The San Francisco Chronicle has reported that former Los Alamos security officials Glenn Walp and Steve Doran have been rehired by the University of California. The two had been fired in November for uncovering fraud and management cover-ups at the New Mexico nuclear lab. Walp and Doran put protecting the American taxpayer above Los Alamos’ contract with the University and refused to back off, even when ordered to do so by lab managers.

Ironically, University officials were visiting Los Alamos the day of the firings, but didn’t act until congressional investigators threatened to expand a review to other University managed labs. Walp and Doran were not rehired by Los Alamos. Instead, they were signed to contracts by the University president. They even got back pay, which was timely for Doran, as a bank had recently foreclosed on his home.

Earlier the University had approached another former Energy Department whistleblower to look into lab abuses. He declined, saying that he didn’t trust the lab to follow through on its pledge to finally clean up Los Alamos. He doubts that the University’s new-found vigilance will last much past the current investigations. Even the University’s regents doubt that a new team could uncover the full extent of financial and property management abuses at the lab. But a new acting lab director has promised to "drain the swamp of corruption" at the lab.

To demonstrate his commitment, he recently announced that the lab may have lost yet another computer hard drive containing classified information. But lab managers quickly reverted to form by emphasizing that the hard drive did not contain nuclear weapons information, simply out-dated security plans. They want to head off a replay of the 2000 scandal in which the lab lost five hard drives that did contain nuclear warhead information and sensitive intelligence about foreign nuclear warheads. The hard drives were "missing" for about six weeks, then mysteriously reappeared behind a copy machine inside an FBI crime scene.

The FBI dropped the case when lab officials refused to cooperate and New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici pressured the Bureau to lay off Los Alamos. That time around, Domenici got a lot of help from an apathetic media. But this time he has been powerless to protect Los Alamos. That is due mainly to the doggedness of two media outlets that have refused to drop the story. The Albuquerque Journal’s Adam Rankin revealed new details about the scandal almost daily. He was clearly the beneficiary of a disgruntled lab population sick of corruption and management abuses at the lab. Unlike some of his Journal colleagues, however, the lab couldn’t deter him from writing the stories.

The other media hero of the story is Sharyl Attkisson of CBS Evening News. She got an exclusive interview with Walp and Doran. Lab officials whined that she was "picking on Los Alamos" and that the lab was no worse than any other in the Energy Department complex. The two reporters’ persistence finally stirred the congress to act. Walp and Doran owe the two reporters a note of thanks. So does the American taxpayer.

Reed Irvine can be reached at ri@aim.org