Mystery of the nuclear whistleblower (brutal beating of Los Alamos auditor

[Shallah Kali]

A vicious assault on an ex-employee of the Los Alamos weapons lab is the latest in a series of unsolved incidents
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1504617,00.html

The attack was ferocious; a group of up to six men stamped on the head of Hook, a former internal auditor at Los Alamos, with such intensity that footprint marks were still visible on his swollen face days later. A witness claimed that without the intervention of the club's bouncer, Hook would have been murdered. His wife Susan later alleged that the assailants told her husband during the beating that 'if you know what's good for you, you'll keep your mouth shut'.

The attack last week came 48 hours before US government investigators were scheduled to arrive at Hook's home and scrutinise audits detailing financial irregularities amounting to millions of taxpayer dollars at the New Texas laboratory. Now he has been silenced.

SNIP

The Observer has tracked down former whistleblowers and US congressional investigators who claim that people are risking serious harm by exposing flaws in the US atomic project at a time when the Bush administration is intent on resuming nuclear weapons production for the first time in 15 years. The attack has even wider ramifications, coinciding with new evidence revealing Britain's close involvement with the Los Alamos laboratory.

SNIP

Hook too, was about to expose allegations of misconduct against the powerful nuclear lobby. He had been scheduled to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee this month on his allegations. A first meeting with government investigators was arranged for last Wednesday.

I hope someone is protecting this man. he has ticked off people that others don't live long after exposing wrong doing.

[Joebert]

1. If they're going to print something

They should at least get the easy stuff.

"The attack last week came 48 hours before US government investigators were scheduled to arrive at Hook's home and scrutinise audits detailing financial irregularities amounting to millions of taxpayer dollars at the New Texas laboratory. Now he has been silenced."

It's New Mexico. I graduated high school in Los Alamos, I know exactly where this went down. He was 30' from the one of the two main streets in Santa Fe.

If this is all true, and related to the lab, he's lucky they found him. You're only a few miles from I-25 at this bar. At 2:00 in the morning, they could have dragged him into the desert, never to be seen again.

[TahitiNut]

2. As a former internal auditor (6 years) and research scientist at a DOE lab

... (5 years), I can offer an 'educated' opinion that it was indeed in retaliation for whistle-blowing. The 'culture' characterized in the movie "Silkwood" is NOT hyperbole. While there are many, many extraordinary people of good conscience and love of their vocations at the weapons labs, there are also deeply embedded and powerful interests that would stop at nothing to protect their 'rice bowls.' A whistle-blower at a DOE lab is treated worse than a leper. (I know. I was one.)

[hlthe2b]

3. We should start a "support group" for former whistle blowers...

I was one, myself and paid the price. I'd still do it again, but it seems to be a largely thankless exercise. Any success is usually well after those who speak out, feel considerable personal pain...I have such respect for the many who are speaking out at literal risk of life in this current climate and under this administration.

[LiberallyInclined]

4. would you also say that a brutal beating such as this-

is meant to send two messages-
obviously one of them is to the beatee...
the second is to other potential whistleblowers- this is what happens to guys who talk too much.
sometimes you have to scare them into submission.

[TahitiNut]

5. Without a doubt.

I'm not saying it's impossible that this was a "happy coincidence" for those who wished to send him (and others) a message, but under any scenario the pseudo-science control freaks and political sycophants will be able to use the chilling effect to their benefit.

The very fact that it's widely regarded as plausible that embedded interests at the weapons labs would sponsor such a mugging is itself a unavoidable demonstration that such severe corruption in the management of the labs is recognized.

[punpirate]

6. There are also strong commercial...

... interests in the background now. The University of California has created a partnership with Bechtel (to maintain its precarious hold on the lab management contract) and the University of Texas has countered with its own proposed partnership with Lockheed-Martin.

The smell of easy money by such interests could cause all kinds of possible scenarios to be spun out. *sigh*

[formercia]

9. Discreditadion is a standard tactic

They rationalize their behavior by saying that the weapons program must be "protected at all cost". Well, I say that the whistleblowers are protecting the program at great cost if not the ultimate sacrifice.

I had a high level DOE clearance and worked with the NEST Team, so I know the culture. I almost went to work at the Cimmaron Plant where Karen Silkwood worked but when given a tour, I could see uranium dust clearly visible in the working space that I would have been assigned to. Karen had some valid concerns about the quality of the welds in the tubes that the Plutonium/Uranium fuel pellets were to go in. I never spoke with her but I did speak with on of her co-workers (the Native american portrayed in the movie 'Silkwood') and he verified what she was saying. The security and safety was so lax that he told me they used to use defective fuel pellets for slingshout ammunition to shoot at seagulls during lunch break. The bed of the Cimmaron River is highly contaminated with those Plutonium/Uranium pellets.

[formercia]

7. I went to the IG once myself

over the war in Central America, long before Iran Contra. The IG came back and told me that "the Director is very concerned but we find no evidence to substantiate your concerns." I was threatened within days, even though I had told no one and am still being harassed decades later. I'd still do it again, and yes, it's a thankless task.

[Supersedeas]

8. the Corporate Media wants us to believe it was a simple scuffle at a

boobie bar.

Nothing to see here folks. And down the Corporate Media memory hole it goes.

[formercia]

10. Nothing to see here, please move on....

Didn't think you would be fooled by that line...

[gratuitous]

11. Only in George W. Bush's America

With the connivance of a corporate media that values profits uber alles would this episode be a "mystery."

The corrupt sheriff watched as the black man's body was hoisted out of the water, trussed up in 500 pounds of chains. He shook his head and said to his deputy, "Now ain't that just like one of those lazy, shiftless fellas to steal more chains than he could swim away with?"