The US State Department was rocked Tuesday by the resignation of a top-level diplomat to protest the suspension of his deputy due to security breaches at the department.
A total of six State Department staffers were accused of negligence for the disappearance in January of a laptop computer chock-full of classified coded information.
Two staffers were dismissed early last month and a decision was made last week to suspend without pay for 30 days and then reassign a high-level intelligence staffer to a position where he will no longer be involved in policymaking.
Donald Keyser's superior, career ambassador Stapleton Roy, who was due to retire next month, resigned in protest, effective Tuesday, said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.
Roy is one of the State Department's top China experts and has served as the US ambassador to Indonesia, China and Singapore. His recent contributions to US diplomacy include acting as a special negotiator for conflicts in the former Soviet Union.
Tuesday's Washington Post quoted a former ambassador as saying that "Stape Roy says it (the suspension of Donald Keyser) is unjustified and said, 'If you've lost confidence in my deputy, then you've lost confidence in me.'"
The daily also said that Roy's associates indicated that "resigning was the strongest way to signal his displeasure with Albright."
A top State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP that Roy felt that "given other people in the bureau were being held responsible for the loss of the laptop, he felt that, as the leader of the bureau he should take responsibility, too, and leave early."
Albright asked last year for a drastic reinforcement in security measures following several unconscionable breaches, including the discovery of an eavesdropping device in a conference room and the disappearance of classified documents.
The laptop, which contained confidential nuclear non-proliferation documents, went missing from another State Department conference room.
Albright in May warned her staff about continued security breaches, noting that their rank in government was irrelevant if they were unable to keep State Department information safe.
"I don't care how skilled you are as a diplomat, how brilliant you may be at meetings or how creative you are as an administrator; if you are not professional about security, you are a failure," she said.
Another top-ranking diplomat, US ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, was disciplined in September for his lack of attention to the security of his personal computer.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Tuesday that the six staffers whose penalties range from letters of discipline to dismissal from their positions -- will have the opportunity to appeal the measures before they are applied permanently.
According to The Washington Post, Albright has been almost unanimously condemned by foreign service officers for the sanctions imposed on her staff so late in her term.
The Secretary of State is due to leave for Africa Wednesday, where she will visit Botswana, South Africa and Mauritius -- WASHINGTON (AFP)
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