Dec 30, 2008

More on Perseus

From The Huffington Post:

An American Scientist, the Soviets and the H-Bomb

By Robert S. Norris

The New York Times today published an article by William J. Broad that discusses how the Soviet Union may have obtained the key H-bomb secret ("radiation implosion") through espionage from an American spy at Los Alamos laboratory in the 1950s. The article is based on a forthcoming book, The Nuclear Express (Zenith Press) co-authored by Danny B. Stillman, a former head of intelligence at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Thomas C. Reed, a weapon designer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who later became Secretary of the Air Force.

Neither the book nor the Times article names the alleged spy. Stillman and Reed supply no hard and fast evidence to support their claim of espionage and their case appears to be largely circumstantial, but nonetheless it is certainly compelling. It is important to state upfront that I have no information or evidence to know whether the person they describe committed espionage or not. But I do know with high certainty the identity of the person they describe.

Stillman and Reed provided a dozen or so facts about the individual's life and career in their book. I've followed up on these clues using my knowledge of the history, organization, and personnel at Los Alamos in the 1940s and 50s and have deduced whom they are talking about. Others could do the same.

The person whom Stillman and Reed describe is Darol Kenneth Froman, an important figure at Los Alamos in the 1940s and 50s who, for more than a decade, was the Deputy Director of the laboratory. The known facts of Froman's life and career match the description presented by Stillman and Reed (see below for more details).

The allegation that Froman was a spy is likely to come as surprise to his colleagues and to many others. If the claim is proven to be true it will have wide ramifications on how we think about espionage during the Manhattan Project and even more significantly during the race for the hydrogen bomb, the course of the Cold War and the provenance of the Soviet H-bomb.

Froman was born on 23 October 1906 in Harrington, Washington and moved with his parents to Alberta, Canada when he was four. He attended the University of Alberta in Edmonton and received a B.Sc. (1926) and M.Sc. (1927) and was a Lecturer there in 1930-31. From 1931-39 he taught at Macdonald College, McGill University in Montreal. He returned to the United States to work at the U.S. Navy's Radio and Sound Laboratory at San Diego and to teach physics at the University of Denver in 1941-42.

In 1942 he was recruited to work at the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, where work on the atomic bomb was already underway, and witnessed the famous CP-1 "pile" (reactor) that went critical on 2 December 1942. Soon after he was tapped to go to Los Alamos, New Mexico and was among the early arrivals and served as a group leader from 1943-45.

Unlike most of the Manhattan Project scientists he stayed at Los Alamos after the War and rose up the ranks, eventually becoming the Deputy Director (then called Associate Technical Director) from 1951-62 second only to Director Norris E. Bradbury. As Division head (1945-48), Scientific Director of the Sandstone tests (1948), Assistant Director for Weapons Development (1949-51), and in his final position as Deputy Director before retiring in 1962 he no doubt knew virtually everything that went on in the Laboratory. He was in the middle of the U.S. search for its H-bomb in the period 1949-54 and was closely involved with Edward Teller, Stan Ulam, Carson Mark and the other scientists.

He retired early at age 55 or 56, and later served on the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission from April 1964 to August 1966. He was chairman of the board of the First National Bank of Rio Arriba from 1971-78. He died 11 September 1997 at age 90 in Santa Fe.

Following are the facts as described by the authors of Nuclear Express and my research:

From The Nuclear Express: The alleged spy was "born in the U.S., but his parents soon emigrated and he spent his younger years out of the country."
What we know about Darol Froman: He was born in Harrington, Washington on 23 October 1906 and at the age of four moved with his parents to Alberta, Canada.

From the Nuclear Express: He "returned to the U.S to attend university and then again left--to continue his academic life elsewhere."
What we know about Darol Froman: After receiving a B.Sc. and M.Sc. at the University of Alberta he went to the University of Chicago to be an assistant in physics and then returned to Canada to teach at the University of Alberta and McGill University.

From the Nuclear Express: "During those difficult depression years, as a contemporary of the Rosenbergs, he fell in with the young academic/intellectual crowd that saw communism as the most promising cure for society's ills."
What we know about Darol Froman: Unknown.

From the Nuclear Express: "As World War II broke out," he "--too old for the draft--returned to the eastern [sic] U.S. to start work at a U.S. Navy facility."
What we know about Darol Froman: In 1941 he would have been 34 or 35. For some unknown period of time he worked at the U.S. Navy's Radio and Sound Laboratory in San Diego.

