DATE=12/20/1999
TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP
TITLE=THE MYSTEROUS CASE OF WEN HO LEE
NUMBER=6-11602
BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS
TELEPHONE=619-3335
CONTENT=
INTRO: The Federal Bureau of Investigation has
finally arrested an ethnic Chinese scientists, Wen Ho
Lee, accusing him of removing secret data from the Los
Alamos National Laboratory.
The case has been widely publicized since a government
report in January accused the Energy Department of lax
security in guarding the nation's nuclear secrets.
Mr. Lee is said to have transferred nuclear weapons
information to his home computer without
authorization. But the question of whether he is also
a spy for China, remains to be proved.
And now, Mr. Lee is fighting back, with lawsuits
against the U-S government for invasion of his
privacy. The case has generated a good deal of
comment in the nation's editorial columns. We get a
sampling now from __________ in today's U-S Opinion
Roundup.
TEXT: Mr. Lee has worked at the Los Alamos National
Laboratory for years, until earlier this year when he
was fired pending the outcome of this investigation.
Although the F-B-I has been investigating Mr. Lee for
three-years, his case did not become public until this
year. When it did, there were suggestions by the
government that Mr. Lee had passed vital secrets on
the miniaturization of U-S nuclear bombs to the
Chinese. But the government apparently does not have
any hard evidence to support those early charges, only
that he took classified information home and entered
it on his home computer.
Now Mr. Lee and his wife are suing the F-B-I, and the
Justice and Energy Departments for violating his
rights under the government's privacy laws. Mr. Lee
claims the agencies illegally provided personal and
confidential information to the news media that
portrayed him as a spy when they did not have facts to
prove it.
We begin our sampling with a somewhat sarcastic
editorial in the [Minneapolis, Minnesota] "Star-
Tribune".
VOICE: O, how the China spying case has
shriveled. . Six-months ago, Republicans in
Congress were conjuring images of wildly
successful Chinese espionage efforts against the
United States on Bill Clinton's watch -- indeed
with the president's money-grubbing complicity.
. Exhibit One in the case against China and
[Mr.] Clinton was the obviously guilty Wen Ho
Lee, nuclear scientist at the Los Alamos
National Laboratory. Why was [Mr.] Lee
obviously guilty? Because though he is an
American citizen, he was born in Taiwan and
liked to associate with Chinese scientists.
Probably likes Szechwan [food] too. . The
entire spying issue looks very much like a
tempest in a pot of green tea. . Perhaps [Mr.]
Lee is a legitimate national-security risk, but
right now he looks a lot more like a man tagged
to serve as scapegoat.
TEXT: The San Diego "Union-Tribune" is upset at the
way the government has handled the case, and says that
although there may be "The scent of espionage" to the
affair, . "scientist Wen Ho Lee deserves a fair
trial."
VOICE: Wen Ho Lee rocketed to the heights of
American public attention after the January
release of the Cox Commission report on Chinese
espionage at our nation's nuclear weapons
laboratories. Since that time, [Mr.] Lee, a
Taiwan-born American citizen, has been under
suspicion of having passed our nation's nuclear
secrets to Beijing. [Mr.] Lee, who was fired
from his job . in March, has proclaimed his
innocence, but .the . government [has] indicted
[him] on 59 counts of violating the Atomic
Energy Act by allegedly moving classified data
from secured Los Alamos computers to unsecured
computers. . Politicians only fueled the flames
by arguing that all foreign scientists should be
barred from our nuclear weapons laboratories.
/// OPT /// Further fuel was supplied with
thinly veiled comments sometimes linking Asian-
Americans under suspicion for making or
accepting illegal campaign contributions to the
1996 Clinton-Gore campaign to the findings of
the report.
TEXT: In San Francisco, where the nation's largest
ethnic Chinese population lives, "The San Francisco
Chronicle" tried to put the Lee affair in wider
perspective.
VOICE: Mr. Lee has become a symbol of the
debate over proper relations with Beijing. In
broad terms, trade and political links between
this country and China are too important for a
single espionage case to disrupt. But this
general dictum must go with a watchful attitude
and tough punishment for lapses in security. It
is important to find just what he did, not just
to settle his own case, but also to inform the
rest of the country about how secure our nuclear
arsenal is.
TEXT: "The New York Times" agrees with "The
Chronicle". He must, the paper says, get a fair
trial, but even the lesser charges brought against
him, are quite serious in their own right.
VOICE: In view of the case against Mr. Lee, his
indictment last Friday [12/10] seems warranted.
At least for now, he has not been charged with
the graver crime of espionage, because evidence
is lacking that he passed these stolen nuclear
secrets to China or any other foreign power.
Because of the publicity, political pressures
and accusations of ethnic stereotyping produced
by this case, it is essential that Mr. Lee's
right to a fair trial be protected. The
government's case must be vigorously tested,
even though much of the evidence involves
nuclear secrets. .. Even if Mr. Lee was not
involved in giving nuclear weapons secrets to
China, the systematic copying and removal of
highly classified material he is charged with is
a se5rious offense, carrying a potential penalty
of life imprisonment. If a fair trial
establishes his guilt, he should be punished.
TEXT: Lastly, another highly critical assessment of
the government's handling of this case, from "The Los
Angeles Times".
VOICE: Whatever the extent of actual espionage,
the investigations conducted by the Energy
Department and the F-B-I are now known to have
been astonishingly inept, incomplete and -- in
their premature public identification of Wen Ho
Lee as the prime suspect -- grossly prejudicial.
Asian-American organizations and others are
asserting that [Mr.] Lee, a Taiwanese who is a
naturalized American, is a victim of political
animosity toward China and, ultimately, or
racial prejudice. That is a disturbing
allegation. But given the maladroit way this
espionage investigation has been handled, it is
not one that can be casually dismissed.
TEXT: On that note, we conclude this sampling of
comment on the controversial case of former U-S
Nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, now accused of improper
handling of classified material.
NEB/ANG/RAE
20-Dec-1999 14:27 PM EDT (20-Dec-1999 1927 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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