WASHINGTON TODAY: GOP capitalizes on energy-security issues

WASHINGTON - Republicans are trying to gain new political traction from an old peeve: the Clinton administration's stewardship of national defense secrets.

They rushed to embrace a seemingly ready-made election-year issue: the loss of classified computer hard drives at the Los Alamos nuclear lab.

Then, just as mysteriously, the drives resurfaced behind a copying machine. That made the case even more bizarre

Republicans were quick to couple that with concern over rising gasoline prices to launch a fierce attack on Energy Secretary Bill Richardson.

''This is the kind of thing people get mad about,'' said Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., referring mostly to gas prices.

Political analysts suggested that problems plaguing the Energy Department would not help Vice President Al Gore. But they disagreed over the extent of the damage - either to Gore or to congressional Democrats in November.

Lott did not call for Richardson's resignation directly, but other Republicans have.

''He hasn't served this president well. He hasn't served this nation well,'' asserted Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., one of those who has called directly for Richardson to resign.

For many in Congress, the temporary loss of computer hard drives at the New Mexico lab was more clear-cut than the complex issues surrounding earlier disclosures of lost secrets - including technology transfers to China by U.S. satellite makers and suspected Chinese espionage at nuclear facilities.

Those earlier examples never caught on with the public. Furthermore, those activities stretched back into the GOP Bush and Reagan administrations.

But the most recent Los Alamos laboratory security breach was of recent vintage - and the lost-and-found saga was easy to put in simple language.

''In a place such as Los Alamos ... you have less security than at Wal-Mart in terms of checking in and checking out,'' fumed Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo.

If colleagues believed the hard drives never left the secure area, ''we will then be convinced that Santa Claus is a viable being and ... the tooth fairy will trot across the stage,'' said Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C.

The episode was cited as further evidence of what House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla., calls a Clinton ''culture of disdain about security.''

They cite a long list:

- Former CIA Director John Deutch's mishandling of classified material, including processing classified material on unsecured home computers attached to the Internet. The 1996 security breach is currently subject of a Justice Department criminal investigation.

- The loss earlier this year of laptop computers containing classified material from the State Department.

- The discovery in December of a listening device at the State Department in a seventh-floor conference room. A Russian found monitoring the transmissions from his car parked outside the department was expelled from the United States.

- A Pentagon review panel was criticized last winter for giving security clearances to employees of defense contractors who had criminal records, financial problems and histories of drug abuse.

''After a while, the Republican ads write themselves,'' said Stuart Rothenberg, who publishes a political newsletter. He said he fully expects Republicans to use the Los Alamos developments as a campaign issue. ''It goes to the question of competence, of preparedness. I think it could move some voters.''

Pollster Andy Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, said he doesn't believe the matter will have the public impact that it might have had during the Cold War.

Still, Kohut said, ''Anything that doesn't make the government look good is not good for Gore.''

''And it has enough of a curiosity angle with the hard drive missing, then found again, to attract a significant amount of public attention,'' Kohut added.

Democratic pollster Mark Mellman doesn't see that voters will hold Gore in particular or Democrats in general to blame for either high gasoline prices or lax security at Los Alamos.

However, on the security issue, Mellman conceded, ''Everybody is in favor of being able to keep our secrets secret.''

EDITOR'S NOTE - Tom Raum covers national and international affairs for The Associated Press