From the Nuclear Express: "He soon joined one of the leading physics institutes in the U.S. and then, as Robert Oppenheimer was organizing the Los Alamos Laboratory, he was recruited to serve there." He "joined at its inception."
What we know about Darol Froman: Sometime in 1942 he became a Research Associate at the Metallurgical laboratory at the University of Chicago and was recruited to go to Los Alamos probably arriving there in the spring or early summer of 1943.

From the Nuclear Express: He volunteered his services to Soviet recruiter Morris Cohen.
What we know about Darol Froman: Unknown.

From the Nuclear Express: He worked and built an excellent reputation at wartime Los Alamos as a leader in the field of experimental physics."
What we know about Darol Froman: During the War years he was initially leader of P-4 Electronic Group under Physics Division leader Robert Bacher. After a major reorganization of the laboratory in 1944 he was leader of G-4 Electric Method in G-Division, Weapon Physics.

From the Nuclear Express: He "stayed at Los Alamos as others returned to academia. He assumed significant responsibilities while his political loyalties remained murky." He "remained there for decades until his retirement."
What we know about Darol Froman: Froman stayed at Los Alamos until his retirement in 1962. His position within the lab from 1949-51 was Assistant Director for Weapons Development; in other words, he oversaw all weapon developments. His political loyalties are unknown.

From the Nuclear Express: The spy scandals of 1948-51 may have given him pause and he "suspended his Soviet connections" and "turned his attention inward instead, to the new frontier of thermonuclear physics."
What we know about Darol Froman: No evidence of a pause. In late-1949 or early-1950 Director Norris Bradbury selected Froman to head the "Family Committee" the purpose of which was to sort out the competing ideas for an H-bomb. Edward Teller served as chairman but reported to Froman. Soon after Teller and Ulam make their breakthrough (in February and March 1951) an important conference was held at the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton. Froman drew up the laboratory plans for the June 16-17 conference and with Bradbury and Mark was only one of three full time staff members from Los Alamos.

From the Nuclear Express: He was "deeply involved in the hunt for ideas within the Los Alamos community. He exchanged memoranda and held discussions with Edward Teller, Stanislaus Ulam, Lab Director Bradley and other heavy hitters of the thermonuclear world as those ideas took shape."
What we know about Darol Froman: A passage from Stan Ulam's autobiography about exchanging memoranda: "Psychologically it was perhaps precipitated by a memorandum from Darol Froman, an associate director of the laboratory, who asked various people what should be done with the whole 'super' program. While expressing doubts about the validity of Teller's insistence on his own particular scheme, I wrote to Froman that one should continue at all costs the theoretical work, that a way had to be found to extract great amounts of energy from thermonuclear reactions."

From the Nuclear Express: "Prior to October '52 Mike event," he "was appointed to a senior position within Los Alamos. From that roost he would be privy to every detail of the Mike event as well as the details of the subsequent Castle test series. He remained in place for years thereafter."
What we know about Darol Froman: In 1951 he was made Deputy Director (then called Associate Technical Director), the number two position under Director Norris E. Bradbury. Froman served in that position for eleven years until his retirement in 1962.

From the Nuclear Express: "We [Stillman and Reed] believe a KGB asset made contact with" him "during late March 1954." The authors imply that information about the H-bomb was forced out of him because 1) he wanted some credit for helping to discover the H-bomb; 2) of a threat to reveal his past espionage; or 3) payment of money. He "appears to have died a wealthy man: money may have been the clinching inducement to return (briefly) to the world of espionage."
What we know about Darol Froman: Unknown.

From the Nuclear Express: He is now deceased.
What we know about Darol Froman: Darol K. Froman died on 11 September 1997 in Santa Fe.

44 comments:

  1. "Neither the book nor the Times article names the alleged spy. Stillman and Reed supply no hard and fast evidence to support their claim of espionage and their case appears to be largely circumstantial, but nonetheless it is certainly compelling."

    “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
    --Carl Sagan

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  2. So, I take it that LASL should have been shut down by Congress way back in 1953?

    If only the lab had someone great like Bechtel to run them back in the day. Just think of the things that might have been accomplished if the concepts of Six Sigma and Work Free Safety Zones had been around during those pivotal early years. It boggles the minds just to contemplate it!

