DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON
SECTION: STATUS OF US INTELLIGENCE
SUBSECTION: UNDERMANNED, UNSUPPORTED
Revised 8/20/99

 

UNDERMANNED AND UNSUPPORTED

Intelligence officers have been forced to retire (or resign) by the Clinton Administration for operations which took place during the Reagan presidency. In no instance were these operations "outside the bounds"; all complied with US laws and statutes (and still do). This Administration, through budget changes, has reduced to a trickle the amount of "hard intelligence" being produced (good intelligence costs, whether the intelligence is garnered through human assets or "technology"). The ever-shrinking budget has forced the closing down of offices throughout the world, many of which provided extremely useful "pieces" to a much larger puzzle. The mainstream media has sided with Clinton in deriding the IC for their "failure" to warn the Administration regarding India's nuclear weapons testing. To the contrary, Clinton was warned well in advance - it is true that the specific office which was watching for the tests didn't catch the first one until it had already happened. This office used to work 24 hours a day 365 days a year; but due to the Administration's budget cuts (and subsequent reduction in personnel) this office hasn't been working this schedule for the last four years. Mainstream media has neglected to mention that particular fact. All of the IC the FR source has served with have been men (and some women) of honor and integrity; all take the Constitution and the security of the US very, very seriously.

In a closed door session with the Senate Intelligence committee, CIA director George Tenet was "enraged" by the White House's contention that the agency failed to pick up signs India was readying nuclear tests. Tenet defended the CIA and blamed the White House, saying "We were simply ignored." According to a former U.S. military and intelligence official, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the weeks leading up to the first test sent a letter to the White House outlining plans to conduct nuclear tests in the near future. In spring 1997, CIA operatives detected preparations for a nuclear test in India and presented the White House NSC staff with evidence. The NSC staff in turn confronted the Indian government with the raw intelligence data. "The Indians saw what the U.S. had, were able to figure out how we got the material, and then were able to map out procedures so that future test preparations were better concealed . The White House basically handed them a blueprint of how to pull off a successful test." The White House has also provided Russia and China with intelligence material they were able to use to their advantage in blunting further U.S. intelligence gathering.

Peter Leitner, 12 year veteran of to Defense Technology Security Administration DTSA, said the largest blow to DTSA will come in October, when the agency is scheduled to be transferred from the Pentagon's prestigious policy division to a new office controlled by DTSA's detractors, military acquisition officials who favor foreign sales as a way to help American contractors and control costs. The Clinton administration has "neutered" DTSA's 140 employees through a variety of means, Leitner said: by naming Pentagon leaders who disagree with DTSA's central mission, by giving DTSA analysts only minutes or hours to decipher the complexities of the 21,000 proposed high-tech transfers it reviews each year, by reducing DTSA's dealings with intelligence agencies knowledgeable about foreign adversaries and by establishing interagency procedures skewed toward sale of U.S. technology.

BBC 9/5/98 "The United States has conceded that the rocket launched by North Korea on Monday could have put a satellite in orbit - and may not have been a test of a new ballistic missile. An American intelligence official was quoted as saying that Washington was still analysing data, but the possibility that it was a genuine satellite launch could not be ruled out. In Moscow, Itar-Tass news agency said Russian space monitors confirmed that the North Koreans had successfully put up a satellite. It was said to be circling the earth every two hours and 45 minutes in a high, elliptical orbit.."

AP John Diamond 9/16/98 "The CIA is pumping money and people into recruiting efforts to battle a trend that the agency's departing inspector general says has sapped the clandestine service of its most experienced hands. Agency officials outlined Tuesday initiatives that CIA Director George Tenet announced internally last month to increase pay, provide hiring bonuses and shorten the waiting time for job offers..The program is intended to combat a problem outlined in an op-ed article by outgoing CIA Inspector General Fred Hitz who said the CIA's Directorate of Operations, the clandestine spy service, is losing its best people amid organizational drift and declining morale.."

9/24/98 AP John Diamond "North Korea surprised the United States by launching a three-stage rocket and, with lighter payloads, could be on the way to developing an intercontinental-range weapon, U.S. intelligence officials are telling lawmakers. In a classified briefing Wednesday on Capitol Hill, the nation's top military and civilian intelligence officials told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that they were closely examining the system launched by Pyongyang and studying whether lighter payloads might extend its range enough to reach the United States. ``The fact that they had a third-stage capability was not predicted by the intelligence community, and they are doing a reassessment,'' Sen. Chuck Robb, D-Va., said after a classified briefing by CIA Director George Tenet and Army Lt. Gen. Patrick Hughes, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency.."

The Electronic Telegraph UK 9/24/98 Ambrose Evans-Pritchard "America's impeachment crisis could have dangerous consequences , inviting fresh trouble at a time when world affairs are already in acute distress , says the former director of the CIA. Hostile states such as Iraq were likely to "discount the United States heavily " as a force in the world , says James Woolsey . He believes paralysis in Washington will prevent the US government from responding to provocations. In an interview with The Telegraph , Mr Woolsey gave a caustic assessment of the President he served until his abrupt resignation in January 1995 . Dismissing Bill Clinton as a "tactician" , he said the foreign policy of the administration was driven by opinion polls , short -term PR calculations and the spin-cycle rythmn of an election campaign. "If you want to know how they make decisions , all you need do is watch the War Room , " he said , referring to the documentary of Mr Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign. During his two years as Director of Central Intelligence , Mr Woolsey managed to secure only two conversations with Mr Clinton. "It wasn't that I had a bad relationship with him . I just didn't have any relationship ," said Mr Woolsey. He believes the damage to the American national interest has been substantial , though largely hidden from view. Mr Woolsey compared the global scene to the late 1920's when inchoate foreign threats were ignored , played down , and ultimately allowed to escalate.."

AP 10/7/98 John Diamond "White House procedures for protecting highly secret information are often lax, congressional auditors said Wednesday. Security clearances are granted before completion of background checks, they said, and failing in some cases to order adequate CIA investigations. The White House vigorously disputed the findings published in a General Accounting Office report requested by two Republican House members.. The GAO said that from 1993 to 1996 no White House-wide procedures existed for controlling access to highly classified information, including ``sensitive compartmented information'' so sensitive its handling is governed by rules set by the director of central intelligence. Lack of universal White House procedures for protecting such information extended to several agencies, among them the vice president's office; the National Security Council; the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board; and the offices of Science and Technology Policy, National Drug Control Policy and the U.S. Trade Representative, the GAO said. At least the vice president's office and the NSC, however, had their own strict procedures, it said. The White House issued draft security procedures for access to sensitive compartmented information in June 1996 but not made final until last March. These guidelines, the GAO found, lacked rules for working with the CIA on controlling access to the most sensitive information.."

AP 10/14/98 John Diamond ".The Energy Department and Pentagon discovered sensitive nuclear weapons information in boxes of Cold War-era materials that were about to be publicly released at President Clinton's orders. The discoveries sparked a hasty scramble by Congress to block the release of information that energy officials warned would advance the capabilities of emerging nuclear states such as Pakistan and India.. White House officials were alerted to the problem this summer in a letter from Kenneth Baker, a senior official in the Energy Department's Office of Nonproliferation and National Security. The letter concerned the discovery of pages marked ``Restricted Data'' or ``Formerly Restricted Data,'' in boxes of 25-year-old classified documents slated for release without review.. Clinton's executive order, which requires automatic declassification by the year 2000 of documents more than 25 years old, includes an exception for restricted data. But the order contains no provision to search every document in every box -- a task involving billions of pages and as many as 67 different agencies -- looking for the sensitive material. ``This problem poses a great national security risk'' because it involves the potential release of ``the nation's most sensitive secrets,'' Baker wrote."

Freeper Report ".You ask what coverup historians discovered; how about one which we _didn't_ know about, but which came back to embarrass the U.S. In 1994, Clinton and the State Department asked William C. Doherty, jr., to become the Ambassador to Guyana. At the time, Doherty was executive director of the American Institute for Free Labor Development. The United States then asked Guyana to accept, with its compliments, Mr. Doherty as the U.S. Ambassador. Cheddi Jagan, the President of Guyana, did a highly unusual thing (in the diplomatic world) and rejected Doherty. The reason: Doherty had once tried to overthrow Jagan as part of a CIA-orchestrated coup. Scrambling, the Clinton Administration and the CIA tried to figure out what the hell had happened. It turned out Jagan had been prime minister 1961, had been considered socialist, and had been targeted for overthrow by the U.S. The plot failed, and became public knowledge in Guyana. Having discovered all of this interesting diplomatic history, the CIA and the State Department promptly classified its report...despite the fact that everyone in South America knew who Doherty was and that the CIA had tried this stunt in the 60s. Such a classification, of an event everybody knew about, which occurred over 30 years ago, had no basis for being kept secret. U.S. law at the time required all documentation over 30 years old to be released to the archives, as long as it did not threaten national security. The point here is that most of us don't give a damn about what the CIA did 35 years ago, and disclosing its documents will hurt nobody. Yet they refused to turn them over to the National Archives.."

London Telegraph 10/22/98 David Sapted "BILLIONS of dollars worth of United States air defence systems around the world - including those in Patriot missiles and unmanned Predator spy planes - are useless because they operate on the same frequency as local telephones. In a catalogue of disasters listed in an internal Department of Defence review, the United States military is accused of installing about 90 systems in Europe, the Middle East and Asia without bothering to check if they could be used in conjunction with local telephone services..

The New York Times AP 11/11/98 ".The director of the Central Intelligence Agency threatened to quit if President Clinton agreed to release convicted spy Jonathan Pollard as part of the Middle East peace accord, The New York Times reported today. George Tenet made the warning after learning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made Pollard's case a key bargaining point in the peace talks, the Times said, citing administration sources. Tenet and a CIA spokesman both declined comment to the newspaper.."

Drudge Report 11/20/98 ".When the CIA uncovered "conclusive evidence" of the personal corruption of Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin of Russia in 1995, they sent a report to the White House, expecting Clinton administration officials to be impressed, according to a report in Monday's NEW YORK TIMES. "Instead, when the secret CIA report on Chernomyrdin arrived in the office of Vice President Al Gore, it was rejected and sent back to the CIA with a barnyard epithet scrawled across its cover," reports TIMES spook writer James Risen. "I never discuss top-secret documents," Gore tells the TIMES in an interview. "They never want to hear this stuff," complained an intelligence official who asked not to be identified.."

Drudge 11/24/98 Exclusive ".The Clinton administration is facing the most massive leak of classified foreign policy documents since the publication of the Pentagon papers more than two decades ago during the Vietnam war, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. "The impeachment proceedings are going to have seemed like a picnic, before we get though with this," said one White House official. The papers, totaling more than 20,000 pages, according to sources who have read them, include a history of the secret negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea, describing the failed policy of trying to buy off North Korea to forego its nuclear weapons policy. They describe in great detail the intelligence and policy failures that led to the detonations of nuclear weapons by India and Pakistan this year. Most embarrassing, the papers appear to corroborate, according to sources who have read them, allegations by a former U.N. arms inspector that the Clinton administration concealed from Congress and the public details regarding Saddam Hussein's ambitious program to develop nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. The papers also reveal new details on the Clinton policy towards China in which the White House allowed ballistic missile technology exports to China at the behest of wealthy Democratic campaign contributors...The new leaks appear to be indicative of deep dissatisfaction within the foreign policy establishment regarding Clinton policies.."

USA Journal 11/26/98 Jon Dougherty ".However, a story broke yesterday - covered in the Journal today - that should take the remaining wind out of the sails of the dwindling legion of defenders of President Clinton. If it doesn't, then those people who still refuse to face up to the truth about this man should be made to pack their bags and leave this great nation of ours because they simply don't belong here any longer. Matt Drudge reported Wednesday evening that some 20,000 top secret State Department and intelligence documents have been leaked to key media personnel. Those documents may not only substantiate claims that Clinton has sold this country out to foreign hostile interests, but reportedly also detail how he did it. According to Drudge, the papers tell the stories about why North Korea has renewed their nuclear programs, why Iraq remains defiant, and why India and Pakistan tested and have begun to field new nuclear weapons systems within the past year. In short, they tell a story of incompetence, deception and greed - all Clinton trademarks. Furthermore the documents may also place Vice President Al Gore in an even worse light with the intelligence community after a New York Times a few days ago said he has been discounting CIA reports that were critical of Russia because the administration "doesn't want to hear any bad news about their friends in Moscow," even if true... But the revelation about these documents also answers some other questions. For example, they may explain why socialist Democrats in the Senate have helped scuttle any hope in the near future of a national ballistic missile defense. The papers may also help explain why Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector, was so savagely attacked by this administration when he blew the whistle on the bogus U.S. effort to find and destroy Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. The discovery of these papers may also help explain why Congress has been so reluctant to pursue these cases of more serious abuses of office against Clinton [because many of them are in on all of this too]. And it may just help explain why Attorney General Janet Reno's `see no evil' attitude with Clinton and Gore prevails to this day. If the U.S. AG would attempt to threaten all the sweetheart deals Clinton and Gore have made with their greedy co-conspirators, it's hard telling what the Clinton Spin Machine would do to her and her career. But what now? When these reports are substantiated - and they will be - what will Congress and Reno do then? ..But now it's a different ball game. You see, no matter how well you cover your tracks in politics, when it comes to running an entire country there is literally nothing you can get accomplished by yourself. Our fine folks in the intelligence community will go along with an inept president and vice president for a while - but only as long as it doesn't seriously damage their ability to protect this nation from itself. Their positions of authority and power supercede the White House because these people are career folks who have been there forever and will be there long after socialist idiots like Clinton are gone.."

The Independent - UK Mary Dejevsky 11/27/98 ".THOUSANDS OF sensitive documents relating to US national security have been leaked, according to reports on the Internet yesterday. But America's mainstream media, preoccupied with the Thanksgiving holiday, seemed not to want to know. The documents, as many as 20,000 pages of them, are said to detail efforts by the Clinton administration to conceal the extent of Iraq's weapons development plans, White House approval for exports of sensitive satellite technology to China, and information about the incentives offered by Washington to North Korea in return for curbing its nuclear programme - terms that North Korea has in the event ignored...Verbatim details from the papers were not available yesterday, and Murray Waas, the reporter said to have the papers, could not be reached. Drudge suggested that Waas, who writes for the pro-Clinton Internet magazine Salon, was reluctant to divulge the contents while Bill Clinton faces impeachment proceedings.."

Freeper Trailer Trash 11/27/98 reports on MSNBC ". Bay Buchanan is hosting the Laura Ingraham show and mentioned the Grand Daddy document leak to Jim Warren. She gave the Drudge Report full credit. The tone of both was calm and analytical. 3 minutes later, Warren asks Scott Ritter about the Document leak. Ritter mentioned that all he knows is what is on the Drudge Report. There was no hint of skepticism in any of the voices at any time. This tells me two things. Drudge is considered a very valid source now, and this story may have big teeth. To my knowledge this is the first mention of this story on cable."

Center for Security Policy 11/23/98 Decision Brief "."At CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., the message seemed clear: The vice president did not want to hear allegations that Chernomyrdin was corrupt and was not interested in further intelligence reports on the matter. As a result, CIA analysts say they are now censoring themselves.".. Specifically, under Prime Minister Chernomyrdin, the Kremlin embraced crony capitalism with a vengeance -- the thoroughly corrupt mutant "market" system that has brought grief to economies throughout Asia and, most recently, in Russia itself. In fact, Chernomyrdin could have been the poster-child for this practice of self-dealing and -enrichment at the expense of the state and its citizenry. Obviously, the highest levels of the Administration -- most especially Vice President Gore, Chernomyrdin's interlocutor in a highly secretive joint commission -- did not want to change American policy towards Russia in light of the thoroughly dishonest character of the government in Moscow. It did not even want to know about the Kremlin's dishonesty...History will record that the world became a much more dangerous place on Bill Clinton's watch. Worse yet, it will probably show that -- thanks to his unwillingness to see, let alone to take appropriate measures in response to, emerging dangers -- the Nation was woefully ill-prepared to deal with them. ."

Drudge Report 11/29/98 ".Waas on Sunday night was said to be "bitterly angry" over the leak regarding the leak. "He is furious that word got out," a close friend to Waas explained late Sunday night in Washington. "He has been holding the documents close after showing them to two Washington newspaper editors." .. During the 1992 presidential campaign, both Clinton and Gore often praised Waas exclusives exposing the Bush administration's Iraq policy, which involved the leaks of thousands of pages of classified papers regarding the Gulf war. It is not clear when Waas will begin to unload on Clinton. Some in Washington speculate that left-wing Waas does not want to write a major expose about the Clinton administration in the midst of the impeachment hearings, fueling the flames for conservatives. "He's bitterly angry," says a close associate. "Conservatives have been spreading rumors to pressure him to do it. And now his White House contacts are now extremely angry and have stopped talking to him because he is doing it!"."

Washington Post 12/5/98 Vernon Loeb John Mintz ".The Justice Department has initiated a criminal probe of the CIA to determine whether the agency obstructed justice when it provided information to Hughes Electronics Corp. about the scope of an ongoing congressional investigation into the transfer of sensitive U.S. space technology to China, according to senior federal government officials. High-ranking CIA officials, including the agency's general counsel, have agreed to testify next week before a federal grand jury in Washington about information provided earlier this year to Hughes, which has supplied the CIA with satellites and sophisticated communications equipment for decades. Government sources say the CIA provided information to Hughes about the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's technology transfer investigation that might have enabled the firm to anticipate the moves of congressional investigators..Sources said the matter began this fall when a CIA analyst specializing in Chinese technology, Ronald Pandolfi, was called to the Senate committee and told staff members that he had concluded in 1995 that Hughes had been too aggressive in marketing high-technology equipment in China. At the time, according to an account from several sources, Pandolfi conducted interviews with Hughes executives about their work in China, causing Hughes to complain angrily to the CIA that he was operating outside of customary channels. The CIA office that regularly deals with Hughes reprimanded Pandolfi, who, after being summoned by the committee, in September laid out a set of accusations against the firm, sources said. Aware of Pandolfi's views, the CIA gave Hughes a heads-up about his discussion with the committee and offered to supply the panel with the names of Hughes executives who might explain the disagreement, sources said. ."

Christian Science Monitor 12/7/98 James Thurman ".When President Clinton agreed in October in the heat of the Wye River peace talks to reconsider the sentence of Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, he reopened a dispute between the two nations that many in US intelligence circles want left closed..Pardoning a convicted spy would be devastating to the already low morale in the American intelligence community, analysts contend. To some, it's embarrassing that the president even agreed to reconsider the matter...Last week the White House counsel's office acknowledged it sent a memo to top foreign-policy officials in mid-November. The memo solicits the recommendations of Attorney General Janet Reno, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, and Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet. The document also requests any information or evidence relevant to the clemency decision. Mr. Goss suggests going public with the memo is an exploratory effort, a test to determine if there is enough public support to sustain a pardon.."

Softwar Website 12/7/98 Charles Smith ".The word being circulated through the halls of Congress is that Clinton is miffed at CIA Director Tenet for opposing the export of Johnathan Pollard (crypto spy) to Israel. Tenet reportedly threatened to walk if the Israeli spy is released in a U.S. deal for the West Bank. White House insiders are said to be leaking the new information to embarrass the CIA Director into a possible resignation. Meanwhile, Congress is offering Hughes engineers immunity if they tell all about their deals with the Chinese Army. General Reno is concerned that Congressional immunity will spoil her plans to prosecute underlings and scapegoats in order to avoid the big fish in the White House.."

Cspan2 2/2/99 US National Security Senate Armed Servies Committee Freeper buttercup ".Lt. General Patrick Hughs expressed his concern about information getting out ahead of, or in advance of U.S. operations.." And adds ".CIA Director George Tenant said our government is hemorrhaging in a way profoundly damaging to our interest. The press is not the problem. Some people derive some power from leaking this information. People have lost their sense of discipline. It is coming from the Executive Branch of government.."

Associated Press 2/21/99 "...The night before Cuban MiGs shot down two Miami-based planes of a civilian rescue group, an adviser to President Clinton warned the White House of a possible confrontation, a newspaper reported Sunday. Richard Nuccio told The Miami Herald that he never got a reply to the memo he sent at 6:44 p.m. on Feb. 23, 1996, using the White House's electronic mail system. The e-mail went to Sandy Berger, now Clinton's national security adviser, said Nuccio, who has since left the White House. Nuccio said he also tried several times to speak to Berger by telephone but got no response. White House spokesman P.J. Crowley told The Herald that Berger received Nuccio's memo, "but he did not have a chance to read it that evening." He added: "Rick was acting on his intuition. In point of fact, we had no intelligence to suggest that the Cubans would act in a hostile manner." ..."

Cato Institute 2/23/99 by Timothy M. Beard and Ivan Eland "...Although the end of the Cold War reduced the likelihood of a nuclear exchange between the superpowers,several smaller rogue states, through their dedicated efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, have emerged as potential threats to U.S. national security. National Intelligence Estimate 95-19 stated that no new missile threats to the United States would develop before 2010. However,given the curious circumstances of the estimate's release and the many analytical faults contained in the document, its results have been questioned. In the summer of 1998, the congressionally appointed Rumsfeld commission reported that the ballistic missile threat to the United States was greater than the intelligence community had postulated. The commission noted that any one of several rogue states could decide to acquire a capability to inflict major destruction on the United States and then do so within five years. Only recently has the Clinton administration begun to grudgingly acknowledge that the threat may be more severe than it had anticipated. To reduce the risk posed by unforeseen threats, the United States should reallocate money in the intelligence budget from technical means of collection to human collection--which might be more effective in discovering proliferation--and should develop a limited national missile defense.... Syria, Iraq, Libya, Iran, and North Korea pose the most likely threats to the American homeland and American forces in foreign theaters....each of those nations has made a diligent attempt to acquire ballistic missiles and some sort of WMD capability either through an indigenous development program or by purchasing the technologies on the open market...."

Electronic Telegraph 3/8/99 Hugh Davies Julian Nundy "…THE CIA mounted a coup operation against Saddam Hussein in 1995, even setting March 4 as the date. But the plan was ditched at the last minute when the White House withdrew support. Details published in Le Journal du Dimanche in Paris follow disclosures that the CIA infiltrated teams of United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq, among them nine officials, who were part of an attack being mounted from Jordan in June, 1996. This went awry after Saddam infiltrated a group of Kurdish dissidents on whom the agency was relying. Dozens were executed.

The French newspaper said a five-man CIA team was put in place for the earlier attempt. When it was called off they were arrested by the FBI and charged with attempted murder. Gilles Delafon, a Middle Eastern affairs specialist, said charges were dropped in 1996 and the five were decorated for their work, but "the affair seriously shook CIA morale". The CIA, respecting an order dating from the presidency of Gerald Ford banning assassinations, planned a coup in which the Iraqi leader would have been overthrown and replaced by five Iraqi generals. The strategy was drawn up with the help of Gen Wafic al-Samarai, an Iraqi officer who defected. The plan involved an uprising by Kurds in the north of Iraq, while military opponents of Saddam attacked the barracks where he had his residence. But on the eve of the attack, the CIA team received a message from Tony Lake, President Clinton's national security adviser, telling them the White House did not back it…."

Global Intelligence Update 3/8/99 "…Four intelligence scandals blew up in the past week or so: A blown U.S. intelligence collection operation in Iraq; Chinese theft of nuclear weapons secrets from Los Alamos; the claim that Israel's Mossad had taped Clinton having phone sex with Monica Lewinsky and was using it to blackmail Clinton into stopping a mole hunt for an Israeli agent in the White House; and suspicion that Greece had traded U.S. and NATO jamming codes to the Russians. However true each of these is, somebody has clearly launched a campaign against the Clinton White House. Depending on your point of view, this is either another in an endless series of attempts by a vast right-wing conspiracy to discredit the President or a desperate attempt to warn the country about the incompetence or malfeasance of the Administration. But it does not strike us as accidental that these four reports all hit the major media within a few days of each other. We see a "culture war" underway between the Clinton Administration and the national security apparatus. Underlying it is a fundamental disagreement as to the nature of the international system, the threat faced by the United States and the appropriate policies that ought to be followed…."

Global Intelligence Update 3/8/99 "…But even behind this, even behind the hints of corruption and malfeasance, there has been a deep-seated sense within the defense and intelligence communities that the Administration was simply not sensitive to the national security needs of the United States. From the beginning, there has been a deep policy and cultural divide between the national security apparatus that was honed and seasoned during the Cold War and the Clinton Administration. For the Clintonites, the need to maintain engagement with China and Greece, for example, outweighed archaic concerns about weapons system security. Attention to the fine details of covert operations, which would dictate not operating within the easily exposed milieu of UNSCOM, was not seen as a priority. Maintaining communication security and not calling a mistress on an open telephone line was not taken seriously. Someone in the national security community, or among its congressional allies, decided this week to open a new campaign against the President. Whoever the leakers were this week, they are trying to paint a picture of an Administration that was simply indifferent to the classical concept of national security. The end of the Lewinsky affair has, it appears to us, opened a new battlefield in which the stakes are much higher. The President and his Administration are being charged with being either fools or knaves when it comes to defending the security interests of the United States…."

London Telegraph 10/26/97 Ivo Dawnay "…THE mysterious resignation of a top CIA official has provoked charges that the United States Government is hushing up politically embarrassing disclosures of nuclear skullduggery by China and Russia. By the time China's President Jiang Zemin arrives in Honolulu today for an eight-day state visit, Gordon Oehler will have cleared his desk at the Non-Proliferation Centre at the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Yet just a week ago, Mr Oehler, who was responsible for co-ordinating all American intelligence gathering on nuclear arms sales, was assuring Congressman Curt Weldon, the chairman of the House National Security Committee, that he had no intention of quitting. Less than 24 hours later, he had gone, claiming that he had been driven to resignation by plans to cut the budget and responsibilities of his department and by endless interdepartmental battles over what information should be passed on to the public and Congress. The departure of Mr Oehler, a 25-year career CIA officer, may have little to do with President Jiang's visit directly. But it will certainly be welcomed by military chiefs in Beijing and by China's burgeoning arms export industry…."

NewsMax/ABCNEWS.com 3/8/99 Eric Wagner "…The Chinese and other foreign governments, say DOE officials, have exploited a culture of openness, and lax security systems at the labs ‹ which are owned by the government but operated by the University of California ‹ that makes them what one official calls a "Wal-Mart" for spies shopping for nuclear secrets. From 1994 to 1996, a General Accounting Office survey found that eight people with known or suspected connections to foreign intelligence services were let into the Los Alamos lab without background checks, and five were let into the Sandia National Laboratories. The GAO also found that in many instances foreign visitors were allowed to roam unescorted after hours in sensitive lab areas. A Los Alamos official told the GAO in 1997 that the facility allowed the access to preserve an open "campus atmosphere" for researchers. Chinese operatives also target Chinese-American nuclear scientists during business travel and at scientific conferences, appealing to their ethnic roots, officials say….."

