American Notes THE MILITARY

While the nation has been preoccupied with the sex lives of presidential candidates, the Pentagon has been fretting about the sexual practices of the 2.7 million people with Defense Department security clearances. In January the Pentagon expanded its rules to compel service personnel, civilian workers and contract employees with clearances to divulge whether they have engaged in such sexual acts as adultery, sodomy and incest. The rules are intended to ensure that those with access to secrets are not vulnerable to blackmail.

Some critics object that most security problems occur not through sexual blackmail but bribery. Others protest that the new rules may violate civil liberties. Homosexuals will be eligible to get or retain clearances, says a Pentagon spokesman, if there is no threat of blackmail or vulnerability to coercion.