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  3. I say we dig up the dead, rotting corpse of Darol K. Froman and subject him to the rigorous science of polygraph testing.

    If he refuses to answer any questions, well, there you go... he's a witch (spy)!

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  4. Thank God we had Bradbury instead of Nanos. Thank God we had Clinton Anderson instead of Udall. Thank God we had the AEC instead of NNSA. Thank God we had actual achievements instead of compliance orders. The world would be a different place.

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  5. We've got the best Government that money can buy and the Soviets got the best bombs that money can buy.

    It boggles the mind that this could happen without the use of USB ports.

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  6. Nice character assassination. Not like he gets to confront his accusers....

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  7. More sneakiness by LANS:
    Being near retirement I tried to max out the 401k and discovered LANS doesn't do a percentage match once you hit the IRS contribution limit. To further complicate things LANS has eliminated the fixed amount contribution so if you want to max out the 401k you must calculate a contribution percentage to keep below the limit and then reset it at the end of the year. Of course you won't know when the reset will be done (about 1 or 2 payperiods according to Fidelity), and you don't know what if any raise you'll get.
    It would be easier if LANS allowed the fixed amount withholding like UC did but then they couldn't screw the employees as easily.
    I hate LANS and would wish for their demise except a lot of good people would suffer and I know LANS managers would be rewarded. My Christmas wish is for a nice incentive to enable us to leave that hellhole.

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  8. The Christmas Wish Incentive needs to include "buy-my-house".

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  9. 2:38 pm- YOu act like this is a surprise or some sort of conspiracy theory (and no, I'm not a LANS manager). Please review 401K investments rules and you'[ll find everthing you said is listed in the following link:

    http://www.lanl.gov/worklife/benefits/retirement/tcp2.shtml#match

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  10. 2:38 PM the incentive happened last year. Were you asleep? Did that, I am so happy.

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  11. Geez 2:38, where have you been for the last 2 1/2 years? LANS only matches the first 6% on each paycheck; the IRS limit is irrelevant.

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  12. I too was pissed that LANS took away the fixed contribution option. I can see how people got caught when LANS changed the rules and had 27 paychecks instead of 26 and changed the last payday to Wednesday from the standard Thursday payday. A decent company would ask the employees how much they want to contribute and fit that to their system. That's too much to expect from Bechtel.

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  13. A decent company would have recognized a 27 pay period year and divided your annual salary by 27 instead of 26 for 2008. You received a 1/26th of FY-09 annual salary "bonus" for tax year '08.

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  14. I guess I don't understand all the complaining about the 401K. Take the total yearly amount you want to contribute to the 401K, divide by your salary, multIply by 100%and you get the annual percentage you must contribute! If you are like me, and max out the 401K, Fidelity/LANS automatically stopped my payments so I would not go over the IRS limit of 15,500.

    Get a raise, and you readjust your percentage (down in my case) to keep the same $ amount yearly contribution.

    This ain't rocket science.

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  15. I can see a new slogan: "LANL-- we design nuclear weapons, we build pits, but we can't figure out percentages in the 401K system."

    Good grief.

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  16. 1/1/09 12:35 AM "Nice character assassination. Not like he gets to confront his accusers...."

    Yeah, that is what LANL/LANS management does best. Character assassination to protect their own guilty asses - eh Seestrom?

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  17. I used to work for UC, then LANS for a total of 30 years. I recall that, when I was contributing to myself, the company matched 11% for the 401K.
    It was a really good deal.

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  18. Come on Frank...

    Try to focus in.

    This thread is not suppose to be about how someone got screwed on their 401K :)

    it's suppose to be about how the Soviet Union may have obtained the key H-bomb secret ("radiation implosion") through espionage from an American spy at Los Alamos laboratory in the 1950s.

    Got it? Ok, now get back on topic or else:)

    I hate it when you do this to us :)

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  19. The grousing about "not enough benefits" never ceases to amaze me. We all agree that the lab is unproductive. What do you say about the outsize salaries going to members of an unproductive organization? I think that LANL employees would be well served by a policy of silence about their salaries.

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  20. 1/3/09 8:31 PM,
    There's a reason why commercials last 30 seconds. Who would pay for air time longer than than the national attention span.

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  21. 6:06 PM, there are two separate components to the TCP2 contributions from LANS.