 

Capitol Hill Blue 3/9/99 Doug Thompson "… The FBI, CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA) all warned the White House three years ago that China was obtaining U.S. weapons secrets at will, but the Clinton administration ignored the warnings and approved contracts that involved key Democratic campaign contributors. "It's a sieve at our national labs, with our defense contractors and this administration," said one Energy Department source who asked not to be identified. "We might as well publish all of our classified material in the New York Times." Despite the warnings in 1996, President Clinton approved the sale of sensitive technology to China by the Loral Space & Communications, a company run by Bernard Schwartz, who contributed more than $1 million to Clinton's and other Democratic campaigns in 1995. ….But several officials at the Energy Department and within the Clinton administration disclosed in confidential interviews that there is an unofficial "look the other way" policy in place where China is concerned. "We weren't supposed to look that closely where China was concerned," one Justice Department source said Monday. "There was a 'hands off' policy that was understood." In fact, the Clinton administration ignored repeated warnings from the FBI, CIA and NSA over the loss of secrets to China. Confidential memos sent to the White House often mentioned suspects who are also contributors to Clinton's last two election campaigns as well as campaigns of other Democratic candidates.

"Yes, many of the players in this have a history of contributions to the President's campaigns," a Justice Department source said Monday. "We raised red flags about this three years ago." At the time the FBI questioned the approval of the Loral deal, White House Counsel Charles Ruff told Clinton to ignore the concerns because they were being raised only by "career staff" members…. A "career staff" member at Justice laughed when asked about that Monday. "Career staffers are not Clinton appointees," he said…. "

Original Sources 3/9/99 Mary Mostert "… Now, let's see. Wen Ho Lee "has been under FBI investigation since late 1997" but the Bureau has not been able to "develop specific evidence against him so the Clinton Administration "Allowed Lee to remain at his classified job, while under surveillance for high treason?" It appears action was taken to REMOVE him when, but not before, Senator Lott and Senator Shelby complained about the situation. …The fact of the matter is that, from its inception in 1993 the Clinton White House has shown contempt for national security concerns. Gary Aldrich, in his book, published in 1996, spoke of the Clinton White House deriding the very idea that people needed security clearances to handle or read classified documents. "I believe that classified material passed through the hands of Clinton employees without security clearances," Aldrich wrote, outlining the constant stonewalling he experienced when attempting to conduced required background checks on White Youse employees. A General Accounting Office report made public in October 1995 revealed that from 20 January 1993 to March 1994 there were only twenty-four employees in the entire Clinton administration who have been cleared to handle the thousands and thousands of classified documents…."There was no way they could have handled the workload," Adrich wrote. "I believe that classified material passed through the hands of Clinton employees without security clearances. After all, little or no regard was given to any other security-related policy or procedure. Why would they treat classified documents any differently?" Why, indeed? The Clinton White House learned of nuclear spying in 1997 by another scientist, Peter Lee, a Taiwan born scientist working in the Los Alamos lab, who evidently turned over information about national security laser programs during a trip in 1985 to China. Peter Lee confessed in December 1997 and was sentenced to 12 months in a halfway house. Twelve months in a halfway house? The Rosenbergs were executed for less than that…."

Wall Street Journal 3/19/97 Editorial "…Just in the last week, we learned that FBI officials tipped off two NSC underlings last June about Chinese government intentions to influence U.S. politics. Mr. Lake says he was never told because the FBI advised the pair to keep it to themselves. The FBI replies that its agents told the NSC no such thing -- and why would they tell the NSC if not to have the information influence official policy? Stranger still, one of those FBI agents assigned as liaison to the NSC, Edward Appel, is now quitting the White House for undisclosed reasons. Attorney General Janet Reno also now says she tried to tell Mr. Lake about the Chinese tie last May but couldn't get him on the phone. Maybe Ms. Reno would have had better luck if she'd tried talking to Sandy Berger, then Mr. Lake's deputy and now successor as NSC adviser, who we know attended the weekly White House campaign strategy meetings all last year. This is unheard of among foreign-policy advisers, who usually try to distance themselves from campaign work. With so many new and odd developments, the Senate can be forgiven if it doesn't take White House explanations at face value. We're sympathetic to those who say that Mr. Lake, with his intelligence and experience, is about as good as we're going to get from this administration. But Jim Woolsey was a first-rate CIA chief, until he proved too independent for this president. The CIA is a secret, enforcement agency where such independence is vital, especially in an administration as given to corner cutting as this one. With the FBI now publicly feuding with Mr. Clinton over who knew what and when about Chinese influence, it stretches belief that a member of his White House responsible for China policy would now go to run the CIA, in charge of intelligence that might bear directly on the China-campaign connections…"

New York Post 3/10/99 Editorial "…But what's immensely troubling is what the Clinton White House did in 1995, on learning that China had obtained top-secret American MIRV technology a decade earlier….Specifically, Beijing acquired critical information about the W-88 nuclear warhead, which is small enough to permit the targeting of eight sites from a single submarine-launched Trident missile. The latter have a range of 4,000 miles, and the warheads detonate with a force equal to 20 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. That such knowledge has proliferated is disturbing. Yet Congress must also determine why, by all accounts, the administration moved far too slowly, both to investigate the security breaches and to assess their impact. Even now, says Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, ''we still don't knowthe extent'' of the problem…."


Knight Ridder 3/9/99 Michael Dorgan "…The most surprising thing about the case of the scientist who was fired from the Los Alamos National Laboratory for allegedly helping China steal nuclear secrets may be that it was surprising. Former and current U.S. intelligence and FBI officials said Beijing has created a vast espionage network in the United States that has penetrated not only the nation's nuclear weapons labs but also many corporations whose technology China covets for both military and commercial purposes. In fact, the officials said, the case of Taiwan-born computer scientist Wen Ho Lee, along with a classified congressional report documenting a sustained and successful effort by China to steal American military secrets, raise disturbing questions about whether any of America's secrets are safe from the prying eyes of China's spies…. China's espionage efforts constitute a ``completely different kettle of fish,'' said Paul Redmond, a former head of counterintelligence for the Central Intelligence Agency who is credited with exposing Soviet spy Aldrich Ames. ``Culturally, in my view, they operate in a totally different environment and a different time frame,'' said Redmond, who left the CIA last year to start his own security firm. ``Chinese do not think in terms of hours, days or weeks but in terms of decades. They are an ancient civilization. They are able to deal with the intricacies of long-term …By the 1980s, China's intelligence agencies had succeeded in penetrating many of the nation's research labs, Lilley said. But he added that the outflow of secrets probably has accelerated since the end of the Cold War and the relaxation of many security barriers. ``I think we see the tip of the iceberg,'' he said. Lilley said China's espionage efforts here are more threatening than those of many other countries because China is a major power with nuclear weapons and has identified the United States in its internal documents as a potential ``target.'' ``They don't mince words,'' he said. ``They are quite specific about the United States being the greatest obstacle to Chinese manifest destiny and sovereignty.'' …"

The Village Voice 3/10-16/99 Jason Vest "…While the Domestic Lie will draw the wrath of Congress and the independent counsel and whip the Fourth Estate into a frenzy that flings all else aside, the National Security Lie— though more blatant and consequential— will be granted and allowed to fly off into the horizon of memory. Case in point: Last August's obliteration of the Al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan. Two Fridays ago, the Al Shifa's owner, Salah Idris, filed lawsuits against the U.S. government in Washington and San Francisco to release millions of dollars the Treasury Department ordered frozen last year, not long after the Defense Department— on instructions of the commander in chief— destroyed Idris's Khartoum plant with 13 cruise missiles on the heels of Clinton's grand jury testimony in the Lewinsky matter…. One shouldn't forget the details, or think they've ceased to matter, according to a veteran intelligence agent who spoke with the Voice on condition of anonymity, and who has spent most of his career in the shadow of mosques— including those in Khartoum. "You once could have made the argument that the intelligence community was subverting the polity," he mused. "This is a case that shows a change— the polity subverting the intelligence community. And it underscores how oblivious Americans are to the rest of the world that they can be fed this shit. Al Shifa was bogus." …"

Original Sources (www.originalsources.com) 3/09/99 Mary Mostert Freeper Bommer "…Gary Aldrich, in his book, published in 1996, spoke of the Clinton White House deriding the very idea that people needed security clearances to handle or read classified documents. "I believe that classified material passed through the hands of Clinton employees without security clearances," Aldrich wrote, outlining the constant stonewalling he experienced when attempting to conduced required background checks on White Youse employees. A General Accounting Office report made public in October 1995 revealed that from 20 January 1993 to March 1994 there were only twenty-four employees in the entire Clinton administration who have been cleared to handle the thousands and thousands of classified documents…."

Capitol Hill Blue 3/10/99 Doug Thompson "…Many career intelligence officers consider President Clinton and the White House a security risk and withhold sensitive information whenever possible to prevent it falling into enemy hands, Capitol Hill Blue has learned. Often, information is also withheld from Clinton appointees at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Justice and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), veteran intelligence operatives say. "The White House is not secure when it comes to matters of national security," says one recently-retired intelligence analyst. "Career operatives realize this and place the security of their country above politics." …Capitol Hill Blue has spoken to a half-dozen current and former intelligence operatives who agreed to speak on condition that their identities be protected. They tell a story of poor morale at both the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA), where political infighting threatens national security. The White House, they say, has little use for career professionals, preferring to put political hacks into high-security positions. "Intelligence is not something that a political appointee can learn quickly and there is always a question of his loyalty to the elected official who put him in his job," one current career operative says. "You have to depend on the career professional to put all this into perspective."…. Capitol Hill Blue has obtained a 1996 memo written by White House Counsel Charles Ruff advising Clinton to ignore warnings from intelligence professionals about the transfer of sensitive technology to China and listen instead to the Presidential appointees. "The department had every opportunity to weigh in against the waiver at the highest levels and elected not to do so,'' Ruff wrote. "This is typical," one retired operative says. "If you don't get an analysis that supports your position from the pro you turn to the political appointee who will tell you anything you want to hear." Because of this, career intelligence professionals decided among themselves to withhold, whenever possible, classified information from the White House. "We've learned in the China debacle that U.S. secrets are for sale to the highest campaign contributor," one retired intelligence officer said. "So it helps to make sure that the information that is passed on is never complete. It's something you have to do if you love your country." …"

Judicial Watch 3/11/99 "… Recently, Judicial Watch uncovered that security procedures remain so lax at the Clinton Commerce Department that anyone with a top secret clearance can walk out of the agency with classified documents in his or her briefcase. Indeed, Judicial Watch had already found that confidential and classified satellite encryptions, along with CIA reports on China, Russia and India, were taken out of the Department by Ira Sockowitz, a confidant of John Huang. The classified materials were perhaps bound for the Chinese. But the Clinton Administration and Congress have failed to thoroughly investigate this. Judicial Watch will, however. This underscores the serious national security weaknesses in the Clinton Administration. For instance, Sandy Berger, the National Security Adviser who buried information about the breach of security at Los Alamos laboratory, is not trained in national security issues. He was an international trade lawyer, specializing in antidumping cases, at Hogan and Hartson, a predominantly Democrat law firm, before joining The White House. It is an understatement to say he thinks "politically," and not strategically. The Huang diaries are a window into the access potential Chinese agents have to classified national security information in the Clinton Administration. Given Huang's importance, they are perhaps the Rosetta stone, from which to do a serious investigation. Judicial Watch is carrying out this investigation in its multitude of lawsuits on Chinagate. Huang will be redeposed by Judicial Watch…."

Buchanan Press office 3/10/99 "…Republican Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan today demanded that National Security Advisor Samuel Berger explain his "dereliction of duty" in failing to alert congressional leaders to the theft of top secret U.S. nuclear warhead technology. According to a New York Times story March 6, intelligence officers at the CIA and the Department of Energy informed Berger in April of 1996 that China had acquired the design features of America's most sophisticated nuclear warhead. William Safire writes that Berger "did nothing." In early 1997, intelligence officials uncovered evidence linking the Chinese to several ongoing spy operations at the nuclear weapons laboratory in Los Alamos. Berger, fully briefed on these matters in July 1997, failed to alert congressional leaders or the chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. "The allegations surrounding the transfer of atomic secrets to a potential enemy are the most serious since the Rosenbergs went to the electric chair for atomic espionage in 1953. Our security has been compromised, our technology stolen and our cities placed in mortal peril," Mr. Buchanan said. "Mr. Berger owes his country an immediate explanation for his laxity and inexplicable failure to inform Congress and the American people about the breach of our security. If Mr. Berger cannot satisfactorily explain his dereliction of duty, he should resign," Mr. Buchanan added…."

International Herald Tribune 3/11/99 Richard Lugar "…This could well be one of the most serious security breaches in America's history. Representatives Christopher Cox and Norm Dicks have pried the subject open through a bipartisan select House committee report. Presumably there will now be some accounting through the judicial system. The Clinton administration's handling of the discovery of this espionage also will be examined.

But the immediate focus of the president and Congress must be the recognition that the United States may now be at significantly greater risk from a Chinese ballistic missile attack. This recognition must inform the continuing debates about the efficacy of a strategic partnership with China….. In recent years, many of our protests to the Chinese leadership have been directed at missile and other technological transfers to third countries. We now know that our agenda should have paid at least as much attention to what China was doing to develop its own long-range missiles capable of delivering multiple payloads against American targets….. Lax security arrangements at our national laboratories have been debated for some time; charges about the theft of nuclear-related secrets go back to the 1980s. The debates about how such thefts translated into Chinese military gains have gone on for many years.

Further complicating matters are the campaign abuses involving China that have been attributed to the White House. Some of those abuses involved extraordinarily bad judgment by the president himself. For several years Congress has witnessed the stonewalling of attempts to pry loose documents and obtain the testimony of key participants in the scandal. Most Republican members of Congress discount the president's explanations of Chinese campaign contributions, the merits of his administration's licensing practices for dual-use technology transfer to China and even the credibility of his own policy pronouncements vis-à-vis China….."

CBS 3/10/99 "…CBS News has learned there is yet another top-secret investigation of Chinese nuclear espionage. This case involves the theft of information about America's neutron weapons program from the Lawrence Livermore Weapons Lab, CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports. It's a separate case from the one involving nuclear secrets stolen from Los Alamos Weapons Lab and America's W-88 nuclear warhead. The neutron case has been under investigation for several years, and remains active and unsolved. The U.S. has conducted tests, but there are no neutron weapons in the U.S. arsenal. Sources tell CBS News it's further proof of China's aggressive - and successful - espionage efforts targeting America's nuclear weapons labs…."

Toronto Sun 3/14/99 Eric Margolis "… According to the FBI, China is the third most active foreign power spying against the U.S., after Israel and Russia. China's intelligence efforts have focused on stealing or buying technology from Silicon Valley. For operational cover, China uses some of its 1,800 diplomats and journalists spread across the U.S. and Canada in at least 85 offices, as well as the 15,000 students and nearly 3,000 assorted delegations that visit North America each year……."

LA Times 3/14/99 Bob Drogin "…In one report, GAO investigators said security was so sloppy at the three labs until last fall that foreign visitors, including suspected spies, often were allowed 24-hour, unescorted access to areas where sensitive and classified information was stored. In one case, the material was stashed in boxes placed in an open hallway. But the Department of Energy largely ignored recommendations contained in the 1988 report. A follow-up GAO report in 1997 and a separate FBI investigation determined that counterintelligence efforts were still flagrantly ineffective at the Los Alamos, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories…."


Insight Magazine 4/5/99 Sean Paige "…According to the General Accounting Office, or GAO, only 37 percent ($23.7 million) of the $63 million spent so far by the IPP actually found its way into the coffers of research institutes or the pockets of individuals in the NIS. U.S. nuclear labs administering the program, together with several dozen participating companies, have skimmed off 63 percent of the money meant to put food on the table for their potentially desperate counterparts in Eastern Europe…. Disturbingly, the GAO found that DOE officials have only the foggiest notion about how many scientists they are subsidizing and which formerly Soviet nuclear-research institutes are receiving exactly what amounts of money. "Some scientists working on Russia's weapons of mass destruction program are receiving [U.S.] funds," GAO concluded. . . . . The GAO also reports that IPP's efforts to find commercial applications for Soviet weapons research may have resulted in the export to Russia of "dual use" technologies -- transfers, says the GAO, that "could negatively affect U.S. national-security interests." And finally, the GAO criticized as "cursory" the process by which IPP projects were reviewed for national-security implications -- even projects concerning biological or chemical weapons. …."


Newsweek 3/14/99 PRNewswire "… The FBI now believes it has virtually no chance of making a case that Taiwanese-born Wen Ho Lee passed critical nuclear secrets to China, Newsweek reports in the current issue. Senior law-enforcement officials tell Newsweek that they are in fact not at all confident that he committed a crime…. One Chinese scientist caught smuggling secret recipes for space-age plastics was dumbfounded when interrogated by the FBI. ``He saw himself as a good citizen of the world,'' says one agent. ``He must have said a hundred times, 'The Chinese are our friends, is this really such a bad thing?''' …"

New York Post http://www.nypost.com/ 3/15/99 Brian Blomquist Freeper A Whitewater Researcher "…EXCERPTS: "The chief congressional Chinagate investigator said yesterday that U.S. research labs are still losing vital intelligence secrets to Beijing....''This problem is an ongoing problem,'' Rep. Chris Cox (R-Calif.) said yesterday....''Our committee believes that not only now, but for the indefinite future, we have serious counterintelligence problems at our national laboratories and elsewhere throughout the government,''...Cox said his spec ial Chinagate committee plans to release its 700-page report on Chinese espionage in the next two weeks. The White House already has a copy of the report and is trying to keep most of it secret....Cox said his committee's report also would deal in part wi th campaign contributions and the possible effect on policy....''The issues of Chinese money and campaign contributions are covered in our report, although it is not the great bulk of our report,'' Cox said...the top Democrat on the Cox committee...agreed with Cox that Chinese spying is "very serious, very significant…"

Judicial Watch 3/15/99 "…In the lawsuit which uncovered John Huang and sparked the Chinagate scandal, Judicial Watch recently deposed the head of the China desk at the Clinton Commerce Department, Mr. Donald Forest. Forest revealed that, contrary to commitments made by current Commerce Secretary Bill Daley, anyone with a top secret clearance could still take classified documents out of the Department without any supervision. Bob Woodward, famed Watergate reporter, has written that Huang did pass classified information to the Chinese. Judicial Watch will redepose Huang next month. In its lawsuit, Judicial Watch previously discovered that John Huang confidant Ira Sockowitz took classified satellite encryptions and CIA reports on China, India and Russia when he left the employ of the Clinton Commerce Department. Sockowitz and other Huang confidants went on Clinton trade missions to China…."

New York Times 3/15/99 William Safire "…Does Lieut. Col. Liu Chaoying, daughter of a top Chinese general, provide a link between the stealing of secrets at our national laboratories in the 80's and the purchase of secrets from our American satellite and computer manufacturers in the 90's? Did a U.S. company help China widen the acquisition envelope of its SA-12 anti-aircraft missile by 20 degrees, and are Air National Guard F-16 pilots now being briefed on their new danger? Is it true that even now, tens of thousands of E-mail messages every month flow out of our national laboratories at Sandia and Los Alamos -- but our National Security Agency's Big Ear fails to monitor them? Is Berger telling the public the same story he told the Cox committee under oath? If so, why was President Clinton denied knowledge from 1995 to 1997 about this most damaging atomic spy coup since the Rosenbergs? Isn't a President entitled to such information before proposing a "strategic partnership"? Or did Clinton really know? But to pose these questions is outrageous. …"

ABC News, 3/09/99 Freeper Jolly "… And over the past decade, officials say, the Department of Energy and the White House have received several explicit warnings about the labs’ vulnerabilities. A GAO report in 1988, an FBI review in 1995, a CIA analysis in 1996, another classified FBI review completed in 1997, two additional GAO reports in 1997 and 1998, and a recent 90-day review by DOE exposed problems at the labs and offered detailed recommendations to fix them. The FBI review in 1997 made 26 counterintelligence recommendations for the labs. Eight were implemented, officials say. The GAO reports published in 1997 and 1998 cited DOE for not implementing counterintelligence measures recommended by GAO in 1988. We didn’t have the support to do these things," says a counterintelligence official. When DOE intelligence officials brought their findings about the W-88 to the White House, they were met with skepticism, and their conclusions about the extent of the compromise were rejected, according to sources. A National Security Council official then ordered the CIA analysis of DOE’s data…"

Freeper Squantos reports 3/15/99 "…As you know from older posts I have moved during the period of time stated above from an active duty position in Critical Nuclear Weapons Design Information duties to a civilian form of the same job at the Department of Energy. O'Leary made statement's and discussed information that some individuals in the military are still in Levinworth KS for discussing. Her open use of terms and procedures in speeches to the public used to make use cringe and wince. Who knows, (we do now) what she said in private meetings with foreign weapons expert's. Political Appointees have no idea what they are doing with regards to classified information and what must occur prior to it's release. He implementation of a whistleblower program resulted in classified walking out the front door and due to the nature of the law suits involved the FBI ignored or elected not to play…."

Capitol Hill Blue 3/17/99 Doug Thompson "… The Clinton administration, busy approving the sale of sensitive technology to China, ignored warnings in 1996 from a senior Energy Department Official who said security at the nation's nuclear weapons labs were lax and needed to be tightened immediately, department sources tell Capitol Hill Blue. The official, Deputy Secretary of Energy Charles Curtis, ordered a tightening of security at the national labs, but his orders were never implemented and were also ignored by incoming Secretary of Energy Fredrico Pena when he took office in March, 1997. The White House was also aware of Curtis's order, but chose to ignore it, DOE sources say. At the time, President Clinton was approving the sale of sensitive nuclear technology to China by Loral, a company headed by one of his largest campaign contributors. The revelations directly contradict earlier claims by administration officials that they first learned of the lapses in security in the summer of 1997, more than eight months after Curtis tried to take action. Pena claims he was unaware of the order by Curtis, who left the agency shortly after he became Secretary of Energy, but other Energy Department sources say the new Secretary was fully briefed on the concerns about security at the national labs. "If Pena says he didn't know about this, he's a goddamned liar," an angry DOE official said Tuesday. "There is no way an incoming secretary of energy wouldn't be briefed on something as important as this. I know for a fact that this information was part of his initial briefing materials." …"

Reuters 3/17/99 "…Energy Secretary Bill Richardson Wednesday pleaded for less hysteria over the China spying scandal as he outlined security steps to monitor e-mails and faxes at U.S. nuclear research laboratories. ``We are taking adequate measures, we are addressing the problem,'' Richardson said. ``Let's not get hysterical.'' ….``China did get information relating to the W-88 (nuclear warhead) which is damaging to our national security. The extent of that damage is not known yet,'' Richardson said.

He proposed steps that included ``controlling e-mails out of the labs. And trying to make sure that no classified information leaves the labs to foreign countries.'' …Richardson said the e-mails were ``a potential problem'' but had not been a problem in the past….Shelby said Congress would continue investigating the matter and the committee may call former energy secretaries to testify who were in that job when the alleged spying occurred in the 1980s. ``I believe tonight that our labs are still not safe,'' Shelby, an Alabama Republican, said. Asked about Richardson's comments on hysteria, Shelby replied: ``I don't think anybody's hysterical, I think we're trying to be measured in what we're doing.'' …"

USA Today 3/17/99 Peter Eisler "…The Department of Energy requested at least 19 FBI investigations last year after internal reviews indicated classified or sensitive information was leaked, stolen or compromised at U.S. nuclear weapons plants and laboratories. The referrals were among a host of "critical" security concerns noted in internal DOE briefing material prepared last summer for incoming Energy Secretary Bill Richardson. The ongoing investigations suggest that questions about the agency's safeguards go far beyond those raised by recent revelations that a scientist at Los Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory may have passed nuclear weapons secrets to China in the mid-1980s. "There has been an alarming increase of instances where nuclear weapons design, intelligence and other national defense information has been either compromised or placed at risk," said the June 1998 memorandum prepared by DOE security officials. Other problems noted in the briefing material and other internal reports obtained by USA TODAY include a backlog of 4,000 "reinvestigations" that need to be done on DOE personnel whose security clearances are beyond their five-year re-examination date. Deficiencies in security forces, alarm systems and other safeguards at several sites also were cited as "critical issues." FBI officials declined comment on the status or direction of any investigations based on DOE referrals. Internal DOE memos say some of the cases involve "disclosures of classified and/or sensitive unclassified information, including potential nuclear computer codes, to foreign nationals," though there's no indication of what countries may be involved. Others focus on unspecified compromises of records by telephone, e-mail and fax machines as well as through the media….Despite the rise in referrals, DOE officials say nuclear weapons material and information is well-protected…."

The Washington Times 3/22/99 Joyce Howard Price "…Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, whose department oversees the weapons labs, called the "total penetration" [Newsweek] claim "an over-exaggeration." "There's a lot of hysteria out there that is unfounded, but we will get to the bottom with ongoing investigations of any future problems," he said on NBC-TV's "Meet the Press." Mr. Richardson did not deny the accuracy of the Newsweek report, which said CIA analysts -- responding to President Clinton's order for a preliminary "damage assessment" to determine just how much Beijing knows about U.S. nuclear technology -- found evidence the Chinese "have cracked even the most secret weapons labs." According to Newsweek, U.S. officials investigating Chinese espionage believe China, over the past two decades, may have acquired design information about seven U.S. nuclear warheads, including the neutron bomb developed in the early 1970s. They believe China may also have stolen secrets about U.S. efforts to develop a nuclear weapon able to create an electromagnetic pulse "that would short out anything in an enemy nation that uses electricity." The CIA and a team of top nuclear-weapons experts came to these conclusions, Newsweek says, after CIA analysts pored through data gleaned from U.S. espionage against China. The material included years of communications intercepts and revelations from a 1995 defector involved in China's nuclear program. The material -- much of it written in Chinese and never read --had been stored in CIA computers and forgotten about until now. Newsweek said that when the CIA showed the evidence to several nuclear-weapons experts "they practically fainted." The magazine quoted one unnamed U.S. official close to the probe: "The Chinese penetration is total. They are deep, deep into the labs' black programs."…."

Sacramento Bee 3/28/99 Nando Media/Reuters "…The New Yorker magazine reported on Sunday that Western intelligence officials believe Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov took a payoff from Iraq in exchange for strategic materials from Moscow to build up its nuclear weapons stockpile. Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh quoted high-level American intelligence sources as saying Primakov received $800,000 in a wire transfer in November 1997. The New Yorker said a spokesman at the Russian embassy in Washington denied all charges of corruption against Primakov. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, asked about the report during an appearance on ABC's "This Week," said that while he had not read the whole article and had just seen it, "I have no evidence to support that, no. I don't know whether Mr. Hersh has." In the report, Hersh quoted one unidentified source as saying, "A payment was made." "This is rock solid - like (now-jailed Mafia boss) John Gotti ordering a whack on the telephone. Ironclad." The weekly magazine, which goes on sale on Monday, said a British signals-intelligence unit intercept produced evidence of the transfer. It quoted a second unidentified U.S. official as saying, "There was a wire transfer to an account of $800,000." …"Russia is hopeless now," Rolf Ekeus, the first head of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) in charge of dismantling Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, was quoted in the New Yorker as saying. "It is clear that Russia is making a serious effort to control events. Saddam will get a bomb, because these materials are floating in. Every day, they are more advanced." …."

