Civilians Seeking Access to Secrets Face Tests to Fight Spying : Pentagon to Expand Use of Lie Detectors

WASHINGTON —  The Pentagon will expand its use of lie detectors this year in an attempt to combat espionage, testing about 3,500 Defense Department civilians, military personnel and contractors’ employees seeking access to highly classified information, a senior official said Thursday.

In disclosing the program, retired Gen. Richard G. Stilwell, deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, said it was intended to determine the trustworthiness and patriotism of those working with some of the government’s most secret information.

“It should be evident that in the last decade, there has been an increase in the hostile intelligence presence in the United States,” Stilwell told a group of reporters who cover the Pentagon. “It seems to us we should take every legitimate step we can to ensure that we are accessing to our programs only those individuals of proven integrity.”

The lie detector tests, to be given on a one-year experimental basis, represent continued growth in the use of polygraph machines during the Reagan Administration. In 1983, the last year for which figures are available, the Pentagon administered 21,000 such tests, officials said. In contrast, 13,000 examinations were administered in 1980, the last year of the Jimmy Carter Administration.

But with the nation’s military depending to an ever greater degree on high-technology equipment, Pentagon and defense contractor employees with access to information about such material have become “prime targets” for spies, Stilwell said.

He said the congressionally authorized tests will be given to some--but not all--of those working in 101 “special access programs,” defined as programs for which normal methods of safeguarding information are considered inadequate and to which a limited number of people are admitted.

In addition, the tests will be administered to applicants for Defense Intelligence Agency jobs and to people requiring temporary access to sensitive information before formal security checks are completed.

Not Intended to Plug ‘Leaks’

Stilwell and other Pentagon officials stressed that the tests were not intended to plug “leaks” to the news media but instead were designed to determine whether those examined have engaged in espionage, sabotage or other unauthorized disclosure of secret information.

The six questions to be asked will be limited to these topics, Stilwell said. No personal information will be requested, such as whether someone has used drugs or gambles, although such questions are asked in employment interviews and during general security clearance procedures.

The decision to administer the tests stems from recommendations offered by a blue-ribbon Pentagon panel, Stilwell said. He said the number of those being given the tests was limited by the amount of time the Pentagon’s 141 examiners could devote to the project.

Under guidelines issued in a directive signed by Deputy Secretary of Defense William Howard Taft, employees who refuse to take the tests will be kept in their current jobs, if possible, but without access to the secret information. If that is not feasible, they will be offered other jobs of similar rank and pay, according to a Pentagon announcement.

Failure to pass the test would not automatically deny someone access to information, Stilwell said. However, he said the results could provide a lead in an investigation about an individual’s background and could prompt the Pentagon’s most senior officials to cut off an employee’s access to secret material.

The Pentagon employs polygraph tests to determine the veracity of intelligence information, among other uses. About half of the 21,000 lie detector tests given in 1983 were administered to employees connected with the top-secret National Security Agency. The rest were used in criminal investigations or counterintelligence projects, Pentagon officials said.