A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The military exchange services operate a wide range of retail activities, such as department stores, florist shops, barber and beauty shops, gas stations, and restaurants. Hamburger restaurants represent a major segment of the exchange services' name-brand, fast-food sales. The exchange services use either a direct or an indirect method to operate these restaurants. Under the direct method, the exchange service enters into a franchise agreement with a name-brand company to sell its product on a military installation. As the franchisee, the exchange service builds and operates the restaurant and directly employs and trains the personnel. In turn, the exchange service receives all of the revenues and profits and usually pays the company a licensing fee plus a percentage of the restaurant's sales. Under the indirect method, the exchange service contracts with a name-brand company that, in turn, builds the restaurant and either operates it as a company restaurant or provides a licensed operator. The company or its licensed operator hires, trains, and pays the restaurant personnel and usually pays annual fees and commissions to the exchange service on the basis of restaurant's sales. Under this agreement, …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Energy (DOE) maintains millions of classified documents containing highly sensitive nuclear weapons design and production information. Allegations that the Peoples Republic of China obtained nuclear warhead designs from an employee of DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory, as well as the disappearance of two computer hard drives containing highly sensitive weapons information from that same laboratory, have raised concerns about how effectively DOE protects classified information, particularly the most sensitive classified information that is contained in vaults and computer systems. DOE's security program consists of many strategies for protecting and controlling classified information, such as controlling access to classified information through physical and administrative barriers and determining whether a person's work requires a "need to know" the information. DOE has recently increased protection for top-secret documents by revising its Classified Matter Protection and Control Manual, which provides detailed requirements for the protection and control of classified matter. This report reviews the (1) extent to which DOE's Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories have implemented DOE's established access controls and need-to-know requirements for classified vaults and computer systems containing the most sensitive classified information as …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Workers' compensation "occupational accident" policies were brought to the reinsurance market by Unicover Managers, Inc., a reinsurance pool manager and intermediary. Reinsurance is the acceptance by one insurance company of a portion of the risk or claims loss underwritten by another insurance company for a share of the premium to support that risk. In a reinsurance pool arrangement, several reinsurers combine their capital and delegate underwriting authority to a pool manager that is normally not exposed to risk from the reinsurance. Losses from the failed Unicover venture came in the wake of rapid, high-volume, multilevel reinsurance of portions of workers' compensation policies that were initially underpriced in the aggregate because of a highly competitive market. Reinsurance activities had the effect of subsidizing unprofitable workers' compensation insurance at the expense of insurance companies that reinsured the business. Five rating agencies took a series of rating downgrade actions on two of the five insurance companies GAO reviewed. The other three insurance companies experienced substantial losses but were not downgraded because either the insurer was more than adequately capitalized or the parent organization made capital contributions to cover the anticipated losses …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews trade adjustment assistance and other assistance programs, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement Transitional Adjustment Assistance (NAFTA-TAA) program, to determine if they have helped distressed communities deal with the adverse impacts of trade. GAO conducted case studies in six such trade-impacted communities, all of which experienced major trade-related plant closures and layoffs in the mid- to late-1990s. Two communities lost a large percentage of local jobs in sudden plant closures and experienced economic crises. The other communities experienced rolling layoffs or a series of smaller plant closures that dislocated as many or more workers but did so gradually. Experiences in the communities GAO visited indicate that Temporary Adjustment Assistance (TAA) and NAFTA-TAA assistance to dislocated workers, although substantial, could be implemented more effectively. Program administrators and training providers in each community said that the programs have structural problems that impede effective service delivery. One factor that influenced the implementation of training benefits in many communities is that a significant percentage of dislocated workers needed to earn a high school equivalency degree or take remedial courses before they could even start a …