New York Times 3/27/99 James Risen "…The F.B.I. has found and questioned a Chinese researcher in connection with the inquiry into China's suspected theft of American nuclear secrets from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Government officials said Friday. The researcher, a Chinese man who worked at Los Alamos for several months in 1997, was located by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Thursday at Pennsylvania State University, the officials said. ….The F.B.I. lost track of him in the later stages of its investigation into Lee…. The F.B.I. opened its investigation in June 1996. In the midst of the furor over the Clinton Administration's handling of evidence of Chinese atomic espionage, the decisions to appoint Lee to the new post in 1997 and to allow him to hire a Chinese citizen as an assistant have raised troubling questions about the procedures that lab officials and the F.B.I. followed. The bureau approved Lee's new assignment, assuring the Energy Department, the lab owner, that it would seek a secret wiretap to monitor Lee's telephone conversations. But the Justice Department rejected the wiretap request, arguing that the evidence in the case was too old to justify it. ….."

On the DSL Timelines by Freeper IndiCrusade 3/29/99 IndiCrusade is a Los Alamos worker "…I've also noted recent press accounts alleging that security at the National Laboratories has been very lax. In order for that to be true, it would have to be very selectively lax. Those I work with are under scutiny allways, in fact I've been told to expect that my use of the computer can be monitored for "key" words, and certainly for hits at certain web sites (haven't been forbidden to visit FR - yet). As I told you last week, there are plenty of good patriotic people here and at other DOE sites. I would be willing to take my concerns before Congress, or go public at some point, provided the information I give is not sensitive (I really don't have much of that, anyway). What you need to understand is that much like the military or SS, DOE employees who value their livlihood are going to be reluctant volunteers to speak out. It goes against the culture and design of national security. We also have an energy secretary who has been influencing Los Alamos for years,and has been close to Clinton and the House Democrats almost as long. I've had one episode with him years ago, and he's tough. A few public record things I can add to your timelines, for whatever they may be worth: On May 17, 1993, the Clintons, Congressman Richardson, DOE Secretary O'Leary (among others)visited Los Alamos, rather unexpectedly. This was the famous trip that also included the haircut on Air Force One. Soon after that, as I recall, the laboratory laid off a number of long time workers (many later sued successfully to get rehired). I think Clinton also directed a formal (unilateral?) cessation to underground nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site. Since then we have been limited to computer models and the like. Clinton again came to Los Alamos rather unexpectedly last year, I think it was in September of 1998. In the meantime, the Clintons and Al Gore have made numerous trips to Albuquerque (where there is another DOE laboratory). Some of these were campaign situations, but usually not. We've also been through several DOE secretaries since 1992. And throughout there has been a big can of worms under the umbrella of "safety issues". No matter what you do, nukes just aren't safe enough because people just aren't perfect enough…."

Washington Post 3/28/99 Walter Pincus Vernon Loeb "… Freeh in recent testimony before House and Senate Appropriations subcommittees provided the first authoritative on-the-record description of what has been going on from the administration's perspective. In 1995, he said, the FBI was asked to investigate "an incident that happened, they thought, between 1984 and 1988," and that may have involved information about what was then the newest U.S. nuclear warhead, the W-88. Freeh said what the FBI had to work from was a historic view that secret information originating at the Los Alamos National Laboratory may or may not have been passed "in the field of things like computational fluid dynamics," or computer modeling relative to the initial explosion in a nuclear weapon. The source of the allegation, according to other sources, was a 1988 Chinese government document on Beijing's nuclear weapons program from a "walk in" informant who turned it over to U.S. intelligence in 1995. That document, the sources said, contained references to information resembling the W-88 design, leading to suspicions that Chinese researchers had been supplied with U.S. secrets to speed up their own designs for miniaturized warheads….. By late 1996, therefore, Lee was a suspect. But because the FBI investigators could not find any unusual transfer of money to him, any physical evidence or motive, they were unable to get a court to authorize a wiretap on his home, sources said….. In August 1997, Freeh said, he told Department of Energy officials that there "was not sufficient evidence to make an arrest" and that DOE was to determine whether to keep Lee on since "the case was not as important as what damage he may continue to do by accessing information." DOE, with FBI approval, kept Lee on and the investigation continued until December 1998, when he was moved to a nonclassified area and polygraphed for the first time….. And, the director added, even if he had an "FBI agent sitting there we wouldn't know what they were talking about."…"

Los Alamos National Laboratory 4/5/99 Daily News Bulletin "...As part of the Laboratory 's efforts to further strengthen counterintelligence and cyber-security, the Laboratory today began a stand-down of all classified computing activities except for those necessary for safety and security purposes. The Los Alamos stand-down is coincident with similar measures taking place at Sandia and Livermore national laboratories...."

Security Report for 1997 and 1998 Sent to Congress 4/5/99"... Secretary Richardson today sent to Congress the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Annual Report on Safeguards and Security at its nuclear weapons facilities. Secretary Richardson also authorized the release of an unclassified version of the report and outlined a series of measures being taken to strengthen departmental security...."

The Washinton Post via NewsMax 4/1/99 John F. Harris "...The warnings were there for President Clinton. For weeks before the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia, sources said, CIA Director George J. Tenet had been forecasting that Serb-led Yugoslav forces might respond by accelerating their campaign of ethnic cleansing in the province of Kosovo -- precisely the outcome that has unfolded over the past week. All during this time, U.S. military leaders were offering Clinton a corresponding assessment of their own. If the Serbs did launch such an assault, they said, air power alone would not be sufficient to stop it -- precisely the analysis that NATO's supreme commander, Gen. Wesley K. Clark, articulated publicly this week when asked what the military could do to halt the humanitarian disaster unfolding in the Balkans. But in the face of this advice, according to a variety of U.S. and European sources familiar with the decision-making, Clinton and his senior White House advisers pressed on with their planning for an air campaign. The group, participants said, never reassessed the fundamental judgment they had reached the previous fall, which ruled out the use of ground troops as a way of protecting Kosovo's majority Albanian population from a brutal crackdown by the Serbs...."

WorldNetDaily 4/6/99 Joseph Farah "….Top-secret CIA briefings obtained by WorldNetDaily show U.S. intelligence analysts predicted that NATO bombing raids would prompt Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to launch a major offensive against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo…..The documents were provided by a senior intelligence officer on condition of anonymity who said the briefings from last month underscore "the failed strategy of the Clinton administration in the Balkans." The mid-March briefings, issued more than a week before the bombing campaign began, accurately predicted a chain of events unfolding in the Balkans in the last two weeks. The briefings, read by thousands of American intelligence analysts, attaches, senior Defense Department officials and the White House, concluded: * Milosevic had little to lose by initiating a full-scale offensive against Kosovo's Albanians; * Belgrade had sufficient forces in place before the bombing to conduct a serious offensive; * A senior Serb army commander stated openly that he would attack immediately if NATO bombed; * The Serb army would use brutal tactics to kill as many insurgents and their supporters as possible; * A Serb offensive would produce a new flood of refugees, triggering a humanitarian crisis; "The president and his senior advisers knew these risks going in -- yet they elected to pursue their strategy anyway," said the senior intelligence officer. "From a military perspective, this is the geopolitical equivalent of a World War I frontal attack…. The CIA briefing of March 19 also suggested that Moscow was growing frustrated with Belgrade before the NATO bombing raids. Russian officials were, according to the documents, prepared to allow the United Nations Security Council to authorize a NATO show of force, if Milosevic launched an offensive first. After the NATO attacks, Russia sided strongly with Belgrade, condemning NATO's bombing runs in the harshest language. The CIA's predictions on the Serb reaction to bombing was strikingly accurate: "The army's tactics in Bosnia and in earlier Kosovo fighting suggest it would use large-scale shelling by artillery and armor to kill as many insurgents -- and their civilian supporters -- as possible while minimizing its own casualties. The army might launch attacks into Albania in an effort to destroy UCK (Kosovo Liberation Army) safehavens." "This fighting," said the report, "preceded by the withdrawal of international relief agencies, could leave the 300,000 people who rely on food aid vulnerable to malnutrition within about two weeks. The 230,000 ethnic Albanians displaced by previous fighting -- together with the tens of thousands who will take to the roads once the new round begins -- would flee toward Albania and Macedonia, creating a humanitarian crisis in those countries." …"

Associated Press 4/7/99 "…On Tuesday, Macedonia's prime minister, Ljubco Georgievski, had called NATO ``completely irresponsible'' for ignoring warnings that airstrikes on Yugoslavia could trigger a humanitarian disaster. Anti-NATO resentment has been growing among Macedonian nationalists who are angry over both the airstrikes against fellow Orthodox Serbs and the inflow of refugees, who are mainly Muslim…."

National Post 4/7/99 Peter Goodspeed "…Despite the protestations of Lloyd Axworthy, the Foreign Minister, and other NATO leaders that they could not foresee the massive ethnic cleansing of Kosovo, U.S. newspaper reports indicate NATO officials were warned weeks ahead of time that military action against Yugoslavia might well unleash a bloodbath. While the western alliance was still pondering its war plans last October and tentatively studying proposals for both an air and ground war against Yugoslavia, U.S. intelligence officials are said to have predicted the mass human exodus that has now occurred. Weeks before the NATO air campaign began, George Tenet, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, forecast that Serb-led Yugoslav forces might respond by accelerating their campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, the Washington Post reported. Quoting sources within the American administration, the newspaper says CIA officials repeatedly raised the possibility of an expanded Serbian ethnic-cleansing campaign if the West threatened Belgrade militarily. When Bill Clinton, the U.S. president, was presented with a military report last October that warned him a ground war in Yugoslavia would require as many as 200,000 NATO troops, an accompanying CIA study predicted two possible outcomes -- a stepped-up campaign of ethnic cleansing against Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, or a quick yielding by Yugoslavia once force was applied. Mr. Tenet apparently repeated the CIA's warnings in congressional hearings in early February. At the same time, The New York Times reports that "Pentagon planners . . . said they warned the administration publicly and privately that Mr. Milosevic was likely to strike out viciously against the Kosovo Albanians . . ." U.S. military leaders are said to have expressed deep reservations about the Clinton administration's approach to Kosovo and repeatedly warned the White House that if the Serbs did launch a final all-out assault on Kosovo's Albanians, air power alone would not be sufficient to stop it…."This outcome was guaranteed by the public announcements by President Clinton that ground troops would not be committed," he added…."

Washington Post 4/13/99 Walter Pincus "...The Department of Energy official who has pressed hardest for action against alleged Chinese spying at nuclear laboratories declared yesterday that his superiors at the department, rather than the Clinton White House, blocked his efforts to tighten security and have a suspect lab employee lose access to secret material. ...But Trulock, DOE's former acting head of intelligence, said President Clinton, in a presidential decision paper in February 1998, adopted reforms that top DOE officials opposed. The most controversial elements, he said, were creation of independent offices in DOE for intelligence and counterintelligence, giving the offices more power through direct access to the secretary of energy and giving them ultimate control over security at all DOE facilities. Those opposing the reforms, Trulock said, were then-Deputy Secretary Elizabeth Moler and an assistant secretary, along with his deputy, who were directly in charge of weapons research.... Trulock, in his testimony, criticized the officials in particular for failing in 1997 to remove Wen Ho Lee, the suspect Los Alamos employee, from access to classified materials, even after FBI Director Louis J. Freeh twice said there was no further need to keep him on his classified job as a way to catch him in the act. "For another 14 months after these warnings," Trulock told the senators, there was continued access to classified information. "I am not sure that we will ever know how much damage has been done to U.S. national security as a result of this inaction." He also accused the DOE officials of trying to bury his findings of possible espionage to protect the budgets of the laboratories before Congress and continued lab-to-lab relations with research facilities in Russia and China. But Trulock's toughest criticism was leveled against the nuclear laboratories themselves, some of which are operated for DOE by the University of California. His experience, he said, raises questions about the "credibility of the laboratories." "They respond with vague and evasive answers and they occasionally lie in response to our legitimate inquiries," he complained...."

Los Angeles Times 4/13/99 Robert Scheer "...Twenty-thousand nuclear weapons left over from the Cold War still stand poised for launching, and the MAD doctrine that guided them is very much in force. Neither the U.S. nor Russia has abandoned nuclear war fighting as the cornerstone of their respective national defense policies. "We still target them with nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert," Butler observed. "The world truly has been transformed, but what has not been transformed is our thinking about it." Russia's political and economic disintegration now threatens our security more by inadvertence than by design, prompting key Cold War military establishment veterans like Butler to sound the alarm: "The Russian command and early warning system is in a state of great decline; about two-thirds of the satellites they relied on for early warning capability are inactive or failing. They're experiencing false alarms now on almost a routine basis, and I shudder to think about the morale and discipline of their rocket forces. There are worrisome aspects to all of that. That's why people like myself are so puzzled and dismayed that our government won't even address the problem." Addressing the problem requires bold leadership on nuclear disarmament that's been sadly lacking in the Clinton years. There have been some cosmetic arrangements with the Russians as to nuclear safety and targeting issues but no real follow-up on arms control measures aggressively pursued by George Bush. Give credit where due: Bush recognized that the end of the Cold War permitted--nay, mandated--that the U.S. set an example by reducing the size and lowering the alert status of its nuclear force. As Butler recalls, "The single most important arms controls were George Bush's unilateral measures back in 1991, which took all of the tactical nuclear weapons off the ships and brought many back from Europe, took the bombers off alert and accelerated the retirement of the Minuteman II force. And Mikhail Gorbachev followed suit. It's ironic that today we have a Republican Congress that thwarts arms control progress, and yet it was a Republican administration that really moved the ball down the field." Clinton has never been very interested in nuclear disarmament, and these days seems bent on alarming the Russian leadership by expanding NATO's membership and military role in Eastern Europe, including a NATO-led war against Russia's neighbor, Yugoslavia.... Boris Yeltsin has his flaws, but humiliating him and undermining more moderate forces in Russia is the path of disaster. In 1995, Yeltsin was awakened in the middle of the night because one branch of his crumbling military had failed to inform another of prior knowledge of a Norwegian rocket launch, which they confused with a U.S. Trident missile. Fortunately, this error was corrected before Yeltsin's 12 minutes of decision-making passed. No wonder Butler is concerned...."

Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph 4/6/99 Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...EXCERPTS "But by any reasonable standard, America's latest round of airstrikes - the U.S. just bombed Iraq last week and in the past few months has fired missiles at Sudanese and Afghan targets - isn't paying off. What seems starkly apparent is that the administration didn't adequately consider all the ramifications of its action and now must muddle through as disturbing events unfold. The CIA warned the president last month that airstrikes might give the Yugoslavs cover to intensify ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albanian villages, The Washington Post reported last week. And military officials, the Post wrote, also warned Clinton that airstrikes would not be sufficient to turn back any such ground assault in Kosovo. ......Another unforeseen problem: the perils of bolstering the Kosovo Liberation Army - the ragtag guerilla group that has, in essence, become a NATO ally. The KLA reportedly has Marxist origins as well as ties to Middle Eastern Islamic radicals - which may be raising funds through the heroin trade..."

New Republic 4/19/99 Jason Zengerle "...To that end, PLA officers get escorted around some of America's most modern military facilities. They've toured the U.S.'s most advanced guided missile cruiser and a nuclear attack submarine. They've also watched a Marine amphibious landing and observed Cope Thunder, the U.S. Air Force's sophisticated air combat exercises in Alaska. When PLA officers fly into Fort Hood in Texas, the Pentagon makes sure that they pass over an impressive two-and-a-half-mile stretch of M-1A1 tanks. "That sends a very impressive signal," boasts an administration official. And PLA officers apparently get that signal: Pillsbury notes a more respectful tone in the writings of PLA officers who have visited the United States. But, at the same time that the United States is showing off its massive strength, it's also giving the Chinese a peek at vulnerabilities. For instance, at the Cope Thunder exercises--designed to highlight America's air superiority--the Chinese saw the American dependence on satellites, digital systems, and AWACS aircraft. Accordingly, China is now seeking means to attack American satellites and otherwise disrupt communications. Similarly, it has recently been learned that China is seeking to purchase Russian-made torpedoes that are specifically designed--you guessed it--to explode underneath ships. ..."

Department of Energy: DOE Needs to Improve Controls Over Foreign Visitors to Weapons Laboratories (Chapter Report, 09/25/97, GAO/RCED-97-229). "Data on foreign visitors from individual sensitive countries also showed significant differences among the laboratories. For example,46 percent of the Russian visitors to Livermore were checked during that 3-year period, compared to 10 and 7 percent, respectively, for Los Alamos and Sandia. Furthermore, 39 percent of the Chinese visitors to Livermore were checked, compared to 2 and 1 percent, respectively, for Los Alamos and Sandia. (See app. III for numbersand percentages for all sensitive countries.)"

"Of the 746 foreign visitors from China to the Los Alamos Research Laboratory, only 12 received background checks"..."Moreover, we noted during our review that people with suspected foreign intelligence connections were let into the laboratories without background checks. We were able to document 13 instances where persons with suspected foreign intelligence connections were allowed access without background checks--8 visitors went to LosAlamos and 5 went to Sandia--during the 1994 through 1996 period...."At both Los Alamos and Sandia, unescorted after-hours access to controlled areas has been permitted. These laboratories have required the host to monitor the foreign visitor--that is, be awareof the foreign visitor's location and activities--but not necessarily be physically present. Recently, Sandia revised its after-hours access policy. In November 1996, Sandia no longer allowed foreign nationals to have unescorted after-hours access to controlled areas without the approval of its counterintelligence office. According to Sandia and DOE officials, this change was made because of the potential for security problems that could result from unescorted access. Los Alamos, however, continues to allow unescorted after-hours access to preserve what one official described as an open"campus atmosphere" for researchers at its facilities. "..."

Department of Energy: DOE Needs to Improve Controls Over Foreign Visitors to Weapons Laboratories (Chapter Report, 09/25/97, GAO/RCED-97-229) "Finally, neither Los Alamos nor Sandia has developed security plans--even generic ones--for foreign nationals who will be in controlled areas. The DOE order governing unclassified foreign visits and assignments identifies security plans as the basic means by which vital information is protected and requires they be developed. However, DOE and laboratory officials told us that because of the exception granted by DOE to these two laboratories--which also streamlined requirements for background checks and visit approvals--security plans are no longer required for visits to controlled areas. Livermore has not sought such an exception and requires a generic security plan for all foreign visitors to its controlled areas."..."

ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST 4/8/99 "... I received a call March 23 from a national security source who told me of secret U.S. intelligence that Serb forces were prepared to abduct American troops stationed in Macedonia. I could not confirm the tip, and besides, it seemed inconceivable that the U.S. military would permit this to happen. Wrong indeed. On March 31, three American soldiers were seized along the Macedonia-Kosovo border in an incident drenched with ambiguity and mystery. Sen. John Warner, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has departed from his steadfast support of the U.S.-NATO attacks on Yugoslavia to raise serious questions about what in the world the American troops were doing the day they were taken prisoner. No answers have been given to Warner, but the most haunting question is unasked: Why was the intelligence report on the danger of abduction ignored? The chairman, a former secretary of the Navy and a stalwart friend of the military, did not ask simply because he did not know. The warning was not shared with him...."

Date: 4/9/99 Author: Paul Sperry Investor's Business Daily "...The administration waited until last month to fire the alleged spy - only after the press broke the story. It hasn't yet charged him with any wrongdoing. More, the White House didn't order the labs to beef up security until last year. Why didn't officials give the case top priority? Some suspect it conflicted with a higher priority: Selling the global test ban to China and other nuclear states. ''They wanted to get them on board by exchanging this new (virtual-testing) technology in the spirit of scientific fraternity and openness,'' said former Reagan Defense official Frank Gaffney. In the process, he says, the labs have left themselves open to espionage by countries like China that remain hell- bent on making their nuclear missile arsenals more, not less, lethal. ''In creating much more of an academic environment, the labs probably went too far - at least more than makes old weapons guys comfortable,'' said Troy Wade, a former Reagan Energy official in charge of nuclear weapons. An ex-O'Leary aide said her open-door policy angered some Pentagon officials who ''feared security breaches.'' Looking back, he says, they were right. Clinton, who stands by his denuclearization policy, argues that the Los Alamos leak predated his watch. He said ''security procedures were too weak for years and years and years.'' .....But former officials note the problems accelerated under Clinton. Recent GAO and internal Energy reports concur. ''What's happened over the past six years makes the sort of generic problems we've always had with the labs pale by comparison,'' said Gaffney, who specialized in arms control policy at the Pentagon and now heads the Center for Security Policy in Washington.

Investor's Business Daily 4/12/99 Paul Sperry "…At the same time China builds more lethal nuclear missiles - using U.S. technology - America's nuclear arsenal collects dust. It's been 10 years since the nation built a new missile, and seven since it tested old ones….In fact, the Pentagon can't be sure existing missiles even work. And it won't be sure until around 2010, when weapons testing is scheduled to resume. Even then it's iffy. Scientists at the nation's nuclear labs won't be able to blow up bombs in the Nevada desert to spot bugs and perfect designs as they've done for 50 years. President Clinton banned that for ''virtual testing,'' which uses computers to simulate detonations. But virtual testing is itself virtual. At this point, it's just a theory. Scientists will need another 10 years - and billions of dollars in new equipment -to come up with the massive number of computations to mimic a real nuclear blast. All this worries some national security experts. They fear the administration hasn't taken post-Cold War nuclear threats seriously enough. As America's nuclear edge grows duller by the day, they point out, China's gets sharper…. By not testing, ''you also preclude the introduction of new weapons into the inventory,'' Gaffney added. It's just too risky to mix untried designs into the arsenal, he explains. "

4/10/99 Freeper Yaya123 "…Elizabeth M. Moler was personally responsible for stiffing the Cox committee. Now Bill Cohen is nominating her to be Secretary of the Air Force….. Read the following NYTIMES article to understand why Elizabeth Moler must not be the next Sec. of the Air Force: NYTIMES, March 6....""In July 1998, the House Intelligence Committee requested an update on the case, officials said. Trulock forwarded the request in a memo to, and in conversations with, Elizabeth Moler, then acting energy secretary. Ms. Moler ordered him not to brief the House panel for fear that the information would be used to attack the president's China policy, according to an account he later gave congressional investigators. Ms. Moler, now a Washington lawyer, says she does not remember the request to allow Trulock to brief Congress and denies delaying the process. In October, Ms. Moler, then deputy secretary, stopped Trulock from delivering written testimony on espionage activities in the labs to a closed session of the House National SecurityCommittee. Ms. Moler told Trulock to rewrite his testimony to limit it to the announced subject of the hearing, foreign visitors to the labs, an Energy Department spokeswoman said. The issue came up nonetheless when committee members asked follow-up questions, Energy Department officials said. Key lawmakers began to learn about the extent of the Chinese theft of U.S. nuclear secrets late in 1998, when a selectcommittee investigating the transfers of sensitive U.S. technology to China, chaired by Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., heard from Trulock…."

WorldNet Daily 4/12/99 Geoff Metcalf "... To compound the sin of the Clinton administration, the "unintended consequences" were forewarned. The CIA and the Pentagon both provided advice and counsel that could and should have prevented what could turn into World War III. However, notwithstanding the lessons which SHOULD have been learned from failing to accept advice from experts, the arrogant, myopic bumblers again rejected the counsel of the professionals -- and now seem surprised. John Ruskin once said, "Without seeking, truth cannot be known at all. It can neither be declared from pulpits, nor set down in articles, nor in any wise prepared and sold in packages ready for use. Truth must be ground for every man by itself out of it such, with such help as he can get, indeed, but not without stern labor of his own." Truth has become the first casualty of this NATO aggression. Once again, we see petty myopia obfuscating reality and common (regrettably all too uncommon) sense. Seeking truth has become an almost impossible task. I saw a chilling headline recently that stated, "The Fourth Estate has become the Fifth Column." Mainstream media has become a co-conspirator with the administration to shape, mold, and spin information, which is designed to defend, rationalize and validate policy, and action which is bad, wrong, and probably criminal..... Conversely, in this modern age of instant communication, commanders have the added challenge of denying combat intelligence to the bad guys. Hell, Saddam Hussein was sitting in his bunker watching CNN for contemporaneous combat intelligence. The grinding out of truth is becoming increasingly difficult. OUR media underreports bad news. Daily, (through the Internet) we are exposed to Greek newspapers overstating casualties. All the time, the elusive truth languishes somewhere between the yin and yang. The tragedy of the Balkans is real. However, it has been, is, and will sadly continue. Regarding those who "don't want to be confused with facts which contradict their preconceived opinions," it should be noted that the Serbian/Ethnic Albanian conflict is in reality merely an extension of the Crusades. However, this time, the defensive NATO, has for the first time in its 50-year history, acted as the aggressor, AND has allied in a religious war against the Christians. Even Cecil Rhodes and Clinton's old Professor Carroll Quigley have to be rolling in their graves over this brain flatulence masquerading as policy....."

AP Jim Abrams 4/15/99 "...Energy Department officials acknowledged Thursday they withheld information from a House subcommittee last fall on an alleged Chinese spying case. A department intelligence officer said he was told by the deputy energy secretary not to talk about the case, a charge the senior agency official denied. ``We are very upset,'' said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services military procurement subcommittee. He said the two officials, testifying under oath in a closed session in October, dodged specific questions about spying activities at the department's national weapons laboratories. ``I apologize,'' said Notra Trulock, the agency's special adviser for intelligence. He said he acted at the behest of then-Deputy Secretary Elizabeth Moler, who also testified at the hearing, when he did not discuss the investigation into possible Chinese espionage at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Trulock said Moler also edited written testimony he had prepared for the hearing to delete references to counterintelligence operations. Moler denied editing the testimony and said she only instructed Trulock to limit his comments to the subject of the national labs' foreign visitor program. She said then-Secretary Federico Pena had decided that, because of the particularly sensitive nature of the case, briefings to Congress should be limited to the House and Senate intelligence committees. She said that was a common practice and that she had advised Trulock to follow that policy. ``With the benefit of hindsight, we should have been more responsive,'' she said. ..."

Executive Order 13117 4/5/99 Vol 64 Number 64 Clinton "...Executive Order 13117 of March 31, 1999 Further Amendment to Executive Order 12981, as Amended By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America and in order to further the implementation of the reorganization of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) into the Department of State, in this instance by eliminating ACDA's vote on dual-use export license decisions in the administration of export controls, it is hereby ordered that Executive Order 12981, as amended (``Executive Order 12981''), is further amended as follows..."

