WASHINGTON, May 23 (AFP) - Members of Congress called for heads to roll within the Clinton administration on Sunday, two days ahead of the release of a damning report on alleged Chinese spying. The Cox report, due out Tuesday, details "potentially the greatest failure of American intelligence in our history," said Democratic Senator Richard Toricelli. Speaking on CBS' "Face The Nation," he said: "It is an extraordinary lapse of judgment in the highest levels of law enforcement." Senate Republican Majority Leader Trent Lott told CBS that "some heads should roll" over failure to take swift action. "Somebody made some major mistakes here, and somebody needs to be accountable," he said. The report was compiled by a bipartisan House committee under Republican Representative Christopher Cox and details allegations of Chinese espionage going back decades and the theft of state of the art nuclear secrets. Cox stressed the report was unequivocal that Chinese espionage "has been occurring now for some decades" and that "it continues ... to this day." Republican Richard Shelby, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, blasted the Justice Department for refusing an FBI request for wiretaps on individuals suspected of transferring secrets to China. "It's time for new leadership at the Justice Department," Shelby said on CBS. "The attorney general (Janet Reno) ought to resign and she ought to take her top lieutenants with her," he added. Lawmakers also questioned the response of FBI Director Louis Freeh but were most concerned about what they saw as the apparently tardy and insufficient response of the White House to allegations of spying by China. "There was completely insufficient attention at the White House at the appropriate levels -- which would be the highest levels -- to deal with what are our most important national security matters," Republican Representative Porter Goss told Fox News Sunday. Notra Trulock, deputy intelligence director at the Department of Energy (DOE), said he began talking to administration officials as early as April 1996, but that his warnings went largely unheeded. Trulock told NBC's "Meet the Press" he met with national security adviser Sandy Berger three years ago to warn him about Chinese espionage at US nuclear laboratories, which are run by the DOE. "I was explicit and to the point," Trulock said. Berger has said he subsequently briefed President Bill Clinton and took steps to address the problem. But a year after his first meeting with Berger, Trulock said, "we were sufficiently concerned about the lack of progress ... that we specifically went to the White House and sought their assistance." In March of 1999, however, Clinton insisted he was never informed about Chinese espionage at US nuclear labs. Trulock's remarks, which suggest the White House was informed about China's theft of US nuclear secrets much sooner than it has acknowledged, have opened the door to speculation of a potential cover-up to justify US policy toward the communist power. "The fact that the president and the chief of national security didn't focus on this immediately and deal with it immediately is very disturbing. That's the most scary thing to me," said Goss, chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. Without naming names, Trulock said his warnings were "openly" questioned and ignored, "primarily by (DOE) departmental officials and senior officials at the laboratories." "There was not sufficient urgency within the department and its laboratories about addressing this particular issue," he said, adding: "There was a predisposition not to accept the findings of our work." In July 1998, Trulock's request for permission to brief the House Intelligence Committee was denied. And in May 1998, he was removed from his post as the DOE's director of intelligence. "My sense is that I was too aggressive and too unwilling to back off this issue and let it die," he said. When Energy Secretary Bill Richardson assumed his post, Trulock was asked to stay on as the DOE's deputy intelligence director and an investigation was launched into his cover-up allegations. The probe's findings are due out this week. "There were forces trying to prevent him (Trulock) from testifying even to the Congress," said Cox. Speaking to ABC's "This Week," Richardson insisted that "vigorous measures" were taken to improve security at the nuclear labs, adding: "We can't over-dramatize conclusions that are not conclusive yet."  