now apparent in the Clinton State Department. Earlier this month, Russian intelligence officer Stanislav Borisovich Gusev was arrested and expelled from the United States for spying outside State Department headquarters. He was caught picking up transmissions from a bugging device placed in a wall of a State Department conference room.

What I saw as one of the two FBI agents assigned to the White House to administer background and security checks is alarmingly similar to the situation we now see at the State Department. According to the Washington Times interview with FBI agents working the case, it was possible that the person who installed the bug could work "unimpeded for several hours because only two private security guards, neither of whom have top-secret clearances, check offices on only two of the seven floors nightly." In fact, the bug had been in place for several months before it was detected, most likely because the security guards had no training in the detection of listening devices.

Russian visitors, journalists, and others were often permitted to roam through the sensitive building completely unaccompanied. Sources at the Justice Department also told the Times that lax security at night and on weekends could have allowed Russian spies easy access to the building. The official also told the Times that the policy that was in place for security guards to inspect ID cards "was imperfectly implemented over a period of time" and was "applied on an episodic basis."

The Clinton Administration is reassuring Americans that the barn door is now closed, and that tighter security measures have been taken to secure our nation’s vital secrets. The State Department began requiring employees to show their photo identification cards, and unaccompanied reporters have been confined to the press. The problem is fixed, they claim.

What is confirmed by this and other major security lapses (including the Wen Ho Li/Los Alamos case), and my time in the Clinton White House, is that the current administration is simply not concerned about addressing the security needs of this nation. They have promised repeatedly that they will take the proper steps to protect our nation’s secrets. Yet time and again, the truth is revealed, and Americans are faced with the reality of how vulnerable our national security secrets truly are. The inescapable truth is that the problem is not fixed. All that is left to be answered is how long will our learned friends in Congress keep believing the lies of President Clinton.