The New Yorker (via www.jya.com) 4/5/99 Seymour Hersh "...Last December, after Saddam Hussein threatened to end seven years of United Nations arms-control inspections, President Clinton ordered American attacks on Iraq. Once again, the world watched, on television, as missiles fell on carefully picked targets. The purpose of the attacks, Clinton told reporters, was to "degrade" Iraq's capacity for waging war, and he added, "I gave the order because I believe we cannot allow Saddam Hussein to dismantle UNSCOM and resume the production of weapons of mass destruction with impunity." The President was mistaken. The United Nations Special Commission for Iraq, known as UNSCOM, had already been effectively dismantled, by the shortsighted policies of his own Administration. Then, a few hours after Clinton spoke, William Cohen, the Secretary of Defense, appeared on television. "One thing should be absolutely clear," he told reporters. "We are concentrating on military targets." That, too, was a misstatement, for two of the targets were sites where Saddam was known to entertain mistresses, and they were specifically struck in the hope of assassinating him. Saddam responded to the bombing--and the bungled assassination attempt--by formally ousting UNSCOM and turning anew to Russia, historically his most important trading partner. Today, eight years after the Gulf War, American policy has collapsed in Iraq, and a Cold War mentality has returned. Saddam is unchecked by U.N. inspectors as he pursues his goal of becoming a nuclear power, with the aid of Russian strategic materials. Saddam's ally in these efforts is Yevgeny Primakov, the Russian Prime Minister, a longtime friend who, according to highly classified communications intelligence, received at least one large payment from Iraq--by wire transfer--in November of 1997. The distrust of Primakov throughout the American intelligence community is acute. One former C.I.A. operative told me, "I don't know how many times we had to say this to Strobe"--Strobe Talbott, the Deputy Secretary of State--"but Primakov is just not a good guy." ..."

The Guardian (UK) 4/19/99 Julian Borger Richard Norton-Taylor "... Evidence emerging on both sides of the Atlantic yesterday showed that Nato entered the Kosovo conflict critically underestimating Serbian resolve in the face of Nato airstrikes, which now appear to be nowhere near achieving their objectives. CIA assessments before the bombing began predicted that President Slobodan Milosevic would give in at the first show of hi-tech military might. Leaked US documents show that US intelligence underestimated the Serbian leader's tenacity. A report in January that drew together intelligence gathered by various agencies under the patronage of the CIA gave the upbeat conclusion that Mr Milosevic had no stomach for a war that he could not win. 'After enough of a defence to sustain his honour and assuage his backers he will quickly sue for peace,' it said...."

Freeper Sawdrig 4/23/99 MENL reports "...Scientists from Iran and Iraq, countries believed to be seeking intermediate ballistic missile and nuclear weapons, are permitted to tour leading U.S. weapons laboratories, a House chairman says. Fred Upton, chairman of the House Commerce Committee Oversight and Investigations subcommittee, said he was stunned by testimony over the ease in which foreign scientists are allowed access to facilities and information that will help the weapons program of nations hostile to the United States. "I must say that one particular area stands out in my mind," Upton said in a Tuesday hearing, "the fact that thousands of foreign scientists from countries such as China, Cuba, Iran, and Iraq are permitted to visit our most sensitive weapon laboratories and have fairly unrestricted exchanges with our scientists -- including those working on matters that, while technically unclassified, are immensely useful to the weapon programs of foreign nations with potentially hostile intent towards the United States or its friends and allies around the world." ...."

Capitol Hill Blue 4/19/99 Doug Thompson "...Senior Pentagon officials have warned President Clinton his Kosovo war is destined to turn into a long conflict that could end up costing the United States more than $100 billion along with hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of American casualties, military sources say. Budget planners are also warning Clinton that a prolonged, expensive war could wipe out the federal budget surplus, threaten the solvency of Social Security and plunge the country into a recession. Although Clinton is asking Congress for $5.9 billion in emergency spending for the Kosovo war, the real cost will be more than 20 times that.....Among the projections presented to the White House: A combined air-ground campaign lasting two-to-five years at a cost of more than $100 billion; Increased American casualties in a ground conflict ranging from "several hundred" to "several thousand;" An increasing possibility that some NATO allies(such as France and Italy) could drop out of the coalition, leaving the U.S. and Britain to fight the war alone; An increasing possibility that Russia could enter the war on Yugoslavia's side; No guarantees that, even with ground troops, the war could be won. Military experts dismissed claims by Assistant Secretary of Defense Strobe Talbot Sunday that the Kosovo war is winnable in the air. "Talbot is spinning," says intelligence analyst Sander Owen. "The White House was told from the beginning this thing couldn't be won in the air."....Owen said the US has few options left...."

PRNewswire 4/25/99 "...According to the Energy Department's own figures, the country's nuclear facilities have lost track of more than 5,000 pounds -- two and a half tons -- of plutonium, and at the Rocky Flats weapons factory near Denver alone, officials acknowledge to Newsweek, some 2,400 pounds of plutonium is unaccounted for. Newsweek has also learned that Rocky Flats failed a sophisticated computer program designed to simulate terrorist attacks against each of the country's nuclear labs. Other facilities, including Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, also fared poorly on security checks.....The Energy Department suggests that "inventory differences," the result of the material getting stuck in pipes and manufacturing tools, are responsible for the missing plutonium. Even so, the Department's latest declassified report rated security at three prominent installations -- Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge -- as "marginal," providing only "questionable assurance" that the material was safeguarded closely enough. In the words of a former security agent at one of the nuclear labs, protective measures at Rocky Flats were so lax, "it [was] like having a window in a bank vault."....In 80 percent of the simulations, the attackers were able to get through the razor wire and security checks and walk out with enough plutonium to build a nuclear bomb -- or poison millions of people with the radioactive dust...."

The American Spectator 5/99 Kenneth R. Timmerman "...One of the more shocking details I uncovered in my investigation of China's California networks was that a front company owned by the PLA's largest weapons manufacturer had set up shop directly above the CIA office responsible for contacts with U.S. aerospace manufacturers in the Los Angeles area, where some of the agency's most secret projects have been developed. The Chinese operated there for more than two years without the CIA ever knowing, U.S. law enforcement officers in the L.A. area told me. Given what we are now beginning to learn from the W-88 spy case, this monumental security lapse seems not an accident but a natural consequence of the Clinton administration policy. Deputy National Security Advisor Gary Samore, the official put in charge of the W-88 investigation at the White House, revealed the administration's attitude to Chinese spying when he spoke to a group of national security experts and reporters at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, D.C. on March 17. "China's strategic capabilities are quite limited," and include "less than two dozen long-range systems" capable of reaching the United States, Samore explained. "But if our policy convinces China that we are a threat, then that increases the possibility that China will devote the resources to significantly expand their strategic capabilities, and it is not in our interest to see that happen." The priority, then, is reassuring China, not protecting our military secrets. ..."

AP 4/27/99 Michelle Williams "...Energy Secretary Bill Richardson says security has been improved at U.S. nuclear facilities and should prevent any more classified information about nuclear weapons from reaching the Chinese..... Richardson acknowledged that security had been lax at U.S. nuclear facilities over the past few years, despite a presidential directive to tighten it. ``Secrets were compromised,'' said Richardson, who became energy secretary last August. ``They were compromised and accelerated China's nuclear development.'' He said that kind of information theft ``will not happen again.'' Scientists who work on sensitive weapons now undergo polygraph tests; the counter-intelligence budget has tripled over the past few years, and background checks are required on scientists from sensitive countries, he said. Two weeks ago, Richardson said, he ordered a shutdown of DOE computers linked to nuclear weapons information so that their security could be measured and upgraded....."

Freeper ohmlaw98 4/29/99 reports on Los Alamos National Lab Director John Browne answers employee questions. EMPLOYEE Q. #3: There has been a great deal of publicity recently on the "Theft of the Secrets of the W88." Many of us wonder what happened, and what we can do to prevent this kind of thing happening again. Are there things that we should be on the lookout for to prevent this sort of thing happening again. Is there any way, without compromising security, that you can have a briefing, either classified or unclassified, to bring LANL employees up to speed on this? DIRECTOR BROWNE: I appreciate your concern. In the meantime, I sent an All-Employee memo on March 16 regarding this situation and we had an open meeting with DOE Undersecretary Moniz and his colleagues on March 19, which was followed by a press conference that was carried live on Labnet. More recently, there have been all-employees memos on computer security and foreign travel to sensitive countries. Your question about what we can do to prevent this kind of thing happening again is more difficult to answer. Although there have been recent media accounts alleging "lax security" and possible espionage activities at Los Alamos, this situation involves a classified Congressional report and an ongoing Federal investigation, so we cannot really know at this time what the status of this situation is. Thus there is not a lot of specific information I can share with you. However, I can give you some general advice: Attend the annual security briefings so you keep up to date on security issues, and if you see something that makes you feel uncomfortable with respect to security don't hesitate to discuss it with your supervisor or refer it to the appropriate security office. Thank you for your interest; this is a serious issue for all of us. (Question received 3/10/99)..." ohmlaw98 asks "...Why has the director of the lab not been briefed on the status of the situation?..."

Washington Weekly 5/2/99 RICKI MAGNUSSEN AND MARVIN LEE "...QUESTION: So you think that Clinton is close to the Chinese military? TIMPERLAKE: think the Chinese military penetrated to the highest level of the Clinton administration including the White House. QUESTION: But the question is if president Clinton is an innocent, ignorant victim, or is he actually working on their behalf? TIMPERLAKE: Here it comes: Ng Lap Sen, A communist Chinese official who also owns the Fortuna hotel in Macao and wired millions to Charlie Trie showed up not only in the White House but in the White House residence. Now that's a powerful statement. A communist Chinese official gangster wiring millions, his minion is a gangster who offered a bribe to the president through the president's legal defense fund. Two days after Ng Lap Sen enters the country with $75,000 in cash he's in the residence of the White House. So president Clinton has no willful blindness or deniability. He was there, he met with the fellow apparently six additional times. QUESTION: But the question is if he really knew who this was? TIMPERLAKE: Well, here's the argument: the Secret Service has as their sacred trust to protect the integrity and security of the President of the United States and the security of our leader, I mean the Commander-in-Chief. They would have to have known who this person was. There's no doubt in my mind that they knew exactly who this person was and the only person who could clear him in was the President of The United States. That's it. QUESTION: So you think that president Clinton is actually working on their behalf. TIMPERLAKE: He actually cleared this person in, because I trust the integrity and judgment of the FBI and the Secret Service. Here's the rule: Intelligence goes up and out, that's the rule of intelligence. When you get it, it goes up through the chain of command and out to the users, that's how it is. I trust the integrity of the FBI and the Secret Service. They would do due diligence, they are not weak on that, and they would brief the president or the people around him, on how bad these people were....."

The Center for Security Policy 4/26/99 No. 99-D 48 "...On 17 April 1995, President Clinton lent his authority to an "openness" initiative championed by Mrs. O'Leary, the current White House Chief of Staff, John Podesta, and then-NSC staffer Morton Halperin(3) with his signature of Executive Order 12958. This order called for the automatic declassification by 17 April 2000 of all documents containing historical information that are 25 years or older...... The practical effect of Executive Order 12958, however, has been greatly to abbreviate the time and necessarily to diminish the care with which classified documents are scrutinized prior to their release to the public. Leading Senators were horrified to learn last year that Restricted Data (and "Formerly Restricted Data") governed by the Atomic Energy Act were being hastily thrown out with the bath-water as officials were not being given the time or resources to declassify sensitive documents on a page-by-page basis.(4) Instead, it had to be done by the box, if not by the shelf. Mr. Podesta, apparently infuriated at any interference with the declassification initiative, instructed Secretary Richardson to have Ms. Gottemoeller reprimand a senior DOE bureaucrat, Joseph Mahaley, for encouraging Congress to intervene. (The personnel action -- which would, among other things, have denied Mr. Mahaley an expected performance bonus -- was quietly withdrawn after he threatened legal action.) ..."

The Center for Security Policy 4/26/99 No. 99-D 48 "...Among those who has had the unenviable task of dealing with the deleterious consequences of this sort of security malpractice is Notra Trulock. Until the Cox committee's findings about Chinese espionage at Los Alamos came to light, Mr. Trulock was Chief of Intelligence at DOE. When his years of warning about the penetration of some of the United States' most sensitive facilities -- warnings that were suppressed by, among other superiors, Rose Gottemoeller, to whom the intelligence office reported until a reorganization last Fall -- were publicly vindicated, Mr. Trulock was demoted and his future at the Department seems in jeopardy..... Just last week, Assistant Secretary Gottemoeller took another personnel action, this time against Edward McCallum, a retired Army colonel who heads DOE's Office of Security and Safeguards. In that capacity, he has worked tirelessly to call attention, including in unclassified official reports, to the dangerous decline in the security of critical sites in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. Apparently panicked at the mounting evidence that Mr. McCallum's heretofore unheeded alarms were becoming a serious embarrassment to the Department of Energy, Ms. Gottemoeller summarily on 19 April effectively fired him. On the basis of transparently trumped up charges that Col. McCallum, of all people, was handling classified information indiscreetly, Ms. Gottemoeller has placed him in the bureaucratic equivalent of limbo -- on indefinite, unappealable administrative leave with pay.

Washington Weekly 5/2/99 RICKI MAGNUSSEN AND MARVIN LEE "...QUESTION: Are you concerned that the most significant revelations will be redacted before release? TIMPERLAKE: It doesn't matter, you can assume the worst! It's all over! The worst has already happened. You have to work the worst case scenario. The People's Republic of China now has every nuclear secret America has and that's a serious issue! It's not only how to build the bombs, how to test the bombs, what happens when you go down the wrong path, what is the right path, what gets you strategically more "bang for your buck." No, it's all over, truly. The worst has happened. Bill Clinton on his watch stifled investigations, stepped on individuals, his administration stepped on these individuals who were trying to do the right thing and save the world and--I don't mean to be overly dramatic--but to save the world from some very nasty countries having access to nuclear secrets and the individuals who stepped up were told not to talk to congress. They were basically told that they couldn't present their case, they were discredited, they were demoted and that's a serious charge...."

The Center for Security Policy 4/26/99 No. 99-D 48 "...Lately, it seems that scarcely a day goes by without some new revelation about serious security problems at the Department of Energy (DOE) -- or the Clinton Administration's lack of seriousness about addressing them competently. Less obvious, but no less troubling, are the steps the Administration is taking to punish conscientious DOE employees who have been raising alarms about these problems. Much of the blame for the present mess appears to lie with President Clinton's first Secretary of Energy, Hazel O'Leary.(1) Mrs. O'Leary made no secret of her hostility to her Department's most important function -- maintaining the Nation's strategic deterrent and the thermonuclear weaponry that underpins it. While she has mercifully been gone from office for three years, the legacy of the gaggle of anti-nuclear activists O'Leary recruited to staff senior DOE positions and the "denuclearization" and "openness" policies that she and they promulgated together linger on. In fact, just last month, the current Secretary of Energy, Bill Richardson, succeeded in sneaking through the Senate the nomination of an advocate of the abolition of nuclear weapons to serve as Assistant Secretary for Nonproliferation and National Security. This dark-of-night operation is all the more outrageous in light of the mounting evidence that this appointee, Rose Gottemoeller,(2) is implicated in a number of the security scandals now coming to light -- and the personnel actions being taken against the whistle-blowers....Two further O'Leary "openness" initiatives contributed to the circumstances under which the penetration of U.S. nuclear facilities by Communist China, among others, has occurred during the present administration. ....First, Mrs. O'Leary banned personnel badges that clearly indicated whether the bearer had a security clearance and, if so, how high. Her reasoning: Such badges were discriminatory. And second, she ended the practice of requiring reports to DOE headquarters about foreign nationals from "sensitive countries" who visited the unclassified areas of the Nation's nuclear weapons laboratories....."

The Center for Security Policy 4/26/99 No. 99-D 48 "...On 17 April 1995, President Clinton lent his authority to an "openness" initiative championed by Mrs. O'Leary, the current White House Chief of Staff, John Podesta, and then-NSC staffer Morton Halperin(3) with his signature of Executive Order 12958. This order called for the automatic declassification by 17 April 2000 of all documents containing historical information that are 25 years or older......"

"Committee members grilled FBI Director Louis J. Freeh about why the 1982 call was not investigated further" v "After the FBI confronted Lee about the call, he cooperated with the agency and later passed a polygraph examination in which he denied involvement in any espionage activity, the official said." - Washington Post 5/2/99 Vernon Loeb "....

Washington Times 4/30/99 Editorial Board "..... For several years, the Justice Department obstructed the FBI's efforts to detect Mr. Lee's downloading activities Mr. Lee, who was fired in March, emerged more than three years ago as the primary suspect in an espionage case in which China acquired design information about America's most sophisticated nuclear warhead, the W-88, which is deployed on the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile...."

Washington Times 4/30/99 Editorial Board "..... Energy Department counterintelligence officials identified Mr. Lee as a major suspect in February 1996, noting that his travels to China made him stick out "like a sore thumb." For reasons that are virtually impossible to fathom, however, the FBI did not learn of Mr. Lee's massive downloading activities until last month, more than three years after he became the primary suspect in an espionage case that the CIA's chief of counterintelligence regarded as "far more damaging to national security than [Soviet spy] Aldrich Ames." ..."

Washington Times 4/30/99 Editorial Board "...Attorney General Reno's Justice Department is far more culpable for this catastrophic national-security debacle. Time and again, the New York Times reports, the Justice Department declined to pursue FBI requests for wiretaps. Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy Review would have been required to petition a special court to obtain either a wiretap of Mr. Lee's phone or to gain surreptitious access to his office computer. Despite Mr. Lee's role as the principal espionage suspect, Miss Reno's Justice Department declined a 1997 FBI request for a wiretap and surreptitious access to Mr. Lee's office computer. Justice's Office of Intelligence Policy Review maintained there was insufficient evidence for it to seek the necessary court permission The FBI appealed that decision to Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, the second-highest Justice Department official. Mr. Holder also denied the request to pursue the wiretaps...."

Washington Times 4/30/99 Editorial Board "...in 1997, while President Clinton was pursuing his "strategic partnership" with China, not only was the FBI investigating Chinese nuclear espionage but congressional committees and an incompetent Justice Department task force were investigating Mr. Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign and the Democratic Party for receiving laundered money from the Chinese Communist government. Miss Reno repeatedly refused to seek an independent counsel, despite a 1997 recommendation to do so by FBI Director Louis Freeh...."

Washington Times 4/30/99 Editorial Board "..... Meanwhile, her deputy and other Justice officials were refusing to act on FBI requests to obtain wiretaps that would have uncovered Mr. Lee's unauthorized downloading of the secrets of 50 years of U.S. nuclear-weapons development. Normally, the Justice Department favorably responds to FBI requests for such wiretaps in 99.9 percent of the 700 or so requests it receives each year. ...."

Washington Times 4/30/99 Editorial Board "....The FBI finally discovered the downloaded computer code after searching Mr. Lee's office computer last month. Within days of his March 8 firing and after he failed a lie-detector test, Mr. Lee gave the FBI permission to search his office computer...."

Washington Times 4/30/99 Editorial Board "..... Amazingly, however, even after the FBI made its startling discovery, the Justice Department delayed seeking court-ordered approval to search Mr. Lee's house. That search was finally conducted April 10, more than a month after Mr. Lee was fired...."

USA TODAY 5/1/99 AP "...Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said Friday a suspected spy for China at the Los Alamos National Laboratory should have had his access to top secrets taken away long before it was. ''It seems within the lab, within the Department of Energy there were some communication breakdowns as to why this individual was still pursuing security work of a sensitive nature at a time when there were suspicions about him,'' Richardson said..... Appearing on PBS' The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Richardson said an internal investigation is trying to determine if government or lab officials should be disciplined because Lee was not moved sooner and stripped of his top security clearance..... Richardson said he knew of ''no evidence'' that any of the computer code data had been shipped via e-mail outside the Los Alamos facility in New Mexico but acknowledged it was theoretically possible. ''We have no evidence yet that China or anyone got this information. ...The evidence on that is not there,'' he said. Richardson. According to Richardson, most of the computer code transfers occurred in 1994-95 but some go back as far as 1983. He said it was ''a very serious violation'' but ''how serious we don't know'' - since there still is no certainty as to who may have seen the data...."

Mrc . org - Freeper enough is enough reports 5/1/99 "...CBS delivered an exclusive talk with three scientists at the Livermore national lab about lax security. Sharyl Attkisson began her April 28 report: "The scientists who spoke exclusively with CBS News, work at Lawrence Livermore in California, one of the labs where intelligence officials say the Chinese stole sensitive weapons data in recent years." Scientist: "Certainly in the last half of the 1990 there's been a significant change in the working atmosphere." Attkisson: "A loosening of security?" Scientist: "A general loosening, yes." But Attkisson didn't pursue the angle of the scientist's charge that security was loosened when Clinton entered office. In fact, she never referred to he administration or Clinton. Instead, Attkisson moved on, explaining how the two anonymous scientists have the highest security rating -- "Q-clearance." Attkisson detailed the lax security: "They say in the early '90s workers without a Q-clearance began getting access to buildings where classified work is done and still today the only security keeping non-Q workers away from sensitive areas is often no more than a 'keep out' sign." Scientist with altered voice and lampshade head: "There's a door on one facility that says 'Q only.' It's up to the person if they're not a Q to not go in that building." Attkisson added that "self patrolling became tougher a few years ago" when badges were re-designed, making low-clearance badges look much like Q badges. "But the biggest threat may lie in the ability of hundreds of Q clearance workers to simply carry out reams of secret documents," Attkisson revealed before the scientists explained how scientists can enter and exit without ever encountering a guard so they could load up a briefcase with secret files. Attkisson concluded: "Security and intelligence sources at the labs and the Energy Department confirm each of scientists accounts. One congressional investigator told CBS News the U.S. has never figured out how China stole huge amounts of weapons data but that these scientists' stories provide the best insight yet into how easily lab security can be breached."

www.ConservativeNews.org 5/3/99 Larry Arnn "...As we fight in Kosovo, where dangers multiply and success recedes, steps are neglected that can secure our freedom from attack at home. Reports abound that America's stock of cruise missiles runs perilously low, and no assembly line is producing more. The president has committed to ballistic missile defense, and yet he takes no urgent steps to complete a practical system and get it into operation. Meanwhile, China and Iraq give assistance to North Korea, a primitive and brutal place, in its effort to develop the means of direct and devastating attack upon the United States. How has China managed this? With nothing less than the best technology the United States has to offer. By now there can be no doubt that China possesses data on the most sophisticated nuclear warheads in our nuclear arsenal. These data the Chinese stole. Chinese spies were permitted to run amok in America's most secret research laboratories. But possessing critical data about warheads was not enough. The rest--that is, the technological means of delivering those warheads--was sold to China by American firms with export permits issued by the United States Department of Commerce...."

Chinatimes 5/3/99 AFP "....Top US officials were warned last autumn that China posed an "acute intelligence threat" to US nuclear weapons programs but waited until this spring to act, The New York Times reported Sunday. A report prepared by US counterintelligence officials, warning that outsiders were "constantly" penetrating the United States' nuclear research labs, elaborated on longstanding concerns about the vulnerability of these labs to espionage, the Times said. The report was distributed last November to officials at the highest levels of government, including Defense Secretary William Cohen, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, National Security Adviser Sandy Berger and Attorney General Janet Reno...."

Newsweek Magazine 5/3/99 Gregory L. Vistica and Daniel Klaidman "... Weeks after reports that Wen Ho Lee, a Chinese-American scientist at Los Alamos, may have leaked secret nuclear-weapons designs to Beijing back in 1988, some in the U.S. intelligence community are asking: was the FBI deliberately slow to investigate? The bureau certainly had a reason to be embarrassed about the investigation: NEWSWEEK has learned that Lee's wife, Sylvia, was for years an FBI informant. According to senior intelligence officials, from 1985 to 1991, Sylvia Lee - an administrator at Los Alamos who arranged lab tours for Chinese delegations and attended academic conferences in Beijing - covertly helped the FBI keep tabs on prominent Chinese scientists and develop personality profiles on them..... Intelligence officials still have doubts about whether they will ever gather enough evidence to prosecute Wen Ho Lee, who, sources say, knew about his wife's relationship with the FBI. Lee maintains he is innocent. Earlier this month the FBI sheepishly revealed Sylvia Lee's FBI ties to top intelligence officials, who are furious that the bureau withheld critical information. According to government officials, FBI Director Louis Freeh, Attorney General Janet Reno and CIA Director George Tenet were also kept in the dark. This week Freeh will appear before angry senators on the Intelligence Committee. It won't be an easy sell...."

Time 5/3/99 Elaine Shannon and Michael Duffy "...Mrs. Lee's modest relationship with the FBI complicates the already murky case of her husband, Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwanese-born computer scientist who worked on nuclear-warhead design programs at Los Alamos. In 1995 U.S. intelligence officers learned that China had somehow stolen classified information about the W-88 miniaturized nuclear-warhead program. The ensuing FBI investigation found Wen Ho Lee had violated a number of lab security rules, including failing to report contacts with PRC scientists-lapses for which Department of Energy Secretary Bill Richardson fired him last month...."

Associated Press 5/5/99 H. Josef Hebert, "....As early as 1996, managers at the Los Alamos nuclear lab wanted to examine the computer of a scientist suspected of espionage. But they were warned away by Justice Department lawyers who feared the search would taint information for use in court, the Senate was told Wednesday..... Computer experts reconstructed the files, government officials have said, but questions remain why the search was not conducted much earlier since Lee had been under suspicion of espionage since 1996. "An individual is suspected of being a spy with access to all of our warhead information ... and we did not get into his computer. This is total incompetence,'' Sen. Don Nickels, R-Okla., said Wednesday...... John Browne, the director of the Los Alamos lab in New Mexico, told a Senate hearing Wednesday that as early as 1996 laboratory officials suggested to the FBI, which had just begun investigating Lee, that the Taiwanese-born scientist's computer be searched. They argued they could do so under a 1995 policy directive that advises all lab employees that their computers are subject to search without notice. "The FBI and the Department of Justice felt that the policy was not adequate (and) ... that if we proceeded independently, anything that was found they could not use'' in court, Browne told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. .... In 1984, Lee was told to take a polygraph test and "showed deception on seven questions'' that should have alerted security officials, said Domenici. Instead, the data became buried and was never passed on to lab managers. When the Energy Department office in Albuquerque, N.M., five years later raised some questions about the 1984 polygraph tests, the file disappeared when sent to Washington, said Domenici, so three years later the regional office had to hire a contractor to reconstruct Lee's personnel file....In August 1997, FBI director Louis Freeh told the No. 2 official at the Energy Department that the investigation of Lee would not be jeopardized if the scientist were shifted to a less sensitive job, or if his security were lifted. But word of Freeh's assessment never reached Los Alamos, according to Browne, who took over as the lab's director in November of that year. "I never received any information regarding this ... and to my knowledge, neither has anyone else at the laboratory,'' Browne told the senators Wednesday. Browne called this perhaps the most serious communications breakdown involving the Lee case and said if he had known of the FBI's go-ahead he would have moved quickly to remove Lee from his job....."

Syndicated Column 5/4/99 Debra J.Saunders "...LAST NOVEMBER, a secret report warned the Clinton administration about an "acute intelligence threat" in U.S. nuclear labs. Yet, according to a devastating report in the New York Times, five months went by before investigators searched the computer of the suspected party, scientist Wen Ho Lee. The delay gave Lee, who has since been fired from his job for security violations, time to try to delete thousands of files containing nuclear secrets. National security may be an oxymoron in U.S. government under President Clinton. His Justice Department turned down an FBI request to wiretap Lee's phone and monitor his computer. What's more, although investigators suggested that the Department of Energy transfer Lee to a less sensitive job, it instead put him in charge of updating the computer archives of nuclear secrets. (Lee's attorney insists his client is not guilty of espionage.) Get the feeling this administration doesn't take national security seriously? You should....."

