ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- Thousands of federal workers for the Energy Department have been told to report liaisons -- romantic or otherwise -- with people from countries thought to be developing nuclear weapons.

A notice sent out last month requires 67,000 workers cleared to handle defense secrets to report sexual encounters, friendships or professional relationships with any foreign national if they spend "private time" together -- even on the Internet -- or if either one shares information about their personal or professional lives.

The countries include all former Soviet republics, China, Israel, India, North Korea, Cuba and Taiwan.

Top-security workers don't have to report one-time sexual contact with a foreign national from listed countries as long as they are not prying for classified information.

Foreign intelligence agencies sometimes use young women to tease secrets from American scientists during pillow talk or other romantic liaisons, said Ed Curran, counterintelligence chief for the Energy Department.

"This is done on a daily basis today," Curran, who wrote the Aug. 17 memo, said in a story published Wednesday in the Albuquerque Journal.

"There are many, many cases of this," he said. "The 50-, 60-year-old person stationed overseas for months, away from family and children, that person could be especially vulnerable to this kind of effort."


Associated Press, filed at 10:14 a.m. EDT, September 2, 1999.