Read Online The Falcon and the Snowman by Robert Lindsey - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robert Lindsey
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have been taken by an automated camera in an amusement-park arcade.
As he was processed through the Personnel Department, he was handed brochures describing the companyâs health-insurance and pension programs, a statement of policy on holidays and days off, and a wallet-sized booklet designed to explain to new employees the espionage laws of the United States. Along with other ânew-hiresâ who had joined TRW that Monday, he was summoned to a classroom for a security briefing. They were told that working in a defense plant would seem different to them from any place where they had worked before. Badges were required to get onto the plant premises and should never be lost; no personal guests were allowed, and official visitors had to be approved by Security and be escorted when they were on the plant premises. It was possible, they were told, that they would have to deal with sensitive defense information, and for this reason an in-depth government security check would be made on each of them. Above all, they were told, their work at TRW would be guided by the fundamental rule of the defense industry in protecting sensitive informationâthe âneed to knowâ rule. It stated: only persons with a specific, job-related requirement to know about certain classified work would be given access to it; to others, even in the same office, the information would be off limits. This rule, the new-hires were told, was essential to prevent the spread of secrets.
The briefing completed, Chris was handed a piece of paper on which he acknowledged he had been advised of these rules. âI shall not knowingly and willfully communicate, deliver or transmit in any manner classified information to an unauthorized person or agency,â he pledged.
His first assignment was in Classified Material Control, a department responsible for regulating the flow of secret documents through the plant. Many documents, he was told, had to be locked in safes and could be taken out only with the signatures of a handful of designated people given need-to-know authority. These documents could be transported within the plant only by armed guards. Precise records, his supervisor explained, had to be kept each time one of the secret documents was examined by anyone; the movement and second-by-second location of the data, which ran into tens of thousands of documents, were logged in computers and monitored. It was a dull job, mostly paper shuffling. Chris was not cleared to handle the documents themselves; he helped record their movement around the plant and processed applications for security clearances and issued badges.
On the first Friday after he started work, Chris received a notice to report to Building E-2 at 8:30 A.M. for another briefing. Other new employees hired that week crowded with him into a classroom, and a young woman appeared at the front of the room and introduced herself.
âGood morning,â she said. âI am here to present the extremely important subject of industrial security, a subject which is of mutual interest and concern to you and me.
âWhy? Because, one, as citizens of the United States we have a moral responsibility to protect the governmentâs classified information; and two, as employees of TRW Systems Group, we are bound by a security agreement that obligates TRW to the Department of Defense to protect and safeguard classified information generated by or furnished TRW in the performance of its many classified contracts.
âYou might respond to my vindication on security by stating that our formidable military strength should deter the aggressive efforts of the Soviet and satellite nations,â she said. âI agree.
âBut the security provided by the Air Forceâs Strategic Air Command, the Armyâs Special Forces, the Navyâs Polaris missiles and the Marine Corpsâs readiness is a defense against an overt and outright attack.â What the employees of TRW and
As he was processed through the Personnel Department, he was handed brochures describing the companyâs health-insurance and pension programs, a statement of policy on holidays and days off, and a wallet-sized booklet designed to explain to new employees the espionage laws of the United States. Along with other ânew-hiresâ who had joined TRW that Monday, he was summoned to a classroom for a security briefing. They were told that working in a defense plant would seem different to them from any place where they had worked before. Badges were required to get onto the plant premises and should never be lost; no personal guests were allowed, and official visitors had to be approved by Security and be escorted when they were on the plant premises. It was possible, they were told, that they would have to deal with sensitive defense information, and for this reason an in-depth government security check would be made on each of them. Above all, they were told, their work at TRW would be guided by the fundamental rule of the defense industry in protecting sensitive informationâthe âneed to knowâ rule. It stated: only persons with a specific, job-related requirement to know about certain classified work would be given access to it; to others, even in the same office, the information would be off limits. This rule, the new-hires were told, was essential to prevent the spread of secrets.
The briefing completed, Chris was handed a piece of paper on which he acknowledged he had been advised of these rules. âI shall not knowingly and willfully communicate, deliver or transmit in any manner classified information to an unauthorized person or agency,â he pledged.
His first assignment was in Classified Material Control, a department responsible for regulating the flow of secret documents through the plant. Many documents, he was told, had to be locked in safes and could be taken out only with the signatures of a handful of designated people given need-to-know authority. These documents could be transported within the plant only by armed guards. Precise records, his supervisor explained, had to be kept each time one of the secret documents was examined by anyone; the movement and second-by-second location of the data, which ran into tens of thousands of documents, were logged in computers and monitored. It was a dull job, mostly paper shuffling. Chris was not cleared to handle the documents themselves; he helped record their movement around the plant and processed applications for security clearances and issued badges.
On the first Friday after he started work, Chris received a notice to report to Building E-2 at 8:30 A.M. for another briefing. Other new employees hired that week crowded with him into a classroom, and a young woman appeared at the front of the room and introduced herself.
âGood morning,â she said. âI am here to present the extremely important subject of industrial security, a subject which is of mutual interest and concern to you and me.
âWhy? Because, one, as citizens of the United States we have a moral responsibility to protect the governmentâs classified information; and two, as employees of TRW Systems Group, we are bound by a security agreement that obligates TRW to the Department of Defense to protect and safeguard classified information generated by or furnished TRW in the performance of its many classified contracts.
âYou might respond to my vindication on security by stating that our formidable military strength should deter the aggressive efforts of the Soviet and satellite nations,â she said. âI agree.
âBut the security provided by the Air Forceâs Strategic Air Command, the Armyâs Special Forces, the Navyâs Polaris missiles and the Marine Corpsâs readiness is a defense against an overt and outright attack.â What the employees of TRW and
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