Reuters 5/5/99 "...Senate Energy Committee Chairman Frank Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, waving a floppy disk said he was astonished that a scientist could basically download top secret information at the labs and walk out with it in a pocket. "It's the same as an individual walking out the door with what's in their mind, how do we stop that?'' John Browne, director of Los Alamos National Laboratory said. The same would apply to papers carried out with the secret designation cut off, he added. "It's an individual...determined to get classified information out of a classified area, that is of course the most serious security violation of all,'' Browne said..... Domenici proposed creating a special set of security requirements for Energy Department employees with access to nuclear information, requiring the FBI to handle all "Q'' clearance background checks, and requiring those employees as a condition of clearance to agree to take polygraph tests. The "Q'' clearance is a top secret designation for employees who work on nuclear weapons designs. Domenici also proposed allowing the government to log e-mail and telephone traffic in and out of the labs and allowing the FBI to search computers and monitor telephones within the labs, which currently is not allowed. In the past, even cooks in the cafeteria at Los Alamos were given the "Q'' clearance, but under former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary that was canceled because of the expense of background checks in which investigators talk to neighbors, friends, and other acquaintances of the prospective employee. Now the cafeteria is located outside the classified zone at Los Alamos, a lab official attending the hearing said. "We tell people don't talk classified in the cafeteria,'' he added. Under O'Leary, color coding of badges to designate security clearance was also eliminated, which the lab directors testified made it more difficult to tell who had top security clearance and who did not. The badge color coding was in the process of being reinstated, the directors said...."

American Spectator 5/99 John B. Roberts II "...Operation Desert Glow began like clockwork at 0900 on the morning of June 6, 1989. Just outside Denver, Colorado, almost a hundred heavily armed federal agents, including seventy special agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, descended en masse upon the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant.... Operation Desert Glow had been authorized at the highest levels of government. FBI Director William S. Sessions, Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, Energy Secretary James D. Watkins, and EPA Administrator William K. Reilly had all sanctioned the massive federal raid on Rocky Flats. But this extraordinary cabinet-level attention was not due to suspicions of foreign espionage at the weapons production facility. The hundred federal agents were sent to Rocky Flats to search for criminal violations of environmental laws...... Operation Desert Glow marked the beginning of a cultural shift in the U.S. government that would last through the Bush administration and accelerate under Clinton. Insiders say that this decade-long assault on the institutional values of the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons complex created a lax security atmosphere that resulted in the most ruinous loss of nuclear technology in any espionage case since the Rosenbergs gave the Soviets the atomic bomb....."

American Spectator 5/99 John B. Roberts II "...Intelligence insiders expect the publicly disclosed assessments to be a whitewash. Citing the administration's strenuous efforts to suppress publication of Rep. Chris Cox's committee report on Chinese espionage, they expect the White House to try to keep the details of the W-88 theft classified. It is unlikely that any of these review boards will come up with the solution proposed by Shelby Brewer in Senate hearings two years ago. Brewer, who is now with the nuclear power investment holding company Brewer-Hanzlik Nuclear Partners, testified that the national security functions of the Energy Department should be split off and given to the Defense Department. Former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger appeared on the same panel and seconded Brewer's view...."

Time 5/10/99 Romesh Ratnesar "...No Chinese general would rely on the validity of stolen designs alone to build and deploy new nuclear weapons. Instead the time-honed technical expertise found in the U.S. codes could allow savvy foreign scientists to measure the punch packed by weapons they already possess without actually testing them. It's a doozy for the Chinese, who may have pocketed U.S. secrets just before they signed the nuclear test-ban treaty in 1996. And then there are the nuclear wannabes from Pyongyang to Tripoli, to whom the Chinese might sell the codes. Warns Gary Milhollin of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, based in Washington: "This could facilitate nuclear-weapons development by China, or anybody else, without our knowing about it." ..."

NY Times 5/6/99 James Risen "..."Is there a monitor of individuals walking in and out that would pick up if somebody had this in his pocket?" Murkowski asked the directors, as he held a disk in his hand. "No there is not," conceded John Browne, director of Los Alamos. "And the problem is that any floppy disk like you're carrying, you can't tell unless you read all the contents whether it's classified or not." Murkowski expressed outrage at the way the Los Alamos case has been handled by lab officials, by the Energy Department and the FBI....Floppy disk drives on computers on the unclassified system have been disabled or sealed in recent weeks, but not on the classified computers, officials said. Energy Department officials said they are now working on ways to eliminate the use of floppy disks on the classified network....."

Associated Press 5/6/99 H. Josef Hebert, "...Energy Secretary Bill Richardson acknowledged massive security breaches at nuclear weapons labs Thursday but said in an interview that criticism is "starting to become a blame game'' that could hurt the labs and the nation.... Richardson said he was concerned that several moves underway in Congress to restrict or even ban foreign scientific exchanges at labs or to have the FBI take over lab security are unnecessary and an overreaction. ..."

Los Angeles Daily News 5/4/99 Editorial "....AMERICA has generously opened its most closely guarded nuclear weapons secrets to the world, allowing unnamed governments and unknown individuals easy access. Oh sure, alarms sounded. But it appears officials in the Clinton administration meticulously turned the alarms off by burying or ignoring reports warning of America's vulnerability. And the news gets worse. Now, the only thing standing between U.S. security and anarchy is Congress. The American public should be very afraid. Clinton administration officials were warned last November that China posed an ''acute intelligence threat'' to the government's nuclear weapons laboratories and that computer systems at the labs were being constantly penetrated by outsiders. Three months earlier, Congress itself issued a strongly worded bipartisan report criticizing U.S. technology transfer to China that helped China improve its nuclear weapons...... While Clinton and Congress fiddled, the United States was robbed of leadership and security, and left vulnerable. Sadly, public trust has been so eroded that we may never know for sure how serious the breach in our security was and whether we are still at risk...."

American Spectator 5/99 John B. Roberts II "...After the 1992 election, matters only got worse. "The priorities were wrong, " says former Secretary Herrington, "and when that was over you had a secretary of Energy put in there whose priorities were world travel, junketing with businessmen and CEOs, and a huge declassification effort including things that shouldn't have been declassified. And you had a culture at DOE that was anti-nuclear." When she took over the department as Clinton's first energy secretary, Hazel O'Leary made clear that she thought DOE had too many secrets. She ordered an agency-wide review of files and documents for the purpose of releasing information. Her new team of political appointees, many drawn from the ranks of the anti-nuclear movement or extremist environmental groups, were eager to ferret out and disclose the department's secrets. O'Leary chose Dan Riecher, from the Natural Resources Defense Council, to be her chief of staff and later named him assistant secretary. "That was like putting a fox in the henhouse," says Brewer, who points out that the activist hard-line NRDC had frequently filed nuisance suits against the department during the eighties. Riecher drew other environmental activists into the ranks of DOE's mid-level and junior political appointees. Another senior O'Leary appointee, Terry Lash, was drawn from the Illinois state environmental protection agency. At DOE, Lash drew fire from Congress for misusing funds appropriated for nuclear reactor and safety research programs by reallocating the money for alternative and renewable energy grants. One former high-ranking Energy Department security official is convinced that O'Leary's environmental activists have used their access to official information to funnel documents to environmental and anti-nuclear groups, ensuring a wave of litigation against future nuclear power or nuclear weapons programs. He believes that classified information has been compromised because of the political ideology of the anti-nuclear activists...."

American Spectator 5/99 John B. Roberts II "...Instead of heeding Trulock's warnings, O'Leary ordered the department's intelligence division to cease gathering information on anti-nuclear extremists and environmental radicals--such as those responsible for the recent arson at a Vail, Colorado ski resort--who frequently impede shipments of nuclear materials. She forbade them even to keep newspaper clippings on the suspect groups. O'Leary's actions were destructive to department morale. "The guys making the nuclear weapons felt like they were the bad guys, and they really got the short end of the stick," recalls Bergen. Tight budgets and program cutbacks at the national labs after the Cold War left U.S. weapons scientists, like their Russian counterparts, wondering about their futures. The new disrepute of the nuclear weapons profession and the government investigations at Rocky Flats combined with the sudden declassification of long-guarded DOE secrets fostered the perception among nuclear lab employees that security no longer mattered. The situation virtually invited foreign intelligence services to redouble their efforts to recruit nuclear spies. Trulock was not the only one to warn O'Leary to tighten security. As part of her declassification drive, the secretary had appointed a top-level committee to decide which secret DOE activities could be declassified. The end-product was something called the Fundamental Review, which determined that many of the documents and programs classified during the Cold War no longer required secrecy. But as the Fundamental Review progressed, there arose a strong belief among the committee that the department's vital secrets needed better safeguarding. "We should identify what really ought to be protected, and build the walls higher around it," explains Troy Wade, who served on the committee. But while O'Leary was more than pleased to accept the committee's recommendations on declassification, she ignored its advice to improve security in coordination with other agencies including the FBI and the Defense

American Spectator 5/99 John B. Roberts II "...Inside the U.S. intelligence community, the targeting of America's nuclear secrets is a well-established fact. During John Herrington's tenure as Energy secretary in Reagan's second term, Chinese efforts to infiltrate Energy Department facilities were constant and persistent. So were similar efforts by the Russians, the South Africans, and the Israelis. Herrington knew how important cooperation between the FBI and DOE was in preventing foreign espionage. So when at the end of the Reagan administration Bush's incoming FBI director, William Sessions, wanted to meet for a briefing, Herrington readily agreed. Sessions, a former federal judge, knew little about DOE's national security mission. Herrington gave him an overview and urged Sessions to "get read into and briefed up" on the secret side of the department's activities. Sessions promised he would. Sessions's tenure as FBI director was less than six months old at the time of Operation Desert Glow. Herrington was incredulous when he learned about the Rocky Flats raid. At a reception in California, the former cabinet member confronted the FBI director. "Why are you sending the FBI out to Rocky Flats," Herrington asked in straight Marine Corps fashion, "when we have problems in this country with drugs, with crime, with espionage in Silicon Valley?" "You know," Sessions answered defensively, "these are high priority cases, too." Herrington still bristles at the government's prosecution of the weapons plant managers. "They put the pedal to the metal for us," he says, referring to Congress's and the administration's orders to match the Brezhnev-era Soviet build-up by accelerating weapons production in the eighties. "They were only doing what we told them to do." The new management culture looked upon those same executives and scientists with a mixture of suspicion and disdain--as, at best, useless relics of the Cold War; and at worst, environmental criminals and pro-bomb fanatics. Security and morale in the nation's nuclear weapons infrastructure plummeted as a result Insiders say there is a direct correlation between the cultural shift at DOE and the degradation of security that permitted China to steal the secrets of one of the most advanced nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal, the W-88 warhead...."

USA Today 5/6/99 "...Five months ago, a special congressional committee investigating security problems with China questioned whether the Department of Energy had adequate safeguards to protect nuclear secrets. Its report won't be out until next week. But on Feb. 1, President Clinton responded, saying safeguards were "adequate" and getting better. That wasn't true then, and is doubtful now, as senators are learning this week. Fresh disclosures reveal a laxity at government's highest levels that defies easy explanation....Between the time the Justice Department refused the FBI's request for a court order and Lee's firing, there were more than 300 break-ins involving the computer network on which Lee kept his purloined nuclear secrets. A classified report last November alerted the heads of defense, energy, the intelligence agencies and the national security counsel to those vulnerabilities. Yet it took Energy Secretary Bill Richardson until April to upgrade computer security at the weapons labs. All of this mocks White House claims of taking security seriously and that it was previous administrations that were to blame. Now, the administration is ominously indicating those found culpable will be let go...."

NY Times 5/5/99 AP "...Lab officials also were dissuaded from even checking the scientist's office computer, although employees had been warned in a formal policy that their computers were subject to search ``without notice'' as a security precaution. Again, lab managers were told such a search might taint evidence and ruin a potential criminal case. ``This points out the dilemma of balancing the requirements of national security against the constraints guiding law enforcement efforts,'' John Browne, the Los Alamos director, told a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing. Paul Robinson, director of Sandia National Laboratory, also located in New Mexico, told senators that in the past he had ``pulled a person's clearance'' even when an FBI investigation was under way. He gave no further details.... Browne, a 20-year employee at Los Alamos who became the research lab's director 18 months ago, said Lee would have been transferred out of the secure areas, if given the word from the FBI. When Energy Secretary Bill Richardson directed that Lee be transferred last December ``we had him out within hours, we put him in an office outside the classified fence,'' said Browne. But FBI Director Louis Freeh had told senior Energy Department officials in August 1997, before Richardson was on the job, that the investigation would not be hindered if Lee's security clearance were lifted. The problem, said Browne, is that lab managers never got the word. ``This is one of the real breakdowns in communications'' that has marred the Lee case, said Browne...."

Washington Times Inside Politics 5/7/99 Jennifer Harper Freeper Donna "..."I found out last night that one of our laboratories -- I believe it's in Los Alamos -- there's a 'China Friendship Committee' of Chinese-American employees at that lab that's funded by the Chinese Embassy in Washington," Rep. Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Republican, told radio hostess-with-the-mostess Blaquita Cullum Thursday. ..."

CNN / Associated Press 5/7/99 Candy Crowley "...A bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report formally released Friday concludes that the desire of U.S.companies to take advantage of Asian markets, coupled with lax enforcement of export security by both the Bush and Clinton Administrations, allowed China to obtain U.S. missile technology...... The ten-month probe concluded "the technical information transferred during certain satellite launch campaigns enables (China) to improve its present and future (missile) force that threatens the United States." The report, cleansed of classified information, never says straight out that China enhanced its nuclear weapons capability with U.S. commercial technology, but page after page indicates investigators believe that's exactly what happened. The panel also found a concerted effort by the Chinese to influence U.S. policy and reverse trade restrictions imposed in 1989 after the Tiananmen Square crackdown. This effort, according to the report, eventually led to the open flow of technology exports. "China actively lobbied U.S. companies that they were losing valuable business opportunities because of sanctions and government restrictions," making it clear that access to its potentially vast markets "would be available to companies willing to cooperate," the committee report reads. For the committee's chairman, Republican Richard Shelby of Alabama, "the transfer of missile technology to the Chinese, I believe, basically to make a buck by a lot of our aerospace companies," is the worst part. But along with China's lobbying effort, a key factor in facilitating the technology transfer, Senate investigators believe U.S. government officials "failed to take seriously enough the counterintelligence threat during satellite launch campaigns." Citing decisions to ease export rules by both President Bill Clinton and former President George Bush, the report says the government "emphasized commercial interests over national security" by failing to adequately fund satellite export security teams that would monitor the technology exchanges....."

Washington Times 5/7/99 Helle Bering "....Miss Reno's Justice Department did its part. From October 1996, when the campaign-finance scandal erupted, to the present, Miss Reno has repeatedly refused to seek the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate the Chinese-Democratic Party money connection. Meanwhile, other senior Justice officials repeatedly refused in 1997 to seek a court-approved wiretap that would have allowed the FBI to examine Mr. Lee's office computer...."

Washington Times 5/7/99 Helle Bering "....DOE did its part as well. Without the wiretap, the FBI was unable to pursue aggressively its investigation of Mr. Lee. In April 1997, with its investigation stalled, the FBI advised DOE to remove Mr. Lee from his sensitive position. Instead, DOE inexplicably placed Mr. Lee in charge of updating the computerized archive of nuclear secrets... Most of this downloading, which includes virtually all the nuclear secrets of the U.S. arsenal, occurred in 1994 and 1995. Had Miss Reno's Justice Department obtained the court-approved wiretap in early 1997, the FBI would have learned about Mr. Lee's unauthorized downloading two years earlier. Meanwhile, DOE refused for several years to reinstate the FBI-recommended background checks for visitors to its weapons labs, and the counterintelligence officer who uncovered the espionage has testified before Congress that an acting DOE secretary prevented him from briefing Congress about the Chinese spying...."

The Sunday Times (London) 5/9/99 Stephen Grey, Matthew Campbell, and Hugh McManners "...YESTERDAY Nato admitted it had bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade after mistaking it for a Yugoslav government office. At least three people were killed in the attack, which threw diplomatic efforts to end the war into turmoil. Alliance officials said they had believed the building was Yugoslavia's federal directorate of supply and procurement, which organises weapons imports and exports. It was hit by three 1,000lb precision-guided freefall weapons, thought to have been dropped by a B2 stealth bomber. Last night Nato diplomats were looking to General Wesley Clark, the supreme allied commander who now has sole authority for selecting targets, to take responsibility. Allied intelligence agencies, including the CIA, were also facing severe criticism. "It is absolutely incredible not even to know where the embassy of such an important world power is situated," one diplomat said....The embassy, purpose-built for the Chinese in 1993, was hit during the heaviest bombardment of Belgrade in more than six weeks of bombing. Witnesses said two missiles struck the roof and one penetrated its side. Two journalists and a reporter's wife died. A fourth victim was reported missing. Chinese diplomats, some with bloodstained clothes, watched in tears as rescuers brought out 21 injured. ...."

Wash. Post 5/9/99 Steven Pearlstein "...Embarrassed and apologetic NATO officials today blamed an "intelligence failure" for causing Friday night's accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade that left at least three dead and 20 wounded, and threatened to derail diplomatic efforts to end the military conflict in Yugoslavia. NATO said its laser-guided bombs were mistakenly aimed at the embassy because CIA officials gave military planners incorrect information about the target, which they believed was the Federal Directorate of Supply and Procurement, which the alliance described as a military facility. Military authorities said the two buildings are 150 to 200 yards apart and are similar in size and age. Four bombs hit the embassy and were dropped by one or more U.S. planes, according to Pentagon officials. In an unusual joint statement issued late Saturday, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen and CIA Director George J. Tenet expressed regret about civilian deaths and said that "faulty information" led to the mistaken bombing...... Unlike earlier mishaps in the air war, when bombs strayed from their intended targets, officials said the Chinese Embassy was hit by four bombs that had been targeted on the new five-story building, in the belief that it was the Yugoslav military's weapons warehouse and procurement center. But throughout the day, alliance military spokesmen in Brussels and Washington could not provide details of how such a mix-up could have occurred. Officials declined repeated requests to produce a map showing where the embassy was in relation to the procurement center or even to estimate the distance between the two sites. Initial reports said missiles were used in the attack, but in fact they were laser-guided bombs...."

Associated Press via Washington Post 5/9/99 Jim Abrams "...A CIA error that was based on faulty information and then went undetected in subsequent checks led to the mistaken NATO targeting and bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, a U.S. official said Sunday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the intended target, the Yugoslav Federal Directorate of Supply and Procurement, was chosen by the CIA. Other organizations, including NATO, the U.S. European Command and the Pentagon's Joint Staff, reviewed and approved it, the official said. ``This went through all these hoops, but for whatever reason it was not detected,'' the official said of the mistake. The Chinese Embassy is several hundred yards away from the Yugoslav government supply office. .... Meanwhile, Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., chairman of the House intelligence committee, said the bombing shows that America's intelligence capabilities are stretched too thin and that such mistakes will happen as a result. ``I say it's a reaping of the harvest of the underinvestment in our intelligence capabilities,'' Goss said on ``Fox News Sunday.'' Goss's Senate counterpart, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., agreed: ``We've been doing defense, which intelligence is part and parcel of, on the cheap for about 13 straight years, and now you're seeing the fruits of it.''..."

Stratfor 5/9/99 "...2145 GMT, 990509 - CNN is reporting that the unofficial, official story coming out of NATO is that the initial target selection that led to the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade came from the CIA. It was then passed through the U.S. Joint Staff in the Pentagon, the U.S. European Command and then up through the NATO staff. CNN was told that the basic problem was that the maps being used were out of date, showing the Chinese Embassy to be in a location where it hasn't been in over four years. This story leaves an interesting gap: if the CIA were doing the target selection, one would assume that the staff involved would have included people who had served in the Belgrade station. ...Outdated maps are a constant hazard in war, but the location of this target should certainly have been known immediately to several people on the CIA's staff. The problem with NATO's story is that the CIA is the one planning group that is least likely to be able to make this mistake. We suspect that there is a partial truth being told here, which is that CIA generated a target set and that NATO planners plugged in the coordinates based on their own databases.... Building imagery and mapping data would be drawn from National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) databases by Air Force mission planners, as part of the normal mission planning process. A lot more is required to plan a mission than the name of the target or even the latitude and longitude. The U.S. military would be drawing on its own intelligence resources (NIMA, DIA, USAF's own intelligence) to provide the needed details for mission planning. NATO knows that and is providing the additional links in the chain. What they are neglecting to tell us is that even if the CIA provided a target ID, there was ample opportunity at all levels to detect the error. But it still strikes us as hard to believe that the CIA planning cell, loaded with some intelligence officers fresh from Belgrade, made this error. And, no, we do not believe that the CIA wanted to hit the Chinese Embassy on purpose; not to embarrass the President, not to take out secret Chinese radars, nor to destroy evidence of trillion dollar mines in Kosovo. What is really going on here is that NATO is working overtime to shift the blame as far away from itself as possible, in this case all the way to Langley, Virginia...."

The New York Times 5/10/99 David H. Freedman "...The possibility that an American nuclear-weapons lab harbored a spy for several years is surely cause for alarm. But much of the outrage has focused on the way the alleged spy may have compromised secret data -- that is, that a lab employee was able to freely hijack millions of lines of sensitive code from a high-security computer network and place them on an insecure computer, where they resided for years and could have been E-mailed around like so much spam...... The Defense Information Systems Agency estimates that unclassified Defense Department networks were attacked by hackers 250,000 times in 1995 and half a million times in 1996, the most recent year for which estimates are published. Of these attacks, some 65 percent were successful; less than 1 percent were even detected by systems administrators at the time..... "

Email to Freeper Jolly 5/10/99 Steve Bryen "...A few thoughts on Los Alamos Laboratory, security and China. While it may appear to some that the lax security at the Los Alamos labs is a unique and unusual incident, and that Wen Ho Lee is an aberration, I think there is cause for much deeper concern, because weak security at our national laboratories and Federally supported scientific organizations is nothing new. In the early 1980's I was at the Defense Department responsible for technology security and became increasingly concerned about lax security at our national labortories. Our eye, then, was cast mostly at the Russians, but we were also seeing scientists from the Middle East, most notably Iraq, with access to these research facilities. Many of these scientists operating at these sites were engaged in research work that was pertinent to nuclear weapons design and development. For example, one of the areas of concern was weather modeling, because weather modeling requires sophisticated algorithms that are very similar to codes used in nuclear design work. When we brought these concerns to the labs and asked them to step up security, they fought a hard political battle to deter us. It was quite clear that the labs saw their mission as not only supporting the US R&D establishment, but they also had an international political agenda --building ties with scientists, particularly in the communist countries. There is no doubt that such ties can provide useful intelligence information. and sometimes that happened. More often than not, however, a lot of really important information about state of the art American technology got exported through this unsanctioned good will program. It is clear that in the permissive post-cold war arena, despite the terrible mistakes made with regard to passing important scientific information to Iraq on both nuclear weapons and chemical and biological weapons technology and data, that the Labs have becoming even more lax in their approach to security. For example, it was reported in today's press that Wen Ho Lee's secretary was a Chinese national, working for him at Los Alamos, and that she was allowed to return to China without being interviewed by the FBI. What is stunning about this is the fact that a foreign national from a potential adversary and nuclear competitor could be providing support to a scientist working on the most sensitive nuclear weapons design projects, who himself had top secret clearances. It goes without saying that this secretary would have had access to his files and to his desktop computer, and would know quite a lot about his work, and who he was talking to and what problems he was attempting to solve, even if no classified information was passed. Normally, in a security environment, assistants have the same clearances as their bosses because it is expected they will handle much of the collateral work their boss is involved in......"

Stratfor 5/10/99 "....0200 GMT, 990510 - The most recent NATO explanation of why the Chinese Embassy was bombed was that the CIA provided outdated maps of Belgrade, showing the old location of the Embassy before it moved to its new site four years ago. NATO is also claiming categorically that there was no pilot error and that the mission was carried out as planned. This is beginning to make no sense whatever. According to old maps of Belgrade and numerous sources inside and outside Yugoslavia, four years ago the current site of the Chinese Embassy was a vacant lot in a residential area. The only major structure nearby at the time was the Hotel Jugoslavia. Since then an office building has been constructed nearby. Now the NATO statement that there was no pilot error and the admission that an old map was being used are completely incompatible. If we are to believe both these claims, then we must assume that the target was a vacant lot. That is possible, assuming there was a bunker there. However, NATO has leaked to the New York Times that the strike was delivered by B-2 bombers using laser guided missiles. That means that someone had to fix a laser beam on the target. They would probably have noticed that the empty lot now had a large building on it. This is really getting ridiculous....What is truly puzzling is that these explanations are so utterly unbelievable that they are clearly intended to be seen through. Since we can't believe that the Chinese Embassy was attacked deliberately (it just makes no sense whatever) and since the accident couldn't have occurred the way NATO spin-doctors are describing, we are at a growing loss to understand the situation...."

New York Times 5/10/99 William Safire "... called three friends in the Departments of Energy, Defense and Justice and asked them to turn on their office computers and read to me the first banner that came on their screens. Anyone using this system expressly consents to monitoring" is the message. Government employees using Government equipment on Government time thus waive privacy claims. Wen Ho Lee, the scientist who downloaded millions of lines of the nation's most secret codes to a computer easy to penetrate, also signed a waiver consenting to a search of his computer without his knowledge. And yet the Reno Justice Department denied the F.B.I.'s request for permission to search Lee's Government computer. Eric Holder, Janet Reno's deputy, decided that a court search warrant was necessary -- but then refused to apply to the special foreign-surveillance court to get it. Of more than 700 such F.B.I. requests a year, a surveillance official admits that a flat turndown is extremely rare. Why this one?

Ms. Reno, who never met an investigation of Chinese penetration she didn't try to undermine, is suckering us with a claim that the denial of surveillance was to protect a criminal investigation. That is foo-foo dust. This was counterespionage, and the Criminal Division was kept in the dark. Making C.D. the scapegoat for the failure to protect America's deepest nuclear secrets is typical of the Clinton-Reno refusal to accept responsibility for endangering national security. Reno has appointed her personal Whitewash Brigade of favorite roundheels. This enables her to rebuff Congress and the press for months with the usual "I cannot comment because an inquiry is ongoing." ...With Clintonites hunkered down and Justice covering up, Congress must do the digging. A report by the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control showed what Chinese arms enterprises received U.S. technology over the past decade -- but could supply no names of U.S. exporters during the Clinton years. That's because that embarrassment is "proprietary information" at the Commerce Department. John McCain's Senate Commerce Committee has the power to subpoena those names from Commerce, and to have Wisconsin's Gary Milhollin run those sales against his Chinese-arms data base. That would tell us what political contributors were allowed to sell sensitive technology in 1996 and 1997 to which Chinese nuclear, missile and military sites....."

