`Devastating' report on lax US security

AS THE US political and intelligence establishment braced itself for the publication of the long-awaited Congressional report on Chinese espionage, the American media offered a foretaste of the findings - described as a devastating expose of China's penetration of American defences.

And while the scale of China's alleged spying effort as uncovered by the committee is vast, some of the most damaging findings concern the routine laxness of US security in protecting defence secrets abroad and at top scientific establishments in the United States.

The report, which is due to be released tomorrow, after fierce bargaining with the White House about how much may be published without damaging national security, is said to establish that China was systematically stealing information on American nuclear warheads and missiles from the Seventies until now.

The stolen information, the report says, enabled China to modernise its nuclear weapons programme, narrowing the technology gap with the United States to a decade.

The most detailed pre-publication account of the report so far was printed yesterday in the Californian newspaper, the Orange County Register, which said that it had obtained a copy of a draft. Orange County, is the constituency of Christopher Cox, the Republican Representative whose chairmanship of the nine-member congressional committee has been widely commended.

Among its revelations are that private security guards paid to watch over launches of US satellites in China often slept on the job, turned up for work drunk and frequented prostitutes. Guaranteeing the security of launch sites was one of the conditions set by the US administration for permitting the launch of commercial US satellites by Chinese rockets from China.

The report also says that - contrary to assertions by US agencies - China diverted high-performance US computers for military use, and it lists 33 security breaches at satellite launch sites, including equipment left unattended and Chinese workers able to wander around the site unsupervised and take photographs. Other violations included windows and doors left unsecured, a laptop computer displaying digital pictures of a satellite left unattended in a hotel room, notes left on blackboards, and filing cabinets containing classified documents left open.