Trouble’s a-brewing at Los Alamos

There’s been so much trouble between scientists and the law lately that I’ve decided to start a new category here on the blog: scientific lockdown. Here’s the latest contribution.

Over the course of last week, it emerged that a former Los Alamos nuclear weapons physicist says that he is under investigation for espionage. The researcher, P. Leonardo Mascheroni spoke to the Associated Press on 21 October, two days after he says FBI agents raided his home. The FBI has confirmed an “ongoing investigation” into his activities.

Mascheroni worked in the lab’s X Division from 1979 until 1987, according to the AP. Since then, he appears to have been working on a laser fusion project, for which he was seeking aid from Venezuela. According to the AP, he approached the Venezuelan government in the fall of 2007 to see about pursuing his work. In February of last year, he says a man from the Venezuelan government contacted him about starting a weapons programme. The two met twice at Los Alamos, according to Mascheroni.

Mascheroni says he supplied the man with a CD that contained unclassified information widely available on the Internet in the hopes that the Venezuelan government would help finance his fusion scheme. He claims he wanted around $800,000 for the information but was never paid. In a later article, he admitted to receiving US$20,000 in cash from his Venezuelan handler.

The whole thing has raised enough of a stink that even Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has weighed in to deny claims that his country wants nuclear weapons.

But proliferation worries aside, real question here is what the heck is going on with scientists these days? Three weeks ago, particle physicist Adlene Hicheur was detained by French authorities on suspicion of terrorism; last week Stewart Nozette was arrested for attempted espionage; and, oh yeah, a South Korean court has just given Woo Suk Hwang a (suspended sentence) of two years.

Of course Los Alamos is home to the original scientific espionage case, the long running drama between Taiwanese-born Wen Ho Lee and the FBI. Lee was accused of spying for China, but after a seven-year legal battle he was exonerated in 2006.

Credit: G. Brumfiel