In early 1993, at the dawn of the Clinton administration, intelligence expert John Deutch journeyed to the Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons laboratory in California to deliver a novel message: After flirting with an expanding portfolio of scientific work, the nation's weapons labs should return to defense research.

The speech was roundly denounced within the research and political realms as reactionary, almost Neanderthal. This was the post-Cold War world. Bill Clinton had campaigned on a platform of economic security, specifically calling on the laboratories to marshal their brainpower in the service of the U.S. economy.

Deutch quickly faded as a front-runner for the Cabinet position of Energy Secretary, although he surfaced later as director of central intelligence.

Deutch's suggestion is being reconsidered in the wake of the latest allegations of Chinese espionage -- though perhaps too hastily. Caught between the desire to conduct cutting-edge research and the security demands imposed by Washington, the nation's three nuclear weapons labs are at an impasse.

If they remain at the forefront of science, they will never satisfy Washington's rigid security requirements. But if they close their environmental, biological and basic science programs, the quality of weapons research would almost certainly suffer for a number of reasons. The interdisciplinary nature of scientific research at the labs would die; the nation's best scientists would look for work elsewhere; the labs could not possibly justify budgets that exceed $3 billion a year; and one laboratory probably would have to close.

The bluster filling Washington has proved one thing above all else: Most pundits, politicians and journalists inside the Beltway have no clue what the Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories do.

Washingtonians imagine the weapons labs as walled fortresses guarding some of the nation's most sensitive secrets, when, in fact, they are multidisciplinary scientific campuses increasingly open to the outside world.

Indeed, the strength of their research relies on the traits that leave them susceptible to espionage and security breeches: interdisciplinary research by a vibrant, international scientific work force.

Depending on how you calculate it, no more than half the labs' budgets goes to nuclear weapons research. Of the 20,806 employees at the three weapons labs, 6,806 are weapons specialists.

That stands to reason. Since Clinton came to the White House, the United States has not tested a nuclear weapon. Without testing, nuclear weapons development has largely ceased, save for some sketches for new bombs.

The Chinese allegedly obtained designs for a neutron bomb and a miniaturized nuclear weapon through espionage at the laboratories, but that was in the 1980s. If those old designs are locked away, it is not clear what they could obtain in the 1990s. Technology to clean contaminated ground water? The map of the human genome? New surgical tools to weld skin tissue?

To keep and attract top scientists, the laboratories have expanded their research into virtually every field of science. A comprehensive study released by the Energy Department last week found that more than 40 percent of weapons scientists said they would quit their posts if they were not allowed to perform non-nuclear-weapons research

And the nuclear weapons work that remains focuses almost exclusively on maintaining the existing nuclear stockpile, through computer simulations, laser blasts and experiments with nonnuclear high explosives.

With a wary eye on its shrinking cadre of weapons scientists, the Energy Department is spending billions of dollars on dazzlingly sophisticated research facilities. Ostensibly, these facilities help scientists study the effects of aging on a shrinking nuclear stockpile, but in reality they are billion-dollar play toys that keep the weaponeers employed and happy -- and handy, in case the United States needs to return to a Cold War footing.

They also might yield enormous scientific advances, but not in the field of nuclear weapons.

That is not by coincidence. Until this recent flare-up, most of the political pressure on the weapons labs was to justify their budgets by proving the worth of their research to the economy. Republicans and Democrats alike said the labs would have to change dramatically to survive in the post-Cold War world.

The labs responded. The top-secret areas of the sprawling campuses have shrunk every year, allowing scientists to team up with industrial researchers from around the globe.

At the behest of Republican Sen. Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, the home state for the Los Alamos and Sandia labs, researchers from "sensitive" countries such as Russia and China have visited in ever greater numbers, to gain exposure to Western scientific practices and to keep idle hands busy in the United States instead of at work on weapons projects in their home countries.

The fruits have been sweet: new battery technologies for electric cars, new medical tools, advances in genetic research that have far exceeded expectations and lasers that have helped develop more sophisticated microchips and faster computers.

Much of this could be lost if Congress demands a crackdown. Already, senators are calling for an end to international scientific exchanges. Heightened security would almost certainly constrict industrial research, as access to the labs by private-sector scientists would be limited by the bureaucratic hassles of FBI background checks. With a six-month product life cycle, a high-tech company such as Intel would simply not bother with lab partnerships.

And what of the laboratory work force? Would top physicists accept nuclear caretaker jobs at Los Alamos or Livermore when the demand for their services in the private sector is skyrocketing?

The problem is more than hypothetical. Last week's report of the Commission on Maintaining United States Nuclear Weapons Expertise found that the stock of weapons scientists is aging and shrinking, with slim pickings for replacements. Between 1993 and 1996, more than 400 scientists and engineers left Los Alamos' weapons divisions. Only 115 were found to replace them. More than 60 percent of the nation's remaining weapons designers are older than 50.

That is not to say drastic changes at the laboratories are a bad idea. But they will have costs, possibly severe costs.

John Deutch had a point in 1993. The laboratories were hatched from the crucible of World War II and the Cold War to develop nuclear weapons. They have done their jobs well, and perhaps politicians are justified in asking them to focus on their "core competencies," as lab bureaucrats like to say -- namely, weapons research.

But what President Clinton has called "the crown jewels" of the federal scientific community will likely lose much of their luster.

Jonathan Weisman, The Sun's White House correspondent, covered the nuclear weapons laboratories for three years as a science reporter for the Alameda Newspaper Group in California.

Pub Date: 03/21/99