NewsMax.com 5/9/99 "....NewsMax.com's executive editor Chris Ruddy was the first to uncover a possible connection between lax security at our weapons labs and policy changes implemented through O'Leary. In his March 11, 1999 report, "Scientist: Clinton Administration Gave China Top Nuclear Secrets", Ruddy revealed: "China's efforts culminated with a delegation of Chinese scientists who visited (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) in the winter of 1994, and another visit by Department of Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary at about the same time." Ruddy's source, a Livermore whistleblower, contended that, "the Clinton administration has, in fact, aggressively sought to provide China with some of the most closely guarded nuclear weapons technology." At Livermore, this scientist said, "the administration had facilitated the transfer of laser technology employed in the process of making nuclear weapons-grade plutonium." After O'Leary's 1994 meeting at the California lab, "the scientist recalled several Livermore scientists in a heated debate over whether 'this type of information (relating to the weapons enriching laser process) should be considered for technology transfer' to China." "The deal with China for the technology transfer was consumated, the scientist said, sometime later that year after O'Leary's visit, when top DOE officials, Department of Commerce officials representing Ron Brown, White House representatives and Chinese government officials met in a guarded room at the Pleasanton Hilton nearby to Livermore." ...."

Reuters 5/10/99 "...A scientist assigned to a classified Pentagon project in 1997 supplied China with secrets about advanced radar technology being developed to track submarines, a report in the New York Times said Monday. Submarine detection technology is closely guarded by the Pentagon because the U.S. Navy's ability to hide its submarines is a key military advantage, the newspaper said.....The Justice Department in Washington also blocked any prosecution of Lee, officials quoted by the paper said..... On March 26, 1998, a judge declined to put Peter Lee in prison and sentenced him to 12 months in a halfway house with three years' probation and a fine of $20,000, according to the newspaper. Regardless of the failure to prosecute Lee over the radar technology, the case shows Chinese espionage runs deeper than just assertions of theft at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Times said. It also illustrates that the American government believed China was successfully receiving American defense secrets during President Clinton's second term in office, the paper said...."

Reuters 5/11/99 "....For the modest outlay of 28 Yugoslav dinars ($2.80), NATO could have saved themselves a lot of trouble. That was the price of a 1998 Belgrade city map, bought at a tourist information bureau in the centre of Belgrade on Tuesday, which gave the address of the Chinese embassy and clearly marked the street in which it stands, or what remains of it. Using what U.S. authorities admitted was an outdated 1992 map provided by the CIA, NATO hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade with three missiles on Friday, killing three people, sparking mass demonstrations in Beijing and threatening to derail a possible Kosovo peace deal..... Shelby blamed the outdated data base on the reduction in funding for U.S. intelligence operations. "When you're stretched thin...When it's dated and it's not checked for the latest mapping of the grid of Belgrade, mistakes are going to happen," he said...."

Associated Press 5/10/99 John Diamond "...In an extraordinary admission of error, the CIA said Monday that outdated maps, a lack of communication within the U.S. government and educated guesses that went terribly wrong led to the NATO air attack on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Grim-faced intelligence officials briefed lawmakers behind closed doors, then met with reporters to explain how a B-2 stealth bomber came to drop a load of satellite-guided bombs on a plainly marked embassy compound well-known in Belgrade to diplomats and civilians alike. The B-2s were all too accurate in hitting targets. The problem was that CIA operatives misidentified the target, and pre-strike checks by the Pentagon and other allied military commands failed to catch the error. In addition, neither the State Department nor other NATO allies had alerted target planners that the Chinese Embassy had moved in Belgrade in 1996. Defense Secretary William Cohen called the bombing a ``tragic mistake'' and said, ``If there's culpability to be found, we will consider appropriate action.''..."

Associated Press 5/10/99 John Diamond "...Several weeks ago, CIA officials ``nominated'' the Yugoslav Federal Directorate for Supply and Procurement for destruction by NATO bombers, pointing to the directorate's role in supplying weapons to the Yugoslav Army and exporting munitions. The planning began with a street address -- a correct one, it turns out -- on Cherry Blossom Boulevard in Belgrade. The problem was finding that address on National Imagery and Mapping Agency maps. Some guesswork was involved. The CIA had fixed the locations of some buildings on the street, but not the directorate. Using a variety of undisclosed sources, the CIA tried to extrapolate the location of the directorate based on known addresses nearby. Those sources did not include an agent on the ground in Belgrade actually looking at the prospective target because no agent was available. From now on, an intelligence official said, it will be an ironclad requirement to have sources on the ground checking targets visually when they lie in urban areas. This was the initial and critical error. The CIA's extrapolation was off by a few blocks. The actual directorate is down the street, which changes names to the Boulevard of the Arts. NATO has not ruled out striking the directorate -- now that it knows where it is....."

NY TIMES 5/12/99 TIM GOLDEN and JEFF GERTH "…On June 3, 1998, the comptroller's office called a second, larger interagency meeting to present the findings of its investigation into Far East National. "This was a situation where we had identified a piece of a much bigger puzzle," Stipano, the agency's enforcement director, said. "And the rest of the puzzle was not something that we had the ability or the authority to investigate." Because the investigators thought some of the $92 million might have been diverted by Chinese officials, a State Department official was asked to consider raising the matter with Beijing. The Department decided against that. "It was not a foreign policy issue that one raises with the Foreign Ministry," one official said. At the FBI, an official said the matter was initially passed on to a task force investigating campaign-finance cases questions. The task force later referred it back to the bureau's headquarters in Washington, which forwarded it to the FBI field office in Los Angeles. Although the field office brought the case to the office of the U.S. attorney there, word of it only belatedly reached agents in foreign counterintelligence -- those who knew the most about Ms. Xu…."

 

5/12/99 BBC News "...The United States Energy Secretary, Bill Richardson, has announced wide-ranging security changes, following allegations that China stole American nuclear secrets. Mr Richardson said the improvements would overcome a lack of accountability in the Energy Department that had left it's weapons research facilities exposed to espionage and potential theft. Among the new procedures a "security czar" will be appointed to oversee a new structure that groups all the department's security functions together..... "What I am doing is trying to correct a long-standing problem here at the Department of Energy and that is the overall security complex - it has been directionless, diffuse," Mr Richardson said announcing the creation of the post. "It is clear that over the past several decades, security and counterintelligence at the nuclear weapons laboratories has not been given the necessary priority and attention." ..."

Miami Herald 5/12/99 F.W. RUSTMANN JR. "...F.W. Rustmann Jr. worked 24 years for the CIA. He now heads CTC International Group in West Palm Beach, providing intelligence and international investigation services to business. Good grief! An ethnic-Chinese computer scientist employed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory is suspected of having passed highly classified information on nuclear-warhead technology to the Chinese government. And (gasp) he may have been doing it for the past 10 years. What a surprise! .... Here's how it works: The Ministry of State Security is the arm of the Chinese government that governs intelligence collection. Its case officers are assigned to Chinese embassies and consulates or other quasi-official installations abroad and run the networks of agents and informants. Virtually all Chinese citizens who work or study abroad, and overseas Chinese who visit their families in China, are routinely contacted and monitored by State Security. They are asked to keep their eyes and ears open and to report any information they may stumble across. Those who develop access to information of value become candidates for full recruitment. They are given guidance on intelligence requirements and collection techniques, provided with communication plans and put into contact with State Security case officers. There is no shortage of overseas Chinese who retain some degree of loyalty to their motherland. Furthermore, cooperation is often not a matter of choice; coercion and threats (usually against family members residing in China) are used, as well as positive incentives (money, privileges, etc.)....Although the loyalty issue is a sensitive one, it must be confronted when national security is at stake. Naturalized U. S. citizens are not second-class citizens and should in no way be treated as such. But it must be remembered that as a group they are vulnerable to pressure from their former countries. When that former country chooses to exploit these individuals as a matter of state policy, we have a real problem...."

Insight James P. Lucier "....After his NBC Meet the Press appearance on May 9, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson rushed back to the Department of Energy, or DOE, and announced a program of fundamental changes to the department's security policies. He had been publicly humiliated when host Tim Russert put him in the crosshairs of laser-guided questioning and forced him to admit that, contrary to President Clinton's claims, hugely important nuclear secrets indeed had been stolen during the Clinton administration, as well as earlier. As late as March 16, Richardson still had been testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee that "in the mid-1980s, during the Reagan-Bush administration, China may have obtained strategic nuclear-weapons information." ..... But Richardson, who took over from former secretary Federico Peña last August, stalled implementation of security reforms that had been requested by security officials in annual reports to the secretary in 1995, 1996 and 1997, and called for in a comprehensive study by the Nuclear Command and Control Staff Report on Oversight in the DOE in 1998. Even the General Accounting Office had issued 31 major reports critical of DOE security at the labs....."

Insight James P. Lucier "....Moreover, it now can be revealed for the first time that recommendations made and ignored since 1995 have included complete top-down and bottom-up security upgrades to protect DOE's highly classified operations from being penetrated by foreign or domestic spies as well as preventing thefts of computer codes and hardware such as nuclear materials. Hill sources tell Insight that investigations by both the CIA and the FBI are ongoing and reach to the highest level of the department. As a result, neither agency is sharing findings with the National Security Council....."

Insight James P. Lucier "....The problems during the Reagan-Bush administrations, DOE security analysts say, stemmed from a decades-old culture of academic elitism that has prevailed in the prestigious research labs, such as Los Alamos and the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, both managed by the University of California. Some research scientists have tended to regard the sharing of science with all humanity as a nobler goal than protecting national security, and others are quite open about their concern that the United States has become the lone superpower. These notions had to be kept in check by strict security enforcement....."

Washington Times (Book Review- Regnery) 5/12/99 John R Bolton "....... Mr. [Bill] Gertz provides a series of case studies of Clinton administration failures in defense and intelligence, based largely on his own reporting for The Washington Times, that create a cumulative impact both devastating and depressing. ...Mr. Gertz demonstrates tellingly that there is a pattern to Clinton administration decision making, the result of well-thought-out and deeply held national-security philosophies. Although the author also has much to say on individual incompetence and duplicity, his central point is how completely witting and united the administration's policy leadership actually is in its wrongheaded view of America's place in the world. .....Indeed, although Mr. Gertz's emphasis is on defense matters, he does not overlook the hollowing out of America's intelligence and counterintelligence capabilities. As with declines in military spending on research and development, the cutbacks in the U.S. intelligence capability are neither easily nor quickly corrected, and form a significant obstacle to effectively reasserting U.S. interests internationally....In Mr. Gertz's analysis, spin and intelligence also intersect in the administration's repeated distortions of what it actually knows. For example, he quotes one anonymous official saying that "Madeleine Albright lied to the Senate" about North Korea's nuclear weapons program, and Mr. Gertz alleges that this incident is not a one-time occurrence..... This is not an academic book intended for defense intellectuals (although they would be remiss if they did not read it), but rather straightforward reporting covering about six years of a dangerously flawed presidency. It is troubling that so much of the book depends on government sources leaking classified information, but this unfortunate fact only underlines just how corrosive the Clinton administration's approach has been. Certainly, Mr. Gertz has given us more than ample notice of the damage caused by "the feel-good approach to national security." The remedy is obviously in our hands...."

Nando Times - Christian Science Monitor Service 5/15/99 Scott Baldauf "... The scientists here [Los Alamos] who work with the arcane and sensitive insist it is not difficult to understand the difference between what's secret and what's not - or to keep them separate. But they acknowledge that even the tightest security will do little stop an insider who is determined to pass on "black" information. "If you are in a position of trust, with all the computer tools of modern society at your disposal, there's a lot you can do to betray that trust," says Stanley Busboom, director of security at Los Alamos. "A determined insider who is a U.S. citizen can do a lot of damage. We could only hope to make that more difficult, and to catch them doing it." ....But ask nuclear scientist Albert Migliori if he thinks Los Alamos National Laboratory is a soft target for espionage, and he just might go ballistic. "There is no question in my mind what is sensitive information and what is not," says Migliori, giving a visitor a tour of a laboratory full of purring computers. "There is a moral obligation for keeping these secrets and making sure these weapons are robust. This is too dangerous to let anyone know what we know." ....."Ironically, deterrence works less if an adversary can't see the fruits of our work," says John Martz, a manager for enhanced surveillance of the nuclear-weapons program. In the old days, deterrence was just one earth-shaking nuclear test away. Today, where nuclear tests have been banned, scientists must verify the reliability of weapons through subtle computer models and precise measurements of how plutonium cores deteriorate over time. "Ultimately, having foreign nationals here can be a deterrent. They should not doubt the first-class nature of our research." ......But in the meantime, Migliori says the current media scrutiny is causing some top scientists to start looking for other jobs. "It's absolutely demoralizing," he says. "It is horrible to see people making choices on whether to leave." And you won't hear Migliori offer any condolences for Lee. "I have no sympathy for this guy, if he gave away U.S. secrets. Even if he did it accidentally, this is a bad man," says Migliori, leaning back in his chair. "But if a U.S. citizen gives away secrets willingly, there's nothing you can do."..."

Newsweek 5/24/99 Daniel Klaidman and Mark Hosenball "...Frustrated by their inability to build an espionage case against the former Los Alamos scientist, the Feds had hoped to charge him with the lesser offense of mishandling classified information. Lee is said to have shifted sensitive nuclear "legacy codes" from secured government computers onto the lab's unsecured computer system. But even bringing that charge might be awkward. Last week the Feds acknowledged that at least two other Los Alamos scientists committed similar alleged computer breaches that the FBI is investigating. An Energy Department spokesman said the security clearances of the two have been suspended. ......Energy was slow to react, and the delay may have complicated the investigation into Lee's purported activities. The FBI asked to examine his computer when questions about him first surfaced, but Energy officials twice told agents Lee hadn't signed the necessary consent form. In fact, he had....."

BBC 5/16/99 Tom Carver "...The truth is that this multi-layered scandal is still unfolding. But a few days after President Clinton gave his reply, the FBI searched Wen Ho Lee's work computer and discovered that the nuclear scientist had downloaded a large portion of the Legacy Codes, the crown jewels of America and Britain's nuclear weapons programme. Every one I have spoken to about this scandal has told me that the Legacy Codes represent the combined experience of 50 years of nuclear warhead research...... But none of these questions can erase the central point: that a scientist with one of America's highest security clearances, Q clearance, was able to walk out of the Los Alamos laboratories with a Zip drive full of American and British secrets. The radar story seems to be an even more extraordinary lapse of security. Peter Lee, another scientist and no relation to Wen Ho Lee, told his bosses in May 1997 that he was going on holiday to China. At the time he was working on one of the most secret American-British research projects. Mr Lee was born in China and only a naturalised American, and the administration was already worried about Chinese espionage. He held an extensive meeting with Chinese scientists and briefed them on the submarine tracking technology. He was only working on one aspect of it, and it is unlikely that he was able to give the full picture...... But what is truly worrying is that although the FBI had been tracking Mr Lee since the 1980s, his so-called vacation in Beijing set off no alarm bells. And if nothing else the British should be worried that all their hard work can be released to the outside world so easily....."

USA Today 5/16/99 AP LA Times "...The National Imagery and Mapping Agency and its predecessor organization have produced charts or maps that played a role in at least a dozen accidents since 1985, some involving fatalities and loss of military aircraft, according to documents and interviews reviewed by the Times. On May 7, fighter pilots using outdated maps attacked the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, killing three journalists and injuring 20 people.... ''No database available to NIMA identified the targeted location as the location of the Chinese embassy,'' NIMA spokeswoman Laura Snow said Friday in a written response to the Times' questions....

NIMA maps were a factor in three accidents in the last 15 months that killed a total of 28 people, including the clipping of an Italian gondola cable by a Marine fighter jet in February 1998 that left 20 people dead....Though the Italian gondola accident received the most attention, others involving faulty maps have occurred. About two weeks after the Marina gondola tragedy, five Navy fliers were killed when their UH-1N Huey helicopter collided with power lines. The electrical wires didn't appear on the map they used even though the same power lines killed two other people three years earlier, a military investigator said. The agency has encountered funding shortages, a loss of senior analysts and cartographers and friction between intelligence and defense communities for its services. NIMA was created in 1996 by merging the 24-year-old Defense Mapping Agency with photographic analysts and intelligence personnel from seven other Pentagon and CIA branches...."

Conservative News Service 5/17/99Lawrence Morahan "....NATO's explanation of how one of its planes accidentally bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade raises more questions than it answers, a leading intelligence-gathering agency contends. "We can understand how the accident happened much better than we can understand the increasingly bizarre explanations," concluded the Texas-based Stratfor, a private intelligence-gathering company on geopolitical issues..... CIA operatives misidentified the target and pre-strike checks by the Pentagon and other allied military commands failed to catch the error, was the official explanation. In addition, neither the State Department nor other NATO allies had alerted target planners that the Chinese Embassy had moved within Belgrade four years ago. The problem with NATO's story is that the CIA is the one planning group that is least likely to make this mistake, Stratfor said in a recent report. Based on Stratfor's finding it could be that the CIA generated a target set and that NATO planners "plugged in the coordinates based on their own databases." Whatever the CIA suggested as a target got tagged with coordinates further down the line without being checked by the original planners. The likelihood that the maps were out of date was strongly contested by other analysts. "These were not just old CIA maps," Bruce Alan Johnson, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, told CNS. "The CIA has the best cartography division on this planet," Johnson said. "All Western agencies borrow from them. They're hands down the experts. So when that came out we all went, 'hang on, that's not on.'" NATO also has stated the incident was not a result of pilot error and that the mission was carried out as planned. But the position that there was no pilot error, and that an old map was being used, is "completely incompatible," Stratfor said. "If we are to believe both these claims, then we must assume that the target was a vacant lot," Stratfor said. The site where the Chinese Embassy stood on the night of the attack was a vacant lot four years ago, according to old maps of Belgrade and sources inside and outside Yugoslavia, Stratfor reports. The aircraft delivering the bombs was the highly-sophisticated B-2, using laser-guided bombs, which means someone had to fix a laser beam on the target. "They would probably have noticed that the empty lot now had a large building on it," Stratfor said. "The old map theory is preposterous. It assumes that the target was an empty lot and that NATO is flying air strikes based on maps alone." ..... "We do not believe that the CIA wanted to hit the Chinese Embassy on purpose," or to embarrass the president, or to take out secret Chinese radars, Stratfor said. The bombing was not accidental, Johnson said, but a calculated move by the Clinton administration to raise the stakes to the point where the U.S. will have to sit down with the Chinese and the Russians and negotiate an end to the conflict. ...."

Reuters 5/16/99 "..."There is no question that what the People's Republic of China is now doing is a direct result of what they have stolen from the United States,'' Cox said on ABC's "This Week'' news program..... Cox, however, pointed to his findings that China only had two long-range missiles at the start of the decade but now has approximately 20, with some of them aimed at the United States...... Cox blamed the Clinton administration for leaking parts of the study, saying that the news reports have been "heavily spun.'' "The leaks are coming rather obviously, I think, from the administration,'' he said. "There is no reason in the world that we should treat this national security information as if it were some political football.''.... "

Augusta Chronicle 5/18/99 Editorial "... The book Betrayal features never-before disclosures ranging from secret Chinese arms sales to dangerous foreign weapons developments that sharply contrast with the president's claim that the world is growing more ``peaceful.'' Author Gertz says: ``this betrayal ... so angered some intelligence, defense and foreign policy officials that they responded in the only way that they knew how: by disclosing ... some of the nation's most secret intelligence.'' Well, if such sensitive disclosures can help the American electorate make a better choice for their next president -- and we think they will -- then the patriotic whistle-blowers who went to Gertz should be praised, not condemned...."

Washington Times 5/16/99 John Bolton "...The Clinton administration was quick to blame the tragic bombing of China's embassy in Yugoslavia on an intelligence failure. Although the precise cause of the error might never become public, and although there is unquestionably no excuse for it, the administration's nearly instantaneous decision to blame faulty intelligence does not ring true....Moreover, this unbelievable mistake should not obscure the larger issue of President Clinton's fundamental distrust both of intelligence gathering as an instrument of national policy and the corollary requirements of counterintelligence to protect highly sensitive, national security information. The evidence is clear that the administration's mind-set is either hostile or indifferent to the intelligence function. Mr. Clinton has consistently mismanaged what should have been, for any administration, the primary obligation of stewardship for the country's intelligence capabilities. It is not simply that establishing the necessary infrastructure for intelligence (satellites and other interception and measurement capabilities as well as human sources, among other things) is highly expensive, although it certainly is that. Nor is it only that gathering intelligence often results in risking the lives of both American and foreign sources, although that too is true. Most important of all is the critical and potentially dispositive advantage that a sophisticated intelligence capability gives us in safeguarding all aspects of our national security, and ultimately, therefore, our entire society..... He is the first president in memory not to receive morning briefings directly from the Central Intelligence Agency along with his daily copy of the written "President's Daily Brief." Even today, CIA briefers rarely see the president personally. Thus, in more cases than not, the intelligence community's raw product, and even its analysis, is filtered through policy advocates and actors before it actually gets to the president. ...."

Washington Times 5/16/99 John Bolton "...The proper use of intelligence sharing, such as in the NATO operations over Yugoslavia, can be immensely valuable for the United States and its allies, a "force multiplier" in the fullest sense of the phrase. But undertaken promiscuously, as the Clinton administration has so often done, can be exceedingly harmful to U.S. interests. Releasing extensive amounts of satellite imagery, for example, in public relations campaigns to support policy objectives allows knowledgeable analysts from non-allies to learn enormous amounts of technical information that can be turned against the United States. By better understanding the pictures that result from overhead image-taking, foreign powers can devise concealment and camouflage strategies that prevent U.S. assets from obtaining accurate, timely information on what is actually under way in their countries. Intelligence analysts, for example, widely believe that the United States was surprised by India's 1998 nuclear testing because the Indians, perhaps with Russian assistance, had done precisely that with their nuclear weapons program, thus robbing us of critically important information...."

Washington Times 5/16/99 John Bolton "...Not the least of the mistakes was the consistent derogation of the CIA's directorate of operations, which both gathers intelligence covertly and (on a surprisingly small number of occasions) engages in more active undercover measures. It may be that "DO" is currently not so disfavored as during most of the administration, but considerable damage was clearly done at the outset. Even this "good news" conceals many lost opportunities, and it may be that one of the few pluses from the Chinese Embassy bombing is that DO operations will be substantially increased, not simply restored to past inadequate levels. American political campaigns have rarely treated the intelligence function as a central subject of debate. Growing signs, however, that foreign policy and national security matters may well figure more prominently in the 2000 campaign than in the last two presidential elections may provide an opening for the broader discussion of intelligence-policy questions. The campaign might at least help identify among the candidates which ones are more likely to view intelligence in the tradition of Presidents Eisenhower and Reagan, or whether Mr. Clinton's pitiful legacy is to continue...."

USA Today 5/19/99 Peter Eisler "... It took just over a year for Raymond Mislock, associate deputy director at the CIA, to conclude that his ideas for fixing security problems at the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons plants and laboratories were falling on deaf ears. Mislock was appointed early in 1998 to the DOE's Security Management Board, a government-wide panel set up to address concerns that the department lacks proper safeguards for millions of secret records and thousands of tons of nuclear material in its custody. "I expected the (DOE) wanted the input of representatives from other agencies," Mislock told department officials in a March 16 letter. "Unfortunately, my experience with the board indicates that it is a feckless exercise with no accomplishments almost 15 months after it was established." ..."

USA Today 5/19/99 Peter Eisler "... A USA TODAY examination of the DOE's security record shows it has spent two decades frustrating efforts to bolster protections against spies, thieves and terrorists across the network of plants and labs where it develops, maintains and decommissions U.S. nuclear weapons. USA TODAY interviewed dozens of sources and reviewed hundreds of pages of documents. Time and again, the reporting shows, the Department of Energy has shelved critical reports, ignored proposals for corrective action and punished officials who dared to speak out about concerns. ...."

USA Today 5/19/99 Peter Eisler "...As recently as 1996, months after top DOE officials learned of Lee's activities, the department shelved a plan for new guidelines that might have helped block data transfers from classified computers. "It dealt with issues like how to track who's removing information from systems and who would have to be physically present if anybody was in a facility with classified systems," says Woody Hall, the department's chief information officer until last year and a main architect of the proposal. "The labs were very vocal in opposing it. ... We couldn't overcome the objections." ...."

USA Today 5/19/99 Peter Eisler "... In 1997, for example, site managers helped bury a report by the department's Office of Safeguards and Security, which cited vulnerabilities at several key facilities. Los Alamos and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory outside San Francisco took hits, as did the Rocky Flats site, an idled weapons plant near Denver. The report decried a steep decline in security spending at DOE facilities. It noted that guard forces had dwindled 42% from 1992 through 1996, alarm systems needed replacement, employee background check programs were backlogged and computers were increasingly susceptible to outside penetration. Heavy complaints from site managers spurred DOE officials to commission a follow-up assessment with heavy participation by site managers, who painted a far brighter picture of the agency's security...."

USA Today 5/19/99 Peter Eisler "...In April 1997, as the agency readied its Annual Report to the President on the Status of Safeguards and Security, officials opted to "eliminate some of the unsupported conclusions" reached by the security office, according to an internal memo by then-Assistant Energy Secretary Tara O'Toole. Those conclusions, she added, did not present "an accurate and balanced picture." The report to the president did include toned-down comments reflecting some of the security office's chief concerns. But like previous reports, which also questioned computer security and physical protections , the legally required assessment was held back from the White House.

USA Today 5/19/99 Peter Eisler "...Between 1992 and 1996, according to agency records, annual security inspections performed at DOE sites by the evaluations office dropped from 13 to three. Moreover, a federal judge last month blasted officials who oversee that office for retaliation. The retaliatory acts reportedly included a forced, out-of-state transfer for an employee who went public with evidence that safety inspectors covered up problems at DOE facilities. "It's all the same people and I think they'll continue to fall back into the old ways," David Ridenour, former head of security at the Rocky Flats weapons plant, says of the agency's reforms. "If there's a problem, classify it, hide it and get rid of the people who brought it up."

USA Today 5/19/99 Peter Eisler "...But Richardson, a former New Mexico congressman, knows how to protect the agency on Capitol Hill. This month, he quietly derailed a Commerce Committee hearing on personnel disputes involving DOE security. In written testimony submitted for that hearing but never aired, McCallum, the DOE security chief, said he suffered "retaliation" for criticizing "lax security at the DOE laboratories." ..."

