This page created 1999-2001 by Tom Jhou.
In March 1999, the New York Times broke an apparently sensational spy story, accusing Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee of stealing America's nuclear "crown jewels" for China. Lee was quickly dubbed the "spy of the century", "worse than the Rosenbergs", and "public enemy number one". But over the next year, many of the accusations did not hold up under scrutiny, and were quietly retracted. Despite massive effort (over 100 FBI agents assigned to investigate Lee), no evidence of spying could be found, and Lee was finally released from jail after 9 months solitary confinement, and with an unusually lengthy apology from the presiding judge. Lee went on to sue the federal government and several newspapers, receiving a substantial out-of-court settlement in 2006.
Often in public opinion, the original sensational story can become more memorable than later corrections. People's prejudices and emotions may further distort the already exaggerated reports, causing the story to take on a life of its own. This was evident in the questions I heard from friends, family, and acquaintances. In an effort to straighten out some of the stories, I've posted a few of the questions I've heard below:
1. Isn't Wen Ho Lee from China? Doesn't that make him sympathetic to the totalitarian government in China?
No! Lee has never lived in China, and is a native of Taiwan, a Democracy and one of the few countries even more suspicious of Chinese aggression than America, as their very existence is threatened by it. Lee's ethnicity does not determine guilt or innocence, but since it has become an issue, one should be aware that it does not automatically make him sympathetic to the authoritarian government in China, and may actually have the reverse effect.
2. Didn't Wen Ho Lee put classified data on his computer at home?
No! Lee has admitted all along that he put classified data on unclassified computers within Los Alamos. Other Los Alamos employees did this too, as the unclassified computers are still relatively secure by civilian standards. But there is no evidence he took data out of the buildings where he worked. Those who think Lee took data home may be confusing him with MIT Professor John Deutsch, a former CIA director who did put classified top secret data on his personal computer at home. Incidentally, Deutsch was pardoned for this crime by Bill Clinton (whereas Lee was not), even though Deutsch's crimes were by some objective standards more serious.
3. Didn't Wen Ho Lee steal the "crown jewels" of the U.S. nuclear program, including "top-secret" information on the W-88 warhead?
No! China is alleged to have stolen W-88 engineering design specifications, but much of Lee's data was raw simulation results, not readily turned into design specifications. Although China did build a weapon believed to be modeled after the American W-88, they completed it in 1988, 5 years before Lee made his tapes.
4. Didn't Wen Ho Lee fail two lie detector tests? This is what Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said on "60 Minutes".
Actually, Lee passed the first test, given in Dec. 1998, according to those who administered it. But months later, that finding was overturned by FBI officials who were not present during the test. Such a post-test reversal is highly irregular, to say the least, and has been vehemently contested by some experts in the field. The following page gives more details about what happened , along with testimony from the chairman of the American Polygraph Association (Richard Keifer):
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/02/04/national/main157220.shtml
As you can see, both Lee's testers and independent outside reviewers think he passed. In the above interview, Keifer noted that Lee's scores were stellar, and highly consistent with him telling the truth. In fact, Wen Ho Lee's son (in a talk given at Harvard in 2000) reported that his father scored a 22, well above the passing threshold of 5.
As for the second polygraph test, it was administered under hostile conditions that independent experts have argued make its validity questionable. Its results have not been released for independent scrutiny.
5. Didn't China build a nuclear warhead resembling the American W-88, the very one which Lee was working on?
Yes, but as noted above, it was completed 5 years before Lee started downloading the data he is accused of mishandling.
6. Because Wen Ho Lee admitted mishandling classified material (a felony), doesn't he deserve harsh punishment?
All of Lee's material was either unclassified, or classified as PARD ("protected as restricted data"), the lowest level of secrecy. Mishandling PARD data, as with all classified data, is indeed a felony, but at the PARD level this is rarely prosecuted. Interestingly, some of Lee's material was surreptitiously re-classified as top-secret after Lee's arrest, and years after the data was originally classified8.
Others who committed similar or worse offenses, like John Deutsch, who placed top-secret data on his home computer, didn't even serve jail time, whereas Lee spent 9 months in solitary confinement, often in leg shackles, while accumulating over a million dollars in legal fees and being vilified by the FBI as "public enemy number one". Lee did commit a crime, but his punishment appears incommensurate. And it's not over yet - even after being released, high ranking officials such as former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson promised to take even more damaging action against this man.
7. Doesn't China use a vast network of Chinese-American spies? This is what the Cox report suggested.
No - in fact, the FBI has concluded that rather than using spies, China relies mostly on leaks and on unclassified information, both of which are abundant. In fact, only one person of Asian descent has ever been convicted of stealing American secrets. This person was Peter Lee (no relationship to Wen Ho Lee), and the information he gave to China is considered to be relatively inconsequential. Unlike Wen Ho Lee, Peter Lee was not a US citizen, so the number of Asian-Americans convicted of spying is zero. Zilch. Zip. I'm emphasizing this point, because you might have gotten a different impression, given all the political hype about Chinese-American spies. Some of said hype was exacerbated by a report from Republican congressman Christopher Cox, which insinuated that China gathers American secrets via a network of Asian-American spies. The report cited no evidence aside from the Peter Lee case I mentioned above.
