Wondering about Whelan: Could he be a spy?

The Santa Fe New New Mexican has published several articles regarding former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan. While I was never in the CIA, over the years I’ve had many interactions with CIA people and even a few KGB folks. I’m a physicist, retired after 38 years from Los Alamos National Laboratory; my field is nuclear safeguards and nonproliferation. Most of my work was for and with the International Atomic Energy Agency headquartered in Vienna, Austria.

On a change of station to the Department of Energy in Washington, D.C., I learned that many federal workers in the Department of Energy and the Department of State also had worked at the CIA; some had even been detailed anonymously to the State Department from the CIA. It was common for anyone associated with the International Atomic Energy Agency to refer to it as “the agency.” After arriving at the DOE, I learned that in Washington, D.C., “the agency” is always assumed to be the CIA.

I’ve lived, worked and traveled in more than 50 countries. Upon returning to LANL, I was always questioned officially about my experiences as to whether I’d been asked strange questions about U.S. policy, LANL or my work. Occasionally, I knew these to be CIA people working at LANL. I’ve no doubt the CIA interviews U.S. business persons and reporters working in other countries for information and possible assistance.

I developed and directed training courses for nuclear facility and governmental organizations on IAEA and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons safeguards. These were three-week affairs with 30-plus participants from almost as many countries. I realized there were always persons following our group who were in some way related to the CIA. The first time I was aware of this, I asked a colleague about it; his advice was, “Doug, let them do their job, and you do yours.”

The pervasiveness of the CIA and its assets in the USA and around the world is vast. In another paper, I read a statement that Whelan “would be a likely spy;” this might well be correct. Of course, it may not be so. However, today we read that Whelan has citizenship in four nations: Canada, Ireland, the U.K. and the U.S. I’ve known many people with dualcitizenship but never one with citizenship in four countries and four passports.

T. Douglas Reilly is a physicist, retired from LANL, EURATOM, DOE and the IAEA. His field is nuclear safeguards and nonproliferation.