    One is a dollar for dollar match of the employee's 401(k) contributions from their paycheck. LANS stops contributing at 6% of the employee's salary, and this is done on a paycheck-by-paycheck basis. (So for example, if an employee contributed 12% of their paycheck for the first half of the yar, and 0% for the second half of the year, the matching funds from LANS would only total 3%, not 6%, of salary. This, and the fact that only integer values can be used, is why employees are irritated about having to tweak their contributions.)

    The second component of the LANS contribution is service-based. In your Fidelity accounts, if you look at the "Sources" tab, you'll see this contribution labelled as "NON-ELECTIVE EMPLOYER." Non-elective means that you get this contribution regardless of whether you put a dime of your own paycheck into your 401(k). Employees with <10 years of service get 3.5% of salary, 10-20 get 4.5%, and >20 years of service gets 5.5%.

    So a guy with 30 years of service under UC/LANS who went TCP2 would have been eligible for up to 6% matching and 5.5% non-matching (service-based) contributions from LANS.

    Voila!

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  22. "1/1/09 12:35 AM "Nice character assassination. Not like he gets to confront his accusers...."

    Yeah, that is what LANL/LANS management does best. Character assassination to protect their own guilty asses" ...

    1/3/09 5:55 PM"

    Not just management - this is how many LANL employees work too. Back stabbing. Gossip. Insinuating drug problems, mental problems, emotional problems. Undercutting their coworkers' efforts, to boost their own egos. All with no foundation of truth - but what does truth and honesty have to do with the best and the brightest? They had a paranoid delusion, therefore it must be so.

    With friends like these, who needs enemies.

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  23. "We all agree that the lab is unproductive."

    No we don't. You can say what you want about LANS but LANL still remains productive and will remain productive as long as we have good people.

    9:06 PM you seem rather clueless. Try thinking before you make nonsensical comments.

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  24. 1031 PM. I agree with you. My wife and I are very happy.

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  25. 1031 you got it.

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  26. Frank Young said...
    1/3/09 8:31 PM,
    There's a reason why commercials last 30 seconds. Who would pay for air time longer than than the national attention span.


    Touché :)

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  27. "The grousing about "not enough benefits" never ceases to amaze me. We all agree that the lab is unproductive. What do you say about the outsize salaries going to members of an unproductive organization? I think that LANL employees would be well served by a policy of silence about their salaries."

    9:06...maybe it's because we earn our benefits and have the educations to prove it. If you don't like reading about us complaining about our salaries...don't read. This is an employee blog.
    Get a clue!
    As far as being an "unproductive organization," then that opinion likely comes from the fact that you don't work here, know only about the Lab what you want to believe, and try to foster false reality like the rest of those Santa Fe weenies who don't understand that everyone is not just like them.

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  28. So how come LANS did away with the fixed $ contribution option on the 401k? Did they hope employees would forget to tweak the feedback several times a year and thereby give LANS a bonus? A simple one-time percentage won't work if you want to maximize the 401k and LANS match due to the time hysteresis, quantized control input, and loop gain change at raise time.
    Solution seems obvious if LANS cares anything about the employees they would restore the fixed $ contribution option.

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  29. Anyone hear the latest on Bill Richardson? He's decided to forfeit the job of Commerce Sec because he is currently "under investigation" in a pay-to-play scandal!

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  30. Richardson is a mini-Blago. He should be sharing a cell with Manny Arrogant. Clearly, Obumble's team did not research the situation.

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  31. Regardless of what Gov. Richardson may be telling the press, the fact that he pulled out of this cabinet position indicates there is fire where there is smoke.

    I sense some serious legal problems brewing for the NM Governor. Perhaps the FBI already has wiretaps regarding these pay-to-play charges.

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  32. What did Bill know and when did he know it...

    Obama Team Feels Richardson Wasn't Forthcoming About Investigation Before Being Offered Commerce - ABC News

    January 04, 2009 4:15 PM

    Sources tell ABC News that officials on the Obama Transition Team feel that before he was formally offered the job of commerce secretary, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was not forthcoming with them about the federal investigation that is looking into whether the governor steered a state contract towards a major financial contributor.

    Once the investigation became more widely known through national media reports last month, sources tell ABC News, the Obama Transition Team realized the FBI would not be able to give Richardson a clean political bill of health before the new administration is ready to send his nomination up to the Senate for confirmation.

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  33. Richardson should damm well resign the governorship of New Mexico as well.

