We lose things, but usually not America's nuclear secrets

You probably lose things too. I know I do. I lost a bicycle once, and that's a pretty big item. One day it was on the back porch; the next day it wasn't. One has to assume it was stolen. That's kind of the thinking over at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. They had these two computer hard drives one day, and then they were gone.

Of course, the computer hard drives are a little bit more important than a bicycle. They apparently have America's nuclear secrets on them.

"Hey, Irving, have you seen those computer drives around anywhere?"

"Last time I saw them, they were in the vault."

"No, I checked in there. I found the keys to the washroom we were looking for last month, but now I can't find those darn computer drives."

"Sorry, can't help you. Was there anything important on them?"

"Well, I had a bunch of MP3 files I downloaded from Napster on there, and of course my collection of the 1,001 best e-mail jokes. Oh, yeah. I think America's nuclear secrets were on there too someplace."

"Really? That's a shame. Maybe somebody else has a copy of the 1,001 best e-mail jokes. Good luck."

John Browne, director of the Los Alamos lab, says something might have happened to the drives when the lab had to be evacuated because of the wildfires last month.

He's not sure, but maybe in the confusion they got lost.

I can see that happening. You've only got a few minutes to evacuate your office, so you run inside trying to think of the most important items to save.

You grab your lucky coffee mug and your family portrait off the desk, snatch up the bowling trophy and head into the vault for America's nuclear secrets.

Sprinting out the door with a computer drive under each arm and the bowling trophy in your teeth, you deposit the items in the trunk of the car and speed madly for safety.

Probably the drives will turn up somewhere. Have they checked under the spare tire?

I know one thing. The Park Service director who got suspended for starting the fire that burned up Los Alamos is heaving a sigh of relief.

He probably called up Browne. "Thanks, buddy. You know, I was feeling pretty bad for burning up a few dozen homes. But then you go and lose America's nuclear secrets and, shucks, people are starting to forget about me already."

The U.S. Senate has been holding hearings this week on America's missing nuclear secrets, and some Republican senators seem pretty upset.

"We invited (Department of Energy Secretary) Bill Richardson to appear before our two committees to explain to the representatives here of the American people why some of their most sensitive nuclear weapons information appears to have walked out the door," said Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby.

"Apparently Secretary Richardson has decided there's something more important to do than account to the American people," Shelby said.

That's how senators talk when they're angry. They resort to sarcasm. I would never do that.

Apparently, what really makes the senators mad is nobody bothered to report to Browne that America's nuclear secrets were missing until two weeks later.

I understand how this happens, too. Around the Nevada Appeal office, things get lost pretty regularly. Cell phones. Laptops. Photographers.

Right now, in fact, we're missing a police scanner that was sitting on the desk of one of the reporters. And we don't even have a wildfire to blame.

But nobody wants to tell the boss that something is missing.

"Ummm. You know those nuclear secrets we keep in the vault?"

"Sure."

"Irving can't find them."

"Who had them last?"

"I'm not sure. It could have been that guy we think is a communist."

"No. That's not possible. We fired him two weeks ago."

"Yeah, well ... That's the thing. You see, we haven't been able to find them for a couple of weeks now."

"What! Why didn't you tell me?! You bunch of bubbleheaded nincompoops!"

"Oh, sure. Get mad at me. It's Irving who lost them. And you wonder why nobody tells you anything...."

It's not like our federal government hasn't lost other stuff. Remember the laptops that disappeared from the State Department? They had America's secrets on them too, but nothing nuclear.

What bothers me is that the Energy Department, overseer of the Los Alamos lab, is also the outfit intending to ship nuclear waste to Nevada. I hope somebody is planning to count the casks when they leave Pennsylvania, for example, because it's a long trip with a lot of bathroom breaks in between.

That's when you lose stuff on the road, you know. You stop to answer nature's call, hop back in the truck and drive for a few hours before you realize that you left a cask of nuclear waste sitting on the sink at a Texaco in Missouri.

My advice is for the folks at Los Alamos to keep looking. America's nuclear secrets are bound to turn up somewhere. If they're not in the trunk under the spare tire, I'd suggest the Los Alamos guys start turning China upside down.

(Barry Smith is managing editor of the Nevada Appeal.)