Secret Data Loss Brings Halt in Lockheed Funds

WASHINGTON —  The Defense Department announced Monday that it will withhold a substantial part of its payments to Lockheed Corp. for work on a classified project believed to be the stealth jet fighter until the aerospace firm tightens its security.

And Defense Undersecretary Donald A. Hicks, testifying before the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations, called the recent loss of 1,400 classified documents from Lockheed’s Burbank division a “near disaster.”

Firm to Submit Plan

A Pentagon spokesman said that the withholding of monthly payments will continue “until the Department of Defense reviews and approves Lockheed’s corrective action plan,” which the company is expected to submit by Friday.

“The portion withheld may increase if the (Department of Defense) is not satisfied with Lockheed’s progress in correcting the (security) problems,” the spokesman said. Lockheed’s average monthly total payment from the Defense Department is classified, as is the amount that will be withheld under the Pentagon action.

Lockheed is involved in research and development of certain “black” programs, which are so secret that the Pentagon does not publicly acknowledge that they exist.

The missing documents, some of which have been unaccounted for since 1983, reportedly include blueprints, photographs and films related to the F-19 stealth jet fighter program. During Monday’s hearing, subcommittee Chairman John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) said that one Lockheed employee lost his job for taking home some stealth blueprints “to impress his girlfriend.”

Hicks said that some of the missing documents have been found. “As of Friday,” he said, “all the top-secret documents had been located or we knew what had happened to them.”

No Sign of Espionage

Although admitting that “there was a complete breakdown” in security at Lockheed, Hicks said: “We do not know what has really gotten out of the Lockheed environment.” Not only is there no evidence that any documents were passed to enemy intelligence services, he said, but it is not clear that still-unaccounted-for documents--none of them top secret--have even left the Burbank plant.

Hicks discounted stories that a toy being marketed as the F-19 stealth aircraft was designed according to specifications from the missing documents.

“There is no F-19 program. It doesn’t exist,” he said in the first Pentagon comment on that project. “Probably we should prosecute (the toy company) on the grounds of false advertising.”

Hicks refused to appear before a congressional hearing last month at which Lockheed executives confessed to major management errors. The General Accounting Office has since called for periodic Pentagon inspections of military contractors to verify the control of classified documents.

Faults Pentagon

Dingell faulted the Defense Department for not knowing about the breach of security at Lockheed until the subcommittee made it aware of the missing documents in June.

“You poor folks at the Department of Defense don’t know what’s happening out there,” Dingell said. “I can only say that either this matter has been the subject of great humor in the Kremlin or the subject of great comfort in the Kremlin.”