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  34. our Chief Judge (Brennan) doing cocaine, our Senate President (Aragon) taking bribes and our Governor selling state contracts. Why is the national media hounding Chicago. They should be looking at New Mexico instead. We have it all right here and its all connected.

    Richardson is going down. He is such a bully that he would never give in unless he was truley afraid of what else could be exposed. Start digging media....this San Diego thing is just the tip of the iceberg.

    Obama is really starting to impress me. He dumped someone who needed to be dumped.

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  35. Frank, really want a new post. Please help
    LATELY I’ve been THINKING Money.
    I am the Water Guy.

    I’ve been chopping and burning wood for heating for the last 35 years, and have been In the Water business for 39 years, in Los Alamos for 30 years. We like to place a pan of water, about two liters at a time on the wood stove, thinking that some humidity is being replaced. Adding water to this pan when it gets low. When the water looks like clam soup after a few days we change it out.

    Silica is associated with volcanic rock by nature. The Jemez Caldaria was an active volcanic area. This is where most of the ground water recharge to the aquifer occurs. Silica has a water chemistry involving concentration, solubility, and temperature. The scaling (white junk) we get in Los Alamos, on our showerheads and water fixtures are due to Silica.

    The scaling in my stove pan is from to Silica. (Si) I usually replace this pan every 5 years. Again this is Silica, not lime and iron, Lime and Iron scaling is called HARD water. We have soluble Silica in the water at Los Alamos, not hard water.

    ‘LIME AWAY’ does not work.
    Save your Money.

    The county of Los Alamos has been connecting all of the aboveground steel water tanks (reservoirs), and water wells to a distribution system using the new and old pipelines, making a
    Large pipeline loop that’s interconnected. This is now completed.
    And was suggested, and then built after the fire. In addition this has also provided a reliable electrical /communication systems to the utility’s fire protection capabilities and drinking water needs.

    Turn lanes, bus stops, walkways, and lighting have also been constructed.

    The Los Alamos County Employees and the Contractors have done a good job.

    I noticed lately that the pan water on the stove has far less deposits of Silica; (for the last 10 weeks) in fact some of scaling in the pan has been dissolving. This is probably due to the projects completed. All water wells connect to common system now, instead of one well or wells to each water tank.
    This is called BLENDING of the WATERS. Every water well has it’s own chemistry. Every water well is different.

    Back to the Money $$$ SAVED!

    If the ‘Los Alamos National Laboratory’ LANS-LLC can get some of this new water from the county, the results will save MILLIONS of dollars, in maintenance and operations, with the lower use of anti-scaling chemicals and blow-down, used for (dilution). This will reduce the Laboratory’s fingerprint for water use. The cooling towers, and water-waste treatment operations throughout the lab will probably benefit two fold and the Taxpayers more. The idea of providing a less concentrated silica blend of water to the lab and public has been discussed before. I Known. Been there.
    Nothing new.

    Again if the county can provide this type of water to the labs, the taxpayers will save Million of dollars. The cost of not having to treat or worry about silica is not new. Ask Intel? They spend a lot of money in Alb.

    I hope the operators; chemists and engineers have been paying attention.

    If anyone deserves a bonus it should be: (I do not know if I can write a name) “TG” a ‘Los Alamos County’ employee.
    An Excellent job completed by him, and his staff.

    Sincerely
    Master of Water
    David Moss, Manager
    My family had a great Christmas and Holiday, hope you did too!

    PS: The first Contract Maintenance Company in the 50’s used FL-acid to clean silica film off of the towns outside windows for the families. You could not do this now. You know sprinklers hitting the house for that green yard. White and brown trees trunks and beautiful trees.


    .

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  36. Richardsons Lies have finally caught up with him.

    Bill Richardson and Barack Obama have always seemed a bit like an odd couple.

    When the New Mexico governor stabbed his former patrons Bill and Hillary Clinton in their backs last March by endorsing Obama over Hillary, everyone knew that Richardson was simply making a calculated political wager by throwing his support Obama's way. After serving in the 1990s as both Bill Clinton's Ambassador to the United Nations and later Secretary of Energy, Richardson desperately wanted to be back in the big show.

    For his act of betrayal, the "Ragin' Cajun" James Carville dubbed him "Judas Iscariot." Carville has never backed down from the charge.

