Whistle-Blower's Fight For Pension Drags On
Former Defense Official Seeks Private Relief Bill
By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post
From a cramped motor home in a Montana campground where Internet access is as spotty as the trout, Richard Barlow wakes each morning to battle Washington.
Once a top intelligence officer at the Pentagon who helped uncover Pakistan's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, Barlow insisted on telling the truth, and it led to his undoing.
He complained in 1989 that top officials in the administration of President George H.W. Bush -- including the deputy assistant secretary of defense -- were misleading Congress about the Pakistani program. He was fired and stripped of his security clearances. His intelligence career was destroyed; his marriage collapsed.
Federal investigations found Barlow was unfairly fired, winning him sympathy from dozens of Democratic and Republican lawmakers and public interest groups. But for 17 years, he has fought without success to gain a federal pension, blocked at every turn by legal and political obstacles also faced by other federal intelligence whistle-blowers.
"This case has been put before the Congress to right a wrong, and for various reasons, they've failed to do it," said Robert Gallucci, dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and an expert in nonproliferation. "It's infuriating."
(Continued here.)
By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post
From a cramped motor home in a Montana campground where Internet access is as spotty as the trout, Richard Barlow wakes each morning to battle Washington.
Once a top intelligence officer at the Pentagon who helped uncover Pakistan's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, Barlow insisted on telling the truth, and it led to his undoing.
He complained in 1989 that top officials in the administration of President George H.W. Bush -- including the deputy assistant secretary of defense -- were misleading Congress about the Pakistani program. He was fired and stripped of his security clearances. His intelligence career was destroyed; his marriage collapsed.
Federal investigations found Barlow was unfairly fired, winning him sympathy from dozens of Democratic and Republican lawmakers and public interest groups. But for 17 years, he has fought without success to gain a federal pension, blocked at every turn by legal and political obstacles also faced by other federal intelligence whistle-blowers.
"This case has been put before the Congress to right a wrong, and for various reasons, they've failed to do it," said Robert Gallucci, dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and an expert in nonproliferation. "It's infuriating."
(Continued here.)
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