If the Cox Report had claimed that African countries use black Americans for spying, there would be an immediate (and justified) outcry questioning the claim. But the same statement made against Asian-Americans became widely accepted in a remarkably short period.
8. Didn't Wen Ho Lee visit other Chinese scientists while he was working at Los Alamos?
Yes, but so did over 80 other coworkers of Dr. Lee. Few, if any, of them were targeted for investigation. Meanwhile, some Chinese who did not visit China, and did not even have security clearance, were investigated4.
9. Perhaps Wen Ho Lee is just a very crafty spy, who cleverly eluded the FBI's best efforts over 7 years to find evidence of his espionage.
I have heard this argument many times. But if Lee was such a crafty spy, why did he leave self-incriminating tapes in his desk drawer for 7 years? Why were his supposedly illicit meetings with Chinese scientists openly documented as part of lab-sanctioned trips? Why did he immediately volunteer so much information to the FBI that was summarily used against him? Those making this argument are trying to have it both ways: claiming that Lee is such a dumb spy that he didn't hide obviously self-incriminating material, yet such a smart spy that he erased all traces of actual spying. I have seen no coherent explanation why one should accept this contorted reasoning over the simpler premise that he wasn't a spy?
10. Doesn't China have one of the world's largest nuclear programs, and aren't they poised to use them against Taiwan, Tibet, and the U.S.?
The best estimates suggest that China's nuclear program is quite small in global terms. Only about 2 dozen Chinese nuclear missiles are capable of hitting the U.S., whereas we have thousands capable of hitting China. There are several former Soviet Republics with more nuclear weapons than China. It is dangerous to underestimate China, but equally unhelpful to blow their capabilities out of proportion while ignoring other threats. For more on China's weapons, see here: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/China/ChinaArsenal.html
11. Just to be safe, shouldn't we prosecute Wen Ho Lee because China is a dangerous country and we can't afford the slightest chance of proliferating nuclear weapons?
Of course, nuclear weapons are dangerous. But so was the American over-reaction to Lee. By assigning over 100 FBI agents to investigate a single person based on weak or misleading evidence, it is more likely that the real spy, if one ever existed, got away unnoticed. As early as 1997, the FBI director had concluded that Wen Ho Lee was an unlikely spy, but the Clinton administration was under pressure from its opponents to prove that it would be tough on China. Wen Ho Lee, indeed guilty of mishandling data, though not of actual spying, became a convenient target. Unfortunately, the resultant scapegoating and political posturing made national security worse, not better. Although Wen Ho Lee is no hero, the real threat to national security is not him, but the zealots who spent enormous resources persecuting him because he fit a politically convenient profile.
And last but not least ...
12. Why did this whole incident happen?
There is plenty of blame to go around. Wen Ho Lee obviously bears responsibility for copying his work. But this shouldn't have caused a political circus. Former Los Alamos Counterintelligence Chief Robert Vrooman has stated that Lee was racially profiled, along with several other Asian-Americans 4 Another factor was overzealous journalism. A New York Times columnist who broke the original story, Jeff Gerth, also made the first accusatory claims about the Clintons' Whitewater land deals, which ultimately led to the massive and infamous Independent Counsel investigation that found no wrongdoing in Whitewater. As with the Lee story, Gerth's other claims were a lot of smoke but no fire, but nonetheless were instrumental in heating up an already hostile political environment. I found it quite insightful to read about Gerth's reporting history, which is detailed further in several articles (for example: here.) Finally, Lee's own political naivete played a part; even months after he knew he was a suspect, he refused to get a lawyer because, as he told his daughter, how could he need a lawyer since he had done nothing wrong?
by Tom Jhou, Fall 1999.
References:
1
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~macro/public_html/Macrocosm/Divisions/Editorial/website/pages/latestissue/wenholee/wenholee.html
An early editorial written while Lee was still in jail. Clearly, the flaws in the case were evident quite early.
2
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20001023/scheer
A thorough and detailed article in "The Nation"
3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wen_ho_lee
Wikipedia article about Wen Ho Lee
4
http://www.fas.org/irp/ops/ci/vrooman.html
Robert Vrooman's statement about how Lee's name was selected for investigation
5
http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2000/09/21/nyt/index.html
Salon.com article about New York Times' role in fanning the flames
6
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/China/ChinaArsenal.html
An estimate of China's nuclear capabilities, compared with other countries
7
http://www.wenholee.org
One-stop site for most up to date information about Wen Ho Lee and his case
8
http://ftp.fas.org/sgp/news/2000/04/nyt041500.html
Copy of the Times article regarding reclassification of PARD data to top-secret