    Today, Richardson's penchant for lying and unsavory associations has finally caught up to him. His withdrawal as Obama's nominee to serve as Commerce Secretary because of an ongoing grand jury investigation into whether he traded New Mexico government contracts for campaign contributions should come as no surprise. Richardson has always been only a step or two ahead of trouble. And there are reports coming out that he wasn't entirely candid with Obama's transition team about the nature of the investigation.

    Richardson made national headlines a few years ago when he claimed he had been drafted during his youth by baseball's Kansas City Athletics. He knew better, and Richardson--a mediocre small-college pitcher--finally had to admit he concocted the story. The lie had nothing to do with politics, but it shed a great deal of light on his character.

    A more troubling tale took place on the campaign trail last year when Richardson embellished a story about a young American soldier from New Mexico, Lance Cpl. Aaron Austin, who had been killed in Iraq. During his campaign, Richardson often claimed that he had an emotional conversation with Austin's mother, saying she thanked him for the federal death benefits she had received and even showed him the government check.

    Only one problem. Mrs. Austin said she never had the conversation with Richardson. It was yet another of his self-serving embellishments.

    Richardson has also been caught fudging facts about illegal immigration. He lied about opposing Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository. He's been caught distorting facts about health insurance. Moreover, as Secretary of Energy, he was chastised by members of both parties for the role he played in falsely charging Wen Ho Lee in the nuclear espionage scandal at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

    Richardson also played a central role in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, during which time he offered Lewinsky a job at the U.N. in order to get her out of the White House. Evidence suggests that he knew far more about her relationship with Clinton than he let on at the time.

    Just this past year, Mother Jones reported on Richardson's unsavory ties to big oil and his peripheral participation in the Peregrine Systems scandal, in which the San Diego company, on whose outside board Richardson served (his wife was also the sister in-law of Pergegrine's CEO), was "engaged in various acts of financial impropriety, including masking the severity of Peregrine's losses with phony accounting."

    And he also worked as a lobbyist for Henry Kissinger's DC-based lobbying firm, Kissinger McLarty Associates.

    Back in New Mexico, Richardson maintained a close relationship with well-known painter R.C. Gorman, who was suspected of being a pedophile for more than 40 years. An FBI report released after Gorman's death indicated that the agency had uncovered "credible evidence that Gorman participated in child sexual abuse," though the only provable cases had occurred many years prior to the five-year statute of limitations. Richardson, who was aware of the charges, used Gorman's art work "Mystic Mesa" as recently 2002 in his campaign poster. Richardson's own "inappropriate" behavior around women also dogged him on the campaign trail.

    In his current imbroglio, Richardson, who says he did nothing "improper," is being investigated in a pay-to-play scheme involving a Beverly Hills firm, CDR Financial Products Inc., which won two consulting contracts in 2004 worth about $1.4 million to advise New Mexico on a large bond issue.

    CDR Financial Products has been investigated twice in recent years by federal agents regarding irregularities in the municipal bonds marketing industry--in which government officials have supposedly received under-the-table payments from companies selling municipal bonds.

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  37. I believe LANL already has a sophisticated silica removal system in place at the lab. There is no need to borrow treated water from the Los Alamos County system.

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  38. 11:19 AM, You do not get it. Why treat for Silica when you can buy water with less Silica? All of the different wells are now connected to a common water pipeline.

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  39. Maybe Bill Richardson should just take one of those handy lie detector tests. After all he advocates their use on his former employees and even claims that somehow science is involved in the interpretation of the results. What do you say, Bill? Can the scientists have a crack at your test results? Don't worry, this is just for kicks. It isn't like your career or your reputation is involved like ours were/are.

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  40. 1/4/09 10:15 PM

    Richardson acts like a Republican.

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  41. Anonymous at 1/5/09 9:04 PM saya:
    "Richardson acts like a Republican."

    I don't think so. He is a micro-Blago!

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  42. 11:19 AM, You do not get it. Why treat for Silica when you can buy water with less Silica? All of the different wells are now connected to a common water pipeline.

    1/5/09 6:57 PM

    So what? You obviously don't work at LANL.

    This lab has spent lots of money on their advanced silica removal system. Not using it would look wasteful. You don't get it.

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  43. Oh, my! I wonder who leaked Richardson's name in this ugly "pay-to-play" scam to the NY Times?

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  44. I get the feeling that a young Danny Stillman must have spent much of his youth ready cheesy comic books about Cold War espionage and day dreaming that one day he would become...

    Danny Stillman, Master Spy-Catcher!

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