State Dept. Cracks Down Over Missing Laptop
W A S H I N G T O N, Dec. 5 -- In a widening dispute over a missing laptopcomputer, the State Department has ruled that six employees shouldbe disciplined in a range of actions from reprimand to firing,spokesman Richard Boucher said today.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, in a parallel move,ordered the reassignment of Donald Keyser, deputy director of theBureau of Intelligence and Research, to a less prominent post. Thisprompted the bureau director, J. Stapleton Roy, a former ambassadorto China, to resign effective today. Roy was due to retire inJanuary.
The six officers whose discipline was proposed have a right torespond and to a hearing, Boucher said.
The departure of Roy, one of the most senior Foreign Serviceofficers, was seen as a show of support for Keyser, 57, who lastweek was suspended by Albright for 30 days without pay. Roy was notdisciplined.
Roy, 65, was born in China of American parents. He is one of thedepartment’s most experienced Asia hands. In addition to China, hehas served as ambassador to Singapore and Indonesia and also onceheaded the State Department’s East Asia bureau.
He and Keyser worked together many times in their long careers.
Roy is one of two active Foreign Service officers with the rankof “career ambassador.” The other is Thomas Pickering,undersecretary of state for political affairs.
A Laptop Full of Secret InformationThe laptop computer and its classified contents disappeared inJanuary, prompting complaints by several members of Congress thatthe State Department had a lax approach to security. Albright vowedto tighten procedures.
She told a gathering of State Department employees in May: “Idon’t care how skilled you are as a diplomat, how brilliant you maybe at meetings, or how creative you are as an administrator, if youare not a professional about security, you are a failure.”
The computer contained highly classified information about armsproliferation issues and about sources and methods of U.S.intelligence collection. It was not clear whether its disappearancewas a case of someone trying to pilfer state secrets or a simpletheft motivated solely by the intrinsic value of the equipment.
