Observers are criticizing the FBI's investigation of a former Los Alamos National Laboratory researcher who provided a nuclear-weapon study to a purported Venezuelan official, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 23).
Physicist Leonardo Mascheroni told AP last week that he received $20,000 in cash, and had expected another $800,000, for a report that consisted of "unclassified materials found on the Internet." He said he hoped his work would persuade the Venezuelan government -- represented by a man he knew as "Luis" -- not to pursue a nuclear-weapon program and provide him with funding for research on nuclear fusion.
Investigators on Oct. 19 confiscated computers, cellular telephones, letters, the cash and other material from Mascheroni's home in New Mexico. The FBI has filed no charges in the case and would say yesterday only that the investigation is ongoing.
"The FBI action is stupid and foolish and misguided and utterly wrong," said retired Los Alamos physicist Hugh DeWitt, who taught physics at the University of California, Berkeley, while Mascheroni was studying for his doctorate at the institution.
"There's nothing classified or secret in this at all. His files are big papers, letters and mission statements. There's nothing whatever that would endanger national security," Dewitt said.
Added Los Alamos Study Group head Greg Mello, who met with Mascheroni on multiple occasions in the 1990s: "He believes physics has great promise for humanity and he thinks that that promise has been derailed by politics and institutional greed. ... He wants it set right and he wants to be part of what sets it right" (Heather Clark, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Oct. 26).