AP 5/20/99 H Josef Hebert "...Intelligence experts were worried three years ago about the possible theft of secrets about America's nuclear arsenal and believed the Los Alamos weapons lab was the most likely source, an Energy Department intelligence officer told a Senate panel Thursday.... "What was done, in short was nothing,'' Notra Trulock, acting deputy of the Energy Department's Office of Intelligence, said of the concerns expressed by intelligence experts in early 1996 about potential loss of the top-secret computer codes. Lawmakers have applauded Trulock for raising alarms as early as 1995 about the possible theft of nuclear secrets from weapons labs, including information in the 1980s about a sophisticated warhead known as the W-88......Trulock, appearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, described repeated attempts in early 1997 to bring his concerns about espionage and lax security at weapons labs to then-Energy Secretary Federico Pena. He said that he was repeatedly thwarted by senior DOE officials, including Pena's deputy, Elizabeth Moler, and that Pena knew nothing of the espionage concerns for about six months. Trulock in the past also has accused Moler of muzzling him when he tried to testify before Congress..... Trulock, who was director of the Office of Intelligence from 1994 into early 1998, said his concerns about espionage at the labs were viewed in 1997 with skepticism and "outright denial'' among senior DOE officials. They were dismissed as views of "Cold War warriors,'' said Trulock..... Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, the committee chairman, derided the "cavalier attitude about security'' described by Trulock and suggested that senior administration officials should not be let off the hook..... Attorney General Janet Reno announced on Thursday that a veteran prosecutor, Randy Bellows, would head a Justice Department investigation into whether Justice or the FBI made any mistakes in the Wen Ho Lee investigation, dating to 1996...."

National Review 5/31/99 Douglas Paal "... The FBI had a distinguished team of counterintelligence experts on China up to the 1980s. The Bureau is now said to have gone through a generational change in personnel that has weakened the effort against Chinese intelligence in the short run, with a view to building a new team of China experts for the long run. Moreover, Americans readily come to like their Chinese friends. It is difficult to think that the thoroughly pleasant, skilled, and hospitable colleagues they have come to know would pour extra drinks just to discover new facets of weapons miniaturization or the vulnerabilities of American aircraft carriers...."

AP 5/20/99 JOHN DIAMOND "... Though the government is prone to leaks, the unauthorized publication of classified documents that in most cases are just a year or two old is rare. It has touched off widespread concern in the intelligence community.... ``These documents carry some of the highest classifications in the U.S. government and it's absolutely astonishing that they would be published in this way,'' Aftergood said. ``Betrayal'' by Bill Gertz, a reporter for The Washington Times, presents a critical account of Clinton administration security policy that tracks closely to stories Gertz has written over the last several years. The original articles, however, did not include reprints of the classified documents.....U.S. officials interviewed Thursday confirmed the authenticity of the documents and voiced concern..... But his book states the Clinton administration carried out a policy of appeasement of real or potential U.S. enemies that ``so angered some intelligence, defense and foreign policy officials that they responded in the only way they knew how: by disclosing to the press some of the nation's most secret intelligence.'' Gertz wrote that his sources were ``unsung heroes'' who ``jeopardized their careers to expose wrongdoing.'' ..."

AP 5/20/99 JOHN DIAMOND "...The [Gertz' Betrayed] book's appendix reprints all or part of 23 documents from the Clinton administration -- some as recent as last year -- ranging in classification from confidential to top secret. Several are marked ``umbra'' or ``gamma,'' code words for information derived from electronic intercepts. A 1996 U.S. intelligence report disclosed that the North Korean government had detailed three cases of cannibalism stemming from famine. It was classified at the ``code word'' level, among the highest levels of classification. A secret dispatch written last August by Larry Robinson, a State Department official in Seoul, raised questions about leader Kim Jong-Il's hold on power. ..... An April 1997 Pentagon report described how the Navy inserted an intelligence team into a Coast Guard inspection crew that searched, unsuccessfully, for evidence of the laser weapon aboard a Russian merchant ship. The memo alleged the ship was involved in spying on U.S. submarines and appeared to direct a ``laser emanation'' at a helicopter carrying a Navy officer. No weapon was found. And a 1997 CIA report, based in part on electronic intercepts and spy satellite imagery, indicated Russia was building a bunker and subway line for use in evacuating leaders in a military emergency..... "

Koenig's International News 5/19/99 Charles Smith "... Although Commerce Department national-security export rules were relaxed in April 1994, a Commerce cable to the CIA that same year nonetheless states, "There is a presumption of denial for the export of controlled products to military end-users or for military end-use in China." Not only was the firm led by a Chinese general, the so-called "civilian company" was heavily packed with Chinese army officers and experts. One member of Galaxy New Technology management, according to the Defense document, was Director and President Deng Changru. Deng also was a lieutenant colonel in the PLA and head of the PLA communications corps. Another Chinese army officer on the Galaxy New Technology staff was Co-General Manager Xie Zhichao or Lt. Col. Xie Zhichao, director of the COSTIND Electronics Design Bureau. Still another embarrassing aspect of the 1994 transfer deal is that a key figure in the founding of Galaxy New Technology in 1992 is Hua Di, a Stanford University faculty member who returned to China in 1997. ... In 1992, COSTIND's Lt. Gen. Huai -- the same Lt. Gen. Huai who attended the November 1994 meeting with PLA Gen. Ding -- contacted Hua to start a joint venture called Galaxy New Technology. Hua in 1996 told the Far Eastern Economic Review: "Lewis and I were matchmakers," regarding Galaxy New Technology and SCM. "Huai is my good friend." ..."

Statement of Lt. Jack Daly "....My name is Lieutenant Jack Daly. I am an active duty regular U.S. Naval Intelligence Officer who, prior to my transfer to San Diego last year, was stationed at the Canadian Pacific Maritime Forces Command Base, Esquimalt, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. My intelligence liaison assignment with the Canadian Armed Forces was under the auspices of the Chief of Naval Operations/Intelligence Directorate (CNO/N2) Foreign Intelligence Liaison Officer (FILO) program, managed by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). On 4 April 1997, I, along with a Canadian Air Force pilot, Captain Patrick Barnes, were wounded aboard a Canadian CH-124 helicopter when we were lazed (shot/targeted with a laser) while on an ONI tasked surveillance mission. This surveillance mission was tasked against the Russian merchant ship KAPITAN MAN, which was located five nautical miles north of Port Angeles, Washington in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. As a result of this lazing, both Captain Barnes and I suffered irreparable eye damage resulting in permanent retinal damage (see appendix A). Captain Barnes has been permanently grounded as a result of this incident and has lost all flight qualifications. He will never fly again. The statement that the Pentagon released to the press on June 26th, 1997, that our injuries were healed, was erroneous. Both Capt. Barnes and I continue to suffer agonizing chronic pain 24 hours a day from this incident and our vision continues to deteriorate, with little expected relief since there is no known effective medical treatment. The pain symptoms we have experienced since the day of the incident have not diminished but have actually increased in severity. The burns to the retinas of both of my eyes have turned into scar tissue that continues to grow resulting in enlarging scotomas or spots in my field of vision.....To make matters worse, the exact type of device that was used against us is still unknown. According to the expert analysis conducted by the U.S. Army, Air Force and Navy tri-service group headed by the U.S. Army's Medical Research Detachment (USAMRD) of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, at Brooks Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas, it could have been one of two known devices, or possibly a device the United States has no knowledge of. Initially, based on the evidence exhibited through extensive testing and evaluation of the physical characteristics of the damage and changed function of our eyes, the possibility exists that the device may have been a Laser Range Finder (LRF) of the Neodymium-Yttrium Aluminum Garnet Crystal or Nd-YAG laser. The other possibility is that of a Fosterite laser which is used to record sound, i.e., the signature of the propeller of a surfaced submarine. In essence, this incident left Capt. Barnes and I as victims of what could be argued was a hostile act in a undeclared war, an act of terrorism and, at minimum, a federal crime. The use of lasers that blind, whether immediately or years later, to ward off surveillance is in direct violation of "Protocol-IV" of the "Certain Conventional Weapons Convention." .... What followed from this point forward was a coordinated effort conducted by select individuals to disprove that this incident had ever actually occurred. Evidence was altered, ignored, omitted and refuted. The subsequent so-called investigations and reports that followed served only to support the original intentions of a cover-up. Unfortunately, the evidence of the case remains an errata event which the cover-up cannot hide; both Captain Barnes and I have retinal damage from a lazing incident which occurred in the line of duty. ....I sent a letter, dated October 6th, 1998, to the Attorney General of the United States, Janet Reno, outlining my concerns regarding this incident and it's handling. To date I have received no reply. A follow-up phone call to the Attorney General's office indicated that the letter had been passed on to the National Security division at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). After numerous phone calls to that office, I was informed that it had once again been passed on to the Washington, DC, field office. Repeated telephone calls to this office in order to ascertain the whereabouts and status of this letter have been futile, and numerous requests for a return call have been ignored. This is not surprising considering that in an interview with an FBI agent from the Seattle field office in April 1997, the statement was made to Capt. Barnes and I that "since no device was found during the search the case is considered open and shut." Recent consultations with an Assistant United States Attorney revealed that this method of handling this incident is contrary to the norm under U.S. laws and enforcement thereof.....There will be those who will claim that this approach was taken "for National Security" reasons. However, it is our National Security that has been jeopardized and our nation which has been weakened. Considering the ever increasing instability around the world, particularly in Russia with it's numerous nuclear weapons and instability, our National Security depends on increased vigilance now more than ever before..... In fulfilling my duty as a Naval Officer and while upholding the oath that I took to protect and defend the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, I was wounded in the line of duty. However, for some unknown reason, since April 4th, 1997 I have been accused of having fabricated the entire event and labeled a liar, a lunatic and a traitor. My loyalty to the United States Navy has been questioned and I have been passed over for promotion. I have even been accused of withholding intelligence from the U.S. on this issue. The actual reasons why this incident was handled the way it was is unknown. However, the information provided today paints less that a "rosy" picture of the real relationship between Russia and the United States. My greatest fear is that our naïveté and ignorance will continue to foster complacency and a false sense of security that will prove to be our undoing...."

Hotline 5/25/99 Fox - Carl Cameron Special Report 5/24/99 "....Cameron again: "Another former Clinton fundraiser, Charlie Trie, has now also pleaded guilty and has agreed to cooperate with Justice Department investigators. Sources say they have reason to suspect that Trie also may have been involved with Loral and Hughes and their export relationship with China. The Pentagon concluded more than two years ago that Loral and Hughes had quote, 'harmed national security,' by helping China with its missile technology. Despite that, the president went ahead and has continued to allow Loral and Hughes to launch its satellites in China. That is what prompted a congressional investigation that on Tuesday will release its long awaited report, including revelations of nuclear espionage. And Fox News has learned that the investigators had no idea that Johnny Chung was told, above all else, to keep silent about Loral and Hughes" ("Special Report," FNC, 5/24)...."

Softwar.com 5/25/99 "...However, according to the 100 page Federal indictment from one of the key undercover agents, Chen and Ma had to call back to PLA Headquarters in Beijing to obtain the 2,000 machine guns. According to the Custom agent's deposition, Chen and Ma had difficulty in getting the "barrels" because they required "higher-level permission". Yet, Poly Technology Executive Director, Xie Datong, stated on the record that the machine gun transfer did not require permission from the Chinese General Staff. Xie Datong, also a corporate officer of Poly's American subsidiary PTK, claimed the weapons were transferred from stockpiles from the General Logistics Division of the PLA. Whether Chinese Generals attempted to smuggle machine guns into America may never be answered. Ma and company fled the country. Gun runner Robert Ma, and all of the Chinese executives that served Poly Tech, escaped the grasp of the inept Janet Reno and Louis Freeh. Ma was reportedly one step ahead of FBI agents who had a warrant for his arrest. Clearly, the Chinese Generals made a profit from illegal gun smuggling. President Jiang Zemin certainly has no incentive to return Robert Ma into the hands of U.S. justice, nor has Bill Clinton made any attempt to ask his "strategic" partners in Beijing...."

Softwar.com 5/25/99 "...However, the Poly Tech story goes deeper than just a few Chinese Generals and a princeling or two. According to another document obtained from the Commerce Dept., the 2,000 machine guns were to be transferred to the Long Beach port in California onboard the COSCO ship, the Princess Bride. However, "a leak from the State Dept alerted the company, which then canceled the delivery." "COSCO," according to Defense Department intelligence officials "operates a fleet of ELINT (electronic intelligence) trawlers for the PRC government... When China delivers missiles or chemical agents to the Middle East, specially outfitted COSCO ships deliver them."

House of Representatives 5/24/99 Rep. Kurt Weldon (R-PA) "...For 7 years, Mr. Speaker, we have heard the rhetoric coming from the White House that the world is safe, there are no problems, our security is intact, and therefore, we can dramatically cut the size of our defense forces and we can, in fact, shift that money over to other purposes. During the 7 years that that has occurred, Democrats and Republicans alike in this body and the other body have joined together to constantly remind the administration that things were not quite as good as they were being portrayed to the American people. Unfortunately, we were not as successful as we would have liked. In fact, Mr. Speaker, State of the Union speech after State of the Union speech the President would stand before the American people and would talk about the economy, would talk about jobs, would talk about crimes domestically, but no mention of national security concerns....In fact, Mr. Speaker, what has been occurring over the past 7 years with strong concerns expressed by both Democrats and Republicans alike in this body is that we have committed our troops to too many places in a short period of time to be effective in modernizing for the future and in protecting America's vital interests around the world. ....In the time period from the end of World War II until 1991, during the administration of all those Presidents in between, from Harry Truman through Democrat and Republican administrations ending with George Bush, all of those commanders in chief, as they have the ability to under our Constitution, deployed our troops a total of 10 times, 10 times at home and around the world. Some of those deployments were very serious, like Korea and Vietnam and Desert Storm. Since 1991, Mr. Speaker, our current commander in chief has deployed our troops 33 times, 33 times in 8 years versus 10 times in 40 years. Mr. Speaker, none of these deployments were paid for, none of them were budgeted for, none of these deployments had the administration asking the Congress to vote in support of the deployment before our troops were committed. .....there were documents internally within the intelligence community, submitted to the administration, outlining the CIA's concern that if the bombing took place it would cause a humanitarian catastrophe, and that is exactly what has happened. It is far worse than just the humanitarian catastrophe. In fact, many of those analysts said that we actually contributed to the refugee crisis because when we bombed, it obviously caused the observers who were in the former Yugoslavia to leave that country, which then gave Milosevic a free hand to continue at a much higher level the ethnic cleansing and the significant attacks on innocent people. So in effect, Mr. Speaker, what the intelligence community was saying to us as a Nation, prior to a decision to conduct the aerial campaign, was that if we went ahead, we would cause the situation to become much worse. That is exactly what has occurred. ....We have done something else, Mr. Speaker. We have managed to do what one colleague of mine from the Russian Duma told me the Soviet communist party could not accomplish in 70 years, after expending billions of dollars, to convince the Russian people that America was evil, that we really were designed as a nation to hurt innocent people. He said Russians are now convinced, after some 55 days of bombing, which it was when he was here, that this country really is evil. So we have managed to do in 55 days what the Soviet communist party could not accomplish in Russia in 70 years......Every Member of Congress should read this book. In fact, it has hit the bestseller list in just the first week it was on the stands. Why is this book so important, Mr. Speaker? Because it details, in depth, an analysis of this spin on defense concerns in this country over the past 7 years...."

Washington Weekly 11/17/97 "...The most shocking and devastating revelation made by Bob Woodward's story Friday is that after Chairman Thompson announced two weeks ago that he was suspending his public hearings, the FBI obtained intelligence showing that the Ministry of State Security in Beijing -- the Chinese equivalent of the CIA -- boasted it had been successful in "thwarting" the congressional inquiry. How could Chinese agents be able to "thwart" an inquiry by the U.S. congress? The answer is not hard to find. One need only look at those who irrationally attacked Chairman Fred Thompson for his opening statement, where he revealed that there was a Chinese plot to influence the election. His statement was deliberately non-partisan, so there would be no partisan reasons to counterattack. But the interests of the Chinese intelligence agency would be served. Senator John Glenn said: "I think I have seen everything the chairman has seen, and I recall nothing to document allegations that China had done anything illegal." After the FBI offered to show the classified evidence to any Senator who wished to see it, Senator Glenn fell strangely silent. Even more shocking was Senator Glenn's offer to negotiate an immunity agreement on behalf of John Huang. How did John Glenn end up representing a Communist agent whom Senate staffers had been unable to locate? .....Chairman Thompson's landmark opening statement included a reference to the U.S. media. He referred to intelligence showing Chinese agents "attempting to communicate Beijing's views through media channels in the United States." It comes as no surprise, then, that network and cable news anchors took the position of Senator Glenn in ridiculing Thompson's allegation....... And there is at least one FBI counterintelligence agent who is so outraged by the cover-up of his superiors that he is now leaking to Bob Woodward....."

WorldNetDaily 5/27/99 J.R. Nyquist "...Let's put the Cox Committee's report in perspective. Last year Russia and China officially announced a "strategic partnership." In the words of the Chinese government, this partnership was founded to challenge the "perceived global dominance of the United States." Did our vaunted CIA anticipate this new alliance between Russia and China? Probably they were caught napping, like the time Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, or when India conducted a number of surprise nuclear tests in May 1998. Judging from U.S. foreign policy, there has been no official reaction to the new Moscow-Beijing axis. From all external appearances, the U.S. intelligence community has not yet recognized that the "former" Communist Bloc is reappearing under a new guise. And yet, we were warned of this impending Russian-Chinese partnership as far back as 1984, by a Russian KGB defector named Golitsyn. We were told of a secret strategy of Russian-Chinese collusion. We were told that America was still the "main enemy" of the Chinese, and that one day Russia would unite with China into "one clenched fist." But few believed these warnings, because most Americans assumed that the FBI and CIA would have long ago discovered any Sino-Soviet collusion, and American policy would have been adjusted to meet this challenge. Unfortunately, America's intelligence and counterintelligence functions are tertiary, and will never be allowed to interfere with the making of money, which is primary. As President Coolidge once said: "The business of America is business." And as it happens, American business has become deeply involved in China....."

THE Patrick Henry Center http://WWW.PatrickHenryCenter.Org Gary Aldrich 5/28/99 Freeper A Whitewater Researcher "..."...a real enemy (Communist China) steals us blind, right under the FBI's noses...with their knowledge...."Thanks a lot for guarding your nation, FBI...."Thanks a lot for putting my kids and yours right back into a new cold war by being too afraid to face off with Bill Clinton and his lefty friends!...we warned you the Clinton White House was dangerous to our national security...."You even tried to punish us for doing our jobs -- to protect national security!..."Mr. Freeh: You tried to prosecute me..."Mr. Director...Why don't you tell the nation what you really know about the corrupt Clinton Administration?...the FBI is not the only agency that stands accused of failing to come to America's rescue...Mr. Aldrich: "What is much more troubling to me is that the very people and institutions we created to prevent this unprecedented espionage - may have actually aided and abetted our enemies by standing by and watching it happen, while punishing and threatening those brave whistle blowers who tried to prevent it...."

AP 5/29/99 "...The government expelled an Indian scientist who worked in a U.S. weapons lab because he was connected with India's nuclear-weapons program, Newsweek reported Saturday. The magazine did not report the scientist's name or reveal its sources for the man's removal from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. "Last year Los Alamos expelled an Indian scientist when it was discovered he had ties to India's nuclear-bomb program,'' Newsweek said it has learned....."

Washington Weekly 5/31/99 RICKI MAGNUSSEN "....TIMPERLAKE: We need to put good money on the table to rebuild our military and go back to our labs. We have to break the criminal conspiracy surrounding the president so that we don't create new technology initiatives that are immediately compromised the minute that we create them. We have to break the conspiracy of the 122 witnesses that have fled the country. Until we do that we have to look very carefully at the ability of keeping anything secret and it originates from the top, the oval office. This is the beginning of the rebuilding of American national security........ No one could believe that the next century would start with that much danger. Six years ago the world was at peace and prosperity and we are going into the next century now with an emerging threat that has proven in the last 50 years to be willing to use military force directly against America. Korea is an example of that......TIMPERLAKE: That's correct. There are high-tech weapons that I'm sure that they don't want to talk about. And to make matters worse, there are obviously at all times high-tech weapons on the drawing board, basic research that leads to the new break-through no one wants to talk about. Unfortunately and tragically, the People's Republic of China has apparently forged this alliance to buy all the Russian high-tech equipment. So not only do they know all of our weapons capabilities, limitations, and where they are, they are buying from the Russians either their weaponry or knowledge of how to measure our systems. That's what they used to do just as we did to them....But to protect the sources and methods it may be worth keeping the 30% buttoned up, that's important. You have to yield to the integrity of chairman Cox on that one...."

NewsMax.com 5/30/99 Inside Cover "...One of Inside Cover's favorite media whoppers about America's newfound national security hemorrhage is this: Most of the secret information the Chinese now have access to disappeared over the transom during the Reagan and Bush administrations. Not according to the actual chronology available in the Cox report. Turns out, of the eleven most serious episodes of nuke-related tech tranfers noted by the bi-partisan panel, eight took place during the Clinton years. Except for data on the neutron bomb, which China obtained during the Carter administration, not a single serious breach of nuclear security came to light before 1993. But doesn't that bolster the arguments of Clinton spinmeisters that it was this administration, and not prior Republican presidents, who ferreted out Chinese spying? Not exactly. Except for a "Walk-in"; an unidentified Chinese agent who popped up out-of-the-blue in a Far East CIA office in 1995, Clinton national security officials -- along with the rest of us -- might still be in the dark about the most serious spy case of the nuclear age. To the astonishment of U.S. intelligence, the Chinese tipster revealed that his Beijing bosses had the plans for America's deadly W-88 Trident D-5 nuclear warhead...."

FOX NEWS 6/10/99 Reuters "...In a string of overwhelming votes, the House approved proposals to tighten security at U.S. nuclear labs and bolster technology export controls in response to a congressional panel's report last month that China had obtained a wealth of nuclear secrets during two decades of concerted espionage. The House voted 428-0 to implement at least portions of 26 of the panel's 38 recommendations, attaching them to a $288 billion defense authorization bill. The amendment establishes counter-intelligence programs at the Department of Energy nuclear labs, strengthens monitoring of overseas satellite launches and controls of high-technology exports, and institutes a variety of reporting procedures on export licensing and Chinese espionage activities...... Other amendments, approved by voice votes, would institute polygraph tests for department employees with access to classified information, subject contractors to civil penalties for security violations and require an annual report on department counter-intelligence programs. ...... Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, appearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he opposed a Senate plan to reorganize the department's nuclear security and counter-intelligence operations..... "China must know this issue will not fade away,'' DeLay said. "The Congress must be strong where the president has been weak.'' The House voted 284-143 to adopt DeLay's amendment barring military-to-military contacts with China, but rejected 266-159 an amendment by Rep. Jim Ryun, a Kansas Republican, to place a two-year moratorium on foreign visitors at nuclear labs....."

Koenig's International News 6/10/99 Charles Smith "...In 1997, Commerce export enforcement officials in Beijing could not identify Chinese Army owned companies....In 1996, American computer maker SUN Computer Corp. exported a super-computer directly to the Chinese Army. According to the Cox report, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC) explained that the actual buyer of the computer was the "Yuanwang Corporation" and that Sun was aware of "this corporation's PRC military ties." According to a 1997 e-mail from Bureau of Export Administration (BXA) officer Mark Bayuk, a chart provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was used to "discover that Yuanwang Group, the importer that is alleged to have imported the Sun Computer shipped to the National Defense Technical Institute of China in Changsha, was directly under the control of COSTIND."..... While export control officials were scrambling to find some information on PLA operations - the Commerce Dept. sales division, under Ron Brown, was well informed. There was a published list of Chinese Army companies and it was provided by one of the top Generals in the PLA. In 1995, Secretary Perry informed Commerce Secretary Ron Brown that his PLA contact was "General Ding Henggao" of COSTIND. "Dear Ron," wrote Perry in his 1995 letter to Secretary Brown. "I recently received a letter from General Ding Henggao, the Minister of the Chinese Commission for Science Technology and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND). As you know, General Ding and I head the Sino-American Joint Defense Conversion Commission that was established during my visit to the PRC this past October (1994)." "General Ding's staff has prepared a list of 49 potential projects... We have provided the list to Barry Carter, who is a member of the Commission. Your Bureau of Export Administration is working to make information available to concerned U.S. businesses."..."

Albuquerque Journal 6/13/99 Editorial "...In place of the Ryun amendment, the House opted to pull in the welcome mat on foreign visitors until common-sense security measures, such as background checks, are reinstituted. The DOE waived the prerequisite of background checks on visitors to Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1994 at the insistence of the University of California, Jack Anderson reports in an OpEd column opposite this page. The university manages both of the weapons labs in New Mexico. UC officials took a laissez faire attitude toward security, according to General Accounting Office reports cited by Anderson. The GAO found that, in the interest of promoting a more campus-like atmosphere, unescorted foreign visitors were allowed to roam sensitive areas of Los Alamos after hours. Now, when it is clear even in the ivory towers of UC that Los Alamos is not Berkeley, university administrators can point fingers at the Department of Energy. Security? Hey, that's DOE's job. Energy and FBI officials also lay blame off on each other for failing to keep the other informed on security issues.

American Spectator 5/28/99 "....But now comes the Cox Report and things are not so funny. Worse still, there is the fear that after losing nuclear technology to China the administration's Talleyrands, Albright and Berger, ably assisted by the President, will provoke a new Cold War. What makes the Cox Report a particularly melancholy occasion for me is that many of its revelations were earlier published in The American Spectator. Just as the Starr Report confirmed the Troopergate stories of Clinton's reckless libido, the Cox Report confirms accounts in the Spectator about this administration's illegal technology transfers to the Chinese and the Chinese's wide-spread espionage....Reading about the Cox Report's findings is frustrating business for me. News of Clinton's close relationship with the shadowy Indonesian banking family in control of the Lippo group was reported by Jim Adams in the Spectator years ago. Michael Ledeen began reporting on dangerous technology transfers in the early 1990's. Though it was not original reporting, Ken Timmerman reported one year ago that the Loral Corporation and Hughes Electronics had illegally given the Chinese sensitive intelligence on how to improve their missiles. In reporting that was original, Timmerman explained how the China Aerospace Technology Import-Export Company (CATIC) was throughout the 1990's gobbling up U.S. technology. In October 1998 he exposed 40 California companies involved in CATIC's commercial and spying network. Timmerman's reports began in March of 1995. In an astonishing account that should have caught many a government official's eye, Timmerman reported on how the Chinese bought an entire plant in Columbus, Ohio, where our B-1 bombers and C-17 heavy transport aircraft had been produced. He described how a Chinese procurement team was allowed to videotape assembly line equipment in the plant's secured area. In subsequent articles he has reported how the Chinese have, under Clinton's watch, repeatedly purchased U.S. defense production equipment at auction, often illegally. The administration has only prosecuted one case and even in that case it has not been able to recover the illegally exported equipment....."

