DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
                     SUMMARY OF RECORDS SEARCH
                  ON HUMAN RADIATION EXPERIMENTS

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY COMMITMENT
Department of Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary pledged in December
1993 a full review of the scope of experiments using radiation on
human subjects conducted or sponsored by the Department and its
predecessor agencies. The Department of Energy is committed to
maintaining as a top priority its documents search and records
dissemination to the Advisory Committee, Congress, and the
public.

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY STRATEGY
In December 1993, Department of Energy personnel were directed by
Secretary O'Leary to cease routine and non-routine destruction of
documents and to identify all pertinent records and information
relating to human radiation experiments in the Department's
possession and in the possession of our laboratories and
contractors. The records retrieval effort is managed by Assistant
Secretary for Environment, Safety and Health Dr. Tara O'Toole.

An Office of Human Radiation Experiments and Information Center
has been established to guide and oversee record retrieval
activities by the field and by Headquarters. Personnel for this
Office are varied in discipline: records managers, archivists,
historians, health physicists, and security evaluation
specialists among others. The Office is currently headed by Glenn
S. Podonsky, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Security Evaluations.


DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY RECORDS SEARCH

Small multidisciplinary teams began travelling to field locations
on April 4, 1994 to review field record collection activities.
The teams will make two visits to each major location that may
have participated in, performed, or sponsored radiation
experiments involving humans. The teams will also retrieve
documents that have been previously identified and placed in
public reading rooms.

Team members have visited the Albuquerque Operations Office, the
Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Oak Ridge Operations Office,
Oak Ridge Associated Universities and other Oak Ridge sites.
These two visits resulted in the collection of over
1,000 documents pertaining to human radiation experiments. The
Headquarters Information Center has over 1,300 documents as a
result of this retrieval effort.

Field offices and Department of Energy contractors have been
directed to retrieve all documentation on experiments using
radiation on human subjects. Departmental offices have identified
approximately 2,500 records of human radiation experiments and
placed them in public reading rooms throughout the country. The
field thoroughly records the origins of the documents and keeps a
detailed account of the records searched and the location of the
records. Pertinent records are then shipped to Nevada for
additional processing and dissemination.

The Department's Coordination and Information Center (CIC) at the
Nevada Operations Office is the central repository for
information related to nuclear weapons production and testing.
Copies of all relevant Department of Energy documents are being
sent to 
the CIC, who ensure the security of the records and scan them for
computerization. The Headquarters Information Center then
receives the records for dissemination to the Advisory Committee,
Congress, and public.

GUIDANCE REQUESTED OF THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE 

Department of Energy records pertaining to human radiation
research are spread throughout the country and in the possession
of not only the Department and its current contractors, but also
in the possession of universities and former contractors and
employees. Current Department personnel may not be familiar with
the circumstances surrounding certain events of the Cold War. The
Department would value the guidance of the Advisory Committee in
helping focus the records search activities on specific
experiments or groups of experiments. An increase in the
specificity of the definition of experiments that qualify under
the Executive Order is critical in ensuring a complete inventory
of appropriate records.