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Widow breaks silence to counter Area 51 name claim

The widow of a former Groom Lake air base worker broke a yearlong silence Monday to counter statements by a government lawyer who said last week that Area 51 is not a name used to identify the base.

Las Vegan Helen Frost claims the death of her husband, Robert Frost, in 1989 is linked to exposure from toxic chemicals at the base. She has not spoken publicly about the case since January 1994, when she decided to pursue a federal lawsuit.

Frost is the only plaintiff identified by name in two suits against the heads of four government agencies in connection with waste disposal activities at the base, 35 miles west of Alamo in Lincoln County.

"I can't believe it," Frost, 56, said in a telephone interview Monday about statements made Friday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas by Department of Justice lawyer Richard Sarver.

"Everyone knows it's Area 51. When he was working there he used to get report cards -- evaluation records. Every one of those had "Area 51" on it," she said about her late husband, who was a sheet metal worker for a Department of Energy contractor, Reynolds Electrical & Engineering Co.

Frost was one of many contract workers the Energy Department loaned to the Air Force to build hangars and carry out maintenance at the base, identified in court papers filed by her lawyer as Area 51, Groom Lake, Score Event, Dreamland and the Watertown Strip.

The name of the base is a central issue in the lawsuits that claim the government used secrecy to hide illegal, open-pit burning of hazardous chemicals.

One of the lawsuits names Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner because, it says, her agency failed to inspect the federal installation for compliance with hazardous waste laws.

But Sarver, during a teleconference hearing Friday before Judge Philip Pro, said, "It's important to note that the name, Area 51, is not responsive to theplaintiffs' interrogatory. Area 51 is not the name of the operating location near Groom Lake," Sarver said.

On Monday, spokesman Jim Sweeney said, "The Department of Justice stands behind our attorney, Richard Sarver's statements before the court."

The Air Force does not acknowledge a military base with an airstrip and hangars exists at Groom Lake. The Air Force confirms only that "there is an operating location near Groom dry lake," according to a statement issued by the Air Force on Oct. 26.

Frost's attorney, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, however, filed a 300-page exhibit with the court that asserts the base has been referred to in government documents and correspondence, including the Congressional Record.

Copies of the documents show that the name, Area 51, was used in reference to the base by an attorney for Reynolds Electrical & Engineering Co., William Maupin, and by an attorney for the Frost family, Gabriel Martinez, in a State Industrial Insurance System appeals hearing on Dec. 17, 1990.

The name, Area 51, appears at least six times in the transcript that details questioning of Ken Pagliaro, a former Air Force master sergeant, who testified that he was an aircraft mechanic who worked in Area 51 from 1983 to 1987. Pagliaro is Frost's son-in-law.

Maupin, who is now a Clark County district judge, filed a memorandum in the SIIS appeals hearing that says "cafeteria meals at Area 51 were always catered from outside" and that fire drills were performed at the Nevada Test Site "but nowhere near Area 51."

Frost said, "There was an Air Force representative (Kenneth Roberts) at the SIIS hearing and they called it Area 51 at the whole hearing."

Frost, confirming other documents that have been submitted to the federal court record, said she has letters from Reynolds' general manager in 1990, Dale Fraser, including one in which he says Robert Frost's employment with the company "was with our Systems Construction Department in Area 51."

Another letter letter on Department of Energy stationery, dated April 3, 1990, to Fraser from Walter J. White, acting assistant manager for administration at the Energy Department's Nevada Operations Office is titled, "Area 51 Health Complaint."