NewsMax.com 6/2/99 Inside Cover Kenneth Timmerman information "...The Rocky Flats security scandal may be the most damaging yet, since the cover-up is apparently still ongoing. ...According to Timmerman, "Richardson is now attempting to prevent a top DOE official in charge of safeguards and security from testifying before Congress. Why? Because that official, Edward J. McCallum, had made clear his intention to warn Congress and the public of devastating gaps in security procedures at nuclear storage sites such as Rocky Flats." Richardson already knows what McCallum has to say, since McCallum privately warned the Clinton administration last January about trouble at Rocky Flats. The consequences of the cover-up could be dramatic. "Terrorists could easily penetrate the facility and steal weapons grade plutonium, or construct and detonate a nuclear bomb on the site without DOE security teams being able to prevent it," reports the Spectator, based on what McCallum told Timmerman. It gets worse. McCallum was fired from his DOE post, or rather, "placed on adminstrative leave without pay" just last month. Bill Richardson personally gave the order to axe the whistleblower because he was "pissed off" at McCallum's attempts to inform Congress, according to what sources have told the Spectator. White House flaks may have a tough time spinning the Rocky Flats scandal for other reasons. Not only has the administration "repeatedly and obstinately" refused to correct the problem, but Mrs. O'Leary may be vulnerable to conflict of interest charges. Timmerman writes: "Under O'Leary's stewardship, Rocky Flats cut its security force by 40 percent, allowing prime contactor Kaiser-Hill LLC to improve its profit margin despite an overall reduction in the funds it received from DOE. Indeed, Kaiser Hill actually earned performance bonuses from DOE, because its cleanup operations were going ahead on schedule." Kaiser-Hill was apparently grateful for Mrs. O'Leary's indulgence, since she wound up on the board of ICF Kaiser, its parent company, upon her retirement from DOE. She remains on Kaiser's board today, while her husband does consulting work for the company....."

USA Today 6/3/99 Edward T. Pound "....With the Chinese espionage scandal an ugly reminder of what can go wrong when spies aren't caught, Defense Department officials are grappling with another big problem: the near paralysis of the Pentagon's system for investigating backgrounds of government and defense-contractor employees. Department officials say the backlog of cases is enormous. They estimate that 600,000 investigations need to be done on Pentagon and contractor employees. Things are so bad that a computer system that was supposed to help cut the backlog breaks down for days at a time, disabling background operations..... In truth, it is barely creaking along, unable to keep up with its workload and beset by years of internal strife over the management practices of Steven Schanzer, its director, and his predecessor, Margaret Munson..... Schanzer is being reassigned to the Department of Energy....For sure, one of Munson's most controversial moves was her effort to simplify security investigations to speed up completion times. That new approach called for substituting less-thorough telephone interviews for some in-person conversations with neighbors and others acquainted with security applicants. She says the neighborhood interviews, in many cases, were a waste of time..... "

Curt Weldon Website 6/8/99 "...Today we have the Secretary telling us that our labs are secure. I can tell you right now, Mr. Speaker, there are no controls on e-mails that are being sent out of our labs at this very moment. They will tell you they have a software system that looks for keywords, that if an e-mail is sent to Beijing or some other city and a keyword is in that e-mail, it raises a flag and that person then will be investigated. Raising a flag after the e-mail leaves the laboratory does us no good, Mr. Speaker. So for Richardson to say that secure measures are in place today is wrong, it is factually wrong, it is not correct, and he needs to be honest with the American people...."

Curt Weldon Website 6/8/99 "... Now, as extensive as this is, Mr. Speaker, I can tell you this is only scratching the surface. In one of our House hearings one of our colleagues asked the FBI when they were doing the investigation of these linkages how much of what they know is now available in public form with all the reports, all the investigations, how much of what the FBI and the CIA knows is available to the public, and this was the answer: Less than 1 percent. So, as broad as this is, as documented as this is, we only know publicly less than 1 percent of what the FBI and the CIA know about the linkages between PLA front organizations, front companies and financing mechanisms..."

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY 6/9/99 Paul Sperry "...Former Reagan Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger says he's not surprised. ''Every existing roadblock inhibiting (China's) nuclear progress has been removed over the past six years,'' he said in a foreword to an abridged book version of the Cox report. He also cited the administration's ''apparent reluctance to block or punish espionage.'' It's now plain that the administration, which still sees China as a ''strategic partner,'' departed from long-standing national security policies. It relaxed security at the labs, particularly when it came to Chinese visitors and workers. It balked at prosecuting suspected Chinese spies. And it removed controls on dual-use exports to China...."

Cox Report 5/99 Freeper Favish http://www.house.gov/coxreport/chapfs/ch3.html "...In June 1998, the PRC agreed with the United States to cooperate and allow post-shipment verifications for all exports, including HPCs.[149] PRC conditions on the implementation of post-shipment verifications for HPCs, however, render the agreement useless.[150] Specifically: · The PRC considers requests from the U.S. Commerce Department to verify the actual end-use of a U.S. HPC to be non-binding · The PRC insists that any end-use verification, if it agrees to one, be conducted by one of its own ministries, not by U.S. representatives · The PRC takes the view that U.S. Embassy and Consulate commercial service personnel may not attend an end-use verification, unless they are invited by the PRC · The PRC argues scheduling of any end-use verification - or indeed, whether to permit it at all - is at the PRC's discretion · The PRC will not permit any end-use verification of a U.S. HPC at any time after the first six months of the computer's arrival in the PRC The Select Committee has reviewed the terms of the U.S.-PRC agreement and found them wholly inadequate. The Clinton administration has, however, advised the Select Committee that the PRC would object to making the terms of the agreement public. As a result, the Clinton administration has determined that no further description of the agreement may be included in this report....."

MSNBC 6/9/99 "....The Energy Department has not been following its own rules for licensing visits to its nuclear weapons labs by foreign nationals who come in contact with sensitive information, the department's inspector general says. Inspector General Gerald H. Freidman said sponsors of the visits--who are responsible for requesting the licenses--often fail to do so because of conflicting regulations. The report, obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday, was prepared for a Senate Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Thursday. The Energy Department, in a response attached to the inspector general's findings, said it is updating its export guidelines, which "will, among other things, clarify requirements" for the laboratory visits....."

'Meet the Press' (Albright Segment) NBC 6/13/99 "....MR. RUSSERT: Sandy Berger, the president's national security adviser, was briefed in 1996. The president was briefed in '97. You were not told until '99? SEC'Y ALBRIGHT: I was not briefed, and I have made very clear that that was unacceptable. MR. RUSSERT: Over the last two or three years you've probably had numerous discussions with the Chinese. Wouldn't it have been helpful if you knew that they had been spying on us? SEC'Y ALBRIGHT: I think that in all of the discussions that I've had with the Chinese, I have always done them with my eyes wide open as to the fact that we are dealing with a very large country that has strategic interests of its own and our national interests prevailed. And I believe that nothing that has been done in any way, in terms of policy, would have been different had I known more, because I have always been very open-eyed, clear-eyed. No rose-colored glasses for me. MR. RUSSERT: Why do you think they were trying to keep you out of the loop or not share this information? SEC'Y ALBRIGHT: I think it was accidental. I really do. MR. RUSSERT: And what did you say to them? SEC'Y ALBRIGHT: I don't think that I should say that on television. MR. RUSSERT: Did you express your displeasure to the president? SEC'Y ALBRIGHT: I expressed my displeasure widely....."

6/15/99 NY Times David Johnston "...Three months ago, a research mathematician was dismissed from his job at the Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory for security violations. Monday Federal authorities say it is most unlikely that the mathematician, who is at the center of the uproar over the suspected theft of nuclear secrets by China, will ever face criminal charges of espionage. Moreover, the officials are unsure whether the scientist, Wen Ho Lee, will be accused of any wrongdoing, even though investigators found in March that he had downloaded thousands of secret codes used in the design of the most sophisticated American nuclear weapons. The uncertain status of the case has infuriated some Government officials and lawmakers, primarily Republicans, who say Lee may be responsible for the most damaging espionage of the post-cold-war era. That conclusion was reinforced last month, when a Congressional panel found that China had used nuclear secrets stolen from American labs to develop advanced miniature warheads and a mobile ballistic missile....The still classified F.B.I. application cited questions about Lee dating from the early 80's, when he contacted a scientist who had been ousted from a weapons lab in California after an inquiry into the theft of secrets about the neutron bomb...... "

Capitol Hill Blue 6/15/99 "...`For the past two decades, the Department of Energy has embodied science at its best and security of secrets at its worst,'' the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board concluded in a 57-page report. President Clinton ordered the investigation of security threats at the Energy Department's weapons labs three months ago.... The advisory board accused the Energy Department and the labs of being ``Pollyannaish'' on security threats. The predominant attitude toward security among many Energy Department and lab managers ``ranged from half-hearted, grudging accommodation ... to smug disregard,'' the report said. China's intelligence-gathering methods had proved ``very effective against unwitting and ill-prepared'' Energy Department personnel, it concluded....Listening devices were found in weapons-related facilities as recently as the early 1990s and an illegal telephone wiretap was discovered after 1995, investigators found. One subject under counterintelligence surveillance had been granted a security clearance giving him access to nuclear weapons data simply to avoid the delay of normal processing of a lab visit, the report said. Further security breaches included a 24-month lapse in ordering the security labels ``Secret'' and ``Top Secret'' for mislabeled software, and a 35-month lapse in writing a work order to replace a lock at a weapons lab facility containing sensitive nuclear information..... "

6/14/99 AP H Josef Hebert "...Describing a ``culture of arrogance'' at the Energy Department and nuclear labs, an influential intelligence advisory panel told President Clinton Monday that his proposed security improvements fall short of what is needed to protect against nuclear thefts.....In a scathing 57-page report, the panel, headed by former Republican Sen. Warren Rudman of New Hampshire, concluded that the Energy Department is ``incapable of reforming itself.'' It said only a dramatic overhaul of the government's nuclear programs would ensure the needed security and counterintelligence improvements. ``Organizational disarray, managerial neglect, and a culture of arrogance -- both at DOE headquarters and the labs themselves -- conspired to create an espionage scandal waiting to happen,'' the report declared...... Rudman told Clinton that the president's directive in February 1998 to beef up security at the research labs was a ``positive step'' and more than what had been done by previous presidents. ``The bad news is that people to this day are trying to keep (the directive) from being implemented,'' Rudman told the president, according to the senior official, who spoke on condition of not being identified further. The report said its ``most troubling'' finding was ``evidence that the lab bureaucracies, after months at the epicenter of an espionage scandal with serious implications for U.S. foreign policy, are still resisting reforms.'' ..."

6/14/99 AP H Josef Hebert "...It [Rudman report] concluded that over a succession of administrations, dating back 20 years or more, an entrenched bureaucracy both at the department and in the research labs demonstrated ``an arrogant disregard for authority'' and took security and espionage concerns lightly. There was ``a staggering pattern of denial'' when it came to security and the growing threat of espionage from China and other countries, the report said.....

The Financial Times 6/14/99 James Kynge "...China yesterday poured scorn on US allegations that Beijing stole nuclear weapons secrets - saying there was nothing to steal because American warhead technology was readily available over the internet. Zhao Qizheng, spokesman for China's cabinet, demonstrated his point by logging on to a website registered to the Federation of American Scientists. The site, Federation of American Scientists, appeared to have information on warheads such as the W-87 and W-88 mentioned in the Cox report, the US congressional document that alleges Beijing stole secrets, including the designs of seven types of nuclear warhead, during a 20-year spying campaign..... One indication of the mounting mistrust was contained in China Review, a respected official Chinese journal. Its June edition said the US and Nato were hatching ever greater conspiracies and China must be ready to "fight a world war"...."

6/14/99 AP "...Democratic Party fund-raiser John Huang was arraigned Monday on a conspiracy charge as part of a plea bargain that was reached after he helped the government's campaign finance investigation. He is expected to plead guilty in federal court next Monday. Prosecutors are seeking a sentence of a year's probation, 500 hours of community service, a $10,000 fine and a requirement that he continue cooperating with the government. Huang's plea agreement specifies that he has already participated in 21 interviews with prosecutors and agents....."

Washington ComPost 6/14/99 Walter Pincus "...When retired Adm. James D. Watkins took over the Energy Department in early 1989, then-President George Bush told him that security and safeguards at the department's nuclear weapons laboratories were "a complete mess." In response, Watkins instituted a study of security and beefed up some personnel rules and physical barriers. But the former chief of naval operations, who worked on nuclear matters throughout his Navy career, made his first priority restructuring responsibility within the department, particularly environmental, safety and health standards. Today, a decade after Watkins started his reforms, new examples of lax personnel security and allegations of Chinese espionage have brought on another reform of security measures, imposed by the Clinton administration and now being enacted into law by the Republican-controlled Congress..... The Energy Department has been bifurcated since its creation during the Carter administration. More than half its functions -- and its $14 billion budget -- relate to civilian energy issues, such as coal, gas and electricity, and those programs often are looked upon as public works projects. The nuclear weapons complex, on the other hand, is central to U.S. national security and charged with maintaining the country's lead in development and production of nuclear weapons. With the end of the Cold War, the focus has been less on building new weapons and more on maintaining the existing stockpile. ..... Watkins said during a recent interview that when he arrived at the Energy Department he found blurred lines of authority. In addition, none of the three political appointees President Ronald Reagan chose as secretary -- an oral surgeon, a soft drink executive and a White House personnel director -- had any serious military background...... Watkins said the Reagan transition team told him there were no security problems, but he later learned that there had been an FBI espionage investigation into alleged Chinese spying at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and that the General Accounting Office and Congress had completed sharply critical studies of the nuclear complex's physical security. It was right at the time of the transition from Reagan to Bush that the Chinese allegedly obtained classified data about the W-88, the most advanced U.S. nuclear warhead, according to the recent report of the House select committee chaired by Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.).... But last week, Domenici disclosed at a Senate hearing that it was during Watkins's time as secretary that a security file on a Los Alamos scientist suspected of being "turned" as a Chinese agent was misplaced at the department's headquarters. "Nobody bothered to ask its whereabouts or check it," Domenici said. "It just had disappeared." .....It was also during Watkins's tenure that the FBI began its investigation of another Los Alamos and Livermore scientist for espionage. But Watkins said he never heard of the case of Peter Lee until 1997, when Lee pleaded guilty to mishandling classified information. Before he left office, Watkins briefed his Clinton administration replacement, former utilities executive Hazel O'Leary, on the major issues she would face. Watkins said he was disappointed that, like the Reagan administration secretaries, she was more interested in the energy side of the department than in weapons building -- more interested in commerce and openness than in security...."

Hong Kong Standard 6/13/99 Phillip Cunningham "...The Nato bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade may not have been the result of carefully coordinated strategy--but it was no accident either. That is the gist of a sneak preview of the still-classified investigative report that the United States will present to the Chinese Government by way of apology. Ezra Vogel, director of the Asia Centre at Harvard University and a former senior intelligence official of the Clinton administration is in Hong Kong awaiting arrangements to visit top officials in Beijing in the wake of anti-US animosity stirred by the attack on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade on 7 May. Dr Vogel gave a dinner talk at the University of Science and Technology on 7 June which contradicted the Western media story that the bombing was an accident due to outdated maps. Instead Dr Vogel's views were closer to those expressed by the Chinese government and independent investigators at the Chinese-language weekly Yazhou Zhoukan (Asia Weekly), which published a controversial report on the bombing entitled "Exposing the lies of the old map story"..."

Hong Kong Standard 6/13/99 Phillip Cunningham "...Dr Vogel's views: --There was an official cover-up and the map story was part of it. --There was a bureaucratic battle over where to assign blame, with the White House and the State Department prevailing over the Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency to obtain data for the yet-unreleased official report. --The embassy bombing was a major setback to Sino-US relations in the magnitude of theTiananmen crackdown and the effects will be felt for a long time to come. --Blame will be assigned to lower-ranking people. --The security side of the embassy was precisely hit, and the Chinese embassy, like all embassies, has a lot of electronic equipment. The implication is that strong electronic signals made the embassy a hot spot for Nato bombers. --It was probably the military who did it, perhaps responding to vigorous electronic activity in the building. --Chinese popular anger, while enhanced by government manipulation of the media, was real. --President Clinton's first apology was misunderstood for cultural reasons. The president, who first spoke about the bombing during a tour of tornado-devastated Oklahoma, was perceived as insincere in part because of the casual clothes he was wearing. The possibility that the bombing was no accident is shocking and clearly has serious implications for Sino-US relations...."

Hong Kong Standard 6/13/99 Phillip Cunningham "...Chinese reports were quick to point out that the embassy was hit by three bombs from three different angles. Mr Shimatsu spoke to the National Imaging and Mapping Agency and was told the Chinese embassy was correctly marked on the map. Wang Jianmin, a staff writer for Yazhou Zhoukan, wrote a related story about two bomb attacks on the embassy. A Belgrade resident, identified only as Zoran, said the embassy was hit twice--the first attack with two missiles, the second with one. The second attack came after news of the embassy being hit was broadcast on Yugoslav media...."

The Center For Security Policy 6/15/99 "...Today, the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) released the findings of its 90-day study of security issues at the Department of Energy. Although the report itself was unavailable at this writing, press reports indicate that the PFIAB analysis not only paints a grim picture of past breaches of the most basic procedures for safeguarding classified nuclear weapons data. It also reveals that the gross disregard for elementary physical, information and personnel security -- encouraged by Mr. Clinton's first Energy Secretary, Hazel O'Leary, and epitomized in her infamous December 1993 declaration that, "Someone else has the job of looking more carefully at the national security interest" -- continues to this day under her successor, Bill Richardson...."

The Center For Security Policy 6/15/99 "...Other highlights of then-Secretary O'Leary's lengthy -- and frequently incoherent -- press conference on Tuesday, 7 December 1993 ....In particular, Mrs. O'Leary clearly took pleasure in disclosing theretofore secret information concerning: the total quantity and precise locations around the country of much of the Nation's stockpile of plutonium -- an invitation to domestic or foreign acts of terrorism; the fact that there were then "three miles" of (ostensibly) unduly classified documents, which Sec. O'Leary promised aggressively to declassify. (She did so, releasing, among other sensitive information, nuclear weapons-relevant "Restricted Data" and "Formerly Restricted Data" despite a specific statutory prohibition on doing so contained in the Atomic Energy Act); the number of secret underground nuclear tests that the United States had conducted (the government had previously chosen not to announce some 200 tests whose low yields could not be detected by others) -- a potential intelligence windfall for foreign powers; and the explosive allegation that the Department of Energy's bureaucratic predecessors had conducted radiological experiments on human beings without obtaining the participants' informed consent....."

The Center For Security Policy 6/15/99 "...the PFIAB, led by former Republican Senator Warren Rudman. According to press accounts, the PFIAB study -- entitled Science at its Best, Security at its Worst reaches, among others, the following, damning conclusions: "The Department of Energy, when faced with a profound public responsibility, has failed." "Our bottom line: DOE represents the best of America's scientific talent and achievement, but it has also been responsible for the worse security record on secrecy that the members of this panel have ever encountered." ..."

The Center For Security Policy 6/15/99 "..."The report [issued in December 1990 by then-Secretary of Energy James Watkins] skewered DOE for unacceptable 'direction, coordination, conduct and oversight' of safeguards and security...Two years later, the new [Clinton] Administration rolled in, redefined priorities, and the initiatives all but evaporated." ..."

The Center For Security Policy 6/15/99 "...According to the Washington Post, "Rudman, [a] White House official said, told Clinton that a presidential decision directive signed in 1998 was 'the first really serious effort' to tighten security at the department, but that in the wake of espionage charges it was 'late in coming.' Rudman surprised the president by saying that 'people [at the Energy Department] were still trying to keep it from being implemented,' the official said." "[Richardson] has overstated his case when he asserts, as he did several weeks ago, that 'Americans can be reassured: Our nuclear secrets are, today, safe and secure.'" "Organizational disarray, managerial neglect and a culture of arrogance -- both at DOE headquarters and the labs themselves -- conspired to create an espionage scandal waiting to happen."..."

The Center For Security Policy 6/15/99 "...Arguably, most importantly, the PFIAB found that: "The Department of Energy is a dysfunctional bureaucracy that has proven it is incapable of reforming itself." (Emphasis added.) Rep. Cox evinced a similar judgment when he declared this morning on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" program that: "There may well have been an effort to show that the [espionage] case was closed, the problem was solved and we could put it all behind us and load all the burden on to the shoulders of one individual. But the problems that have been identified go well beyond one individual." ..."

New York Times 6/17/99 William Safire "…Computers at our nuclear laboratories are again being ordered to "stand down." Our most secret work on our most powerful weaponry is coming to a screeching two-day halt. That's because of a line in a report issued this week by "Piffiab," the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board: "A nefarious employee can still download secret weapons information to a tape, put it in his or her pocket, and walk out the door." This despite Energy Secretary Bill Richardson's previous public assurances that the barn door had been locked, now that China has our warhead secrets. When Congress's Cox committee on Chinagate submitted its classified findings six months ago, President Clinton assigned Piffiab's chairman, former Senator Warren Rudman, a Republican, to do the usual White House whitewash. However, to my surprise, Rudman delivered the most damning excoriation any White House has ever directed at its own Administration. "Saturated with cynicism, an arrogant disregard for authority, and a staggering pattern of denial . . . organizational disarray, managerial neglect . . . pervasive inefficiency . . . an abominable record of security with deeply troubling threats to American national security." Strong letter follows.,,,,, "

CBS Online 6/16/1999 "….After a series of reports blasted the Energy Department for lax security at U.S. nuclear weapons labs, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson will announce the nation's first "security czar," who will be charged with insuring the security of those labs, CBS News has learned. Richardson is expected to name General Eugene Habiger, a just-retired four-star general who was the head of STRATCOM, and oversaw Air Force and Navy nuclear forces, CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports. The official announcement is expected at a 2:30 p.m. ET press conference Wednesday. The nation's nuclear weapons labs aren't even close to solving their security problems, according to an independent panel headed by former Republican Sen. Warren Rudman. "I don't think this is just a security problem, this panel found an accountability problem," Rudman said….. the following glaring security problems: * It took four years to fix a broken doorknob that was stuck open, allowing access to sensitive areas. * One employee was dead for a year before officials realized classified documents were still assigned to him. * Another employee confessed to installing an illegal wiretap but was not prosecuted. Just last month, Richardson declared the espionage crisis at U.S. nuclear weapons labs was over. "I can assure the American people their nuclear secrets are safe," Richardson said. Responded Rudman: "I just find that statement incomprehensible and I'm just not sure why he's saying it!" …"

Unclassified Statement for the Record by Special Assistant to the DCI for Nonproliferation John A. Lauder on the Worldwide WMD Threat to the Commission to Assess the Organization of the Federal Government to Combat the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction As Prepared for Delivery on 29 April 1999 … Numbers alone, however, do not adequately reflect the true nature of the growing CBW threat. The greatest change is that individual CBW programs are becoming more dangerous in a number of ways.

First: As deadly as they now are, CBW agents could become even more sophisticated. Rapid advances in biotechnology present the prospect of a wholly new array of toxins or live agents that will require new detection methods and preventative measures, including vaccines and therapies. Russian whistleblowers have warned publicly of a new generation of CW agents, sometimes called "Novichok" agents, that might also necessitate new detection and treatment approaches. To compound the problem, Third World proliferants probably are already seeking such technology and could develop or acquire advanced agents in the near future. In addition, researchers are exploring different ways to use BW, including mixtures of slow- and fast-acting agents, and "cocktails" with chemical agents. Gains in genetic engineering are making it increasingly difficult for us to recognize all the agents threatening us. Also, BW attacks need not be directed only at humans. Plant and animal pathogens may be used against agricultural targets, creating potential economic devastation…."

Unclassified Statement for the Record by Special Assistant to the DCI for Nonproliferation John A. Lauder on the Worldwide WMD Threat to the Commission to Assess the Organization of the Federal Government to Combat the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction As Prepared for Delivery on 29 April 1999 … CBW programs are becoming more self-sufficient, challenging our detection and deterrence efforts, and limiting our interdiction opportunities. Iran is a case-in-point. Tehran--driven in part by stringent international export controls--has set about acquiring the ability to produce domestically the raw materials and equipment needed to support indigenous chemical and biological agent production. Countries are taking advantage of denial and deception techniques, concealing and protecting CBW programs. Concealment is simpler with BW because of its overlap with legitimate research and commercial biotechnology. Even so, a CW capability can fairly easily be embedded into a commercial pesticide plant or other parts of an industrial chemical infrastructure. Even supposedly "legitimate" facilities can readily conduct clandestine CBW research and can convert rapidly to agent production, providing a mobilization or "breakout" capability. As a result, large stockpiles of CBW munitions simply may not be required in today's CBW arena…. Advances are occurring in dissemination techniques, delivery options, and strategies for CBW use. We are concerned that CBW-capable countries are acquiring advanced technologies to design, test, and produce highly effective CBW munitions and sophisticated delivery systems, such as cruise missiles and short-range ballistic missiles.

Two other phenomena complicate the problem. The first is brain drain; as mentioned previously, scientists with transferable know-how continue to leave the former Soviet Union, some potentially for destinations of proliferation concern. Second, the struggle to control dual-use technologies only gets harder. A few individuals are ready to take advantage of this and are ready to transform opportunities for human betterment into threats of human destruction…."

Unclassified Statement for the Record by Special Assistant to the DCI for Nonproliferation John A. Lauder on the Worldwide WMD Threat to the Commission to Assess the Organization of the Federal Government to Combat the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction As Prepared for Delivery on 29 April 1999 … So what is the Intelligence Community doing to address the global WMD proliferation problem and to use our available resources in the best way possible? …. At the same time, nearly all of the analysts in CIA's Directorate of Intelligence who were covering biological and chemical weapons, all of the proliferation specialists dealing with missiles and nuclear technology, and all of the analysts investigating the proliferation supplier networks were brought into NPC. A major reason for increasing the size of NPC was to provide a critical mass of experts to grow and nurture the next generation of WMD and proliferation analysts and collectors. Speaking of the "next generation," a top strategic priority for NPC, and all of us in the nonproliferation intelligence community, is analysis--especially the steps needed to promote analytical depth and expertise. We have a strong front line, but we need a deeper bench. To that end, we are adding significant numbers of analysts and taking innovative measures to help these analysts cope with the fire hose of information that is out there. Our future effectiveness will rest heavily on taking new directions in information technology and information management….. "

The Center For Security Policy 6/18/99 "…Wednesday's edition of the Los Angeles Times provided fresh evidence that Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson is not up to his job, any more than his department is up to that of maintaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal and safeguarding its secrets. Despite a critical report from a bipartisan House Select Committee, chaired by Rep. Chris Cox (R-CA)(1), and an even-more-scathing study by the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, chaired by former Senator Warren Rudman (R-NH)(2), the Times reported that Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson said, "I want to see evidence of [ongoing] nuclear security problems." Secretary Richardson's comments were so outlandish that Sen. Rudman undiplomatically declared that the Secretary's views "boggle my mind." The fact is that there has not only been an historical, wholesale penetration of the American nuclear establishment by Communist China, but both the Cox and Rudman reports make clear that the problem continues to this day. Indeed, both panels were concerned that the Department of Energy is so dysfunctional that it is incapable of taking the most elementary steps to protect U.S. secrets and has been slow -- if not utterly unwilling -- to launch the sort of serious and sustained counterintelligence effort needed to weed out and apprehend spies who may still be working in the Nation's nuclear labs…. Sen. Rudman is correct in contending, according to the Times, that Secretary Richardson "'has no idea' if a spy remains in the Nation's vast nuclear weapons complex." Rudman added that, Richardson "'still doesn't have a handle' on the thousands of foreign visitors to the nuclear weapon labs each year."

Reuters 6/18/99 Tabassum Zakaria "…Foreign scientists have played a key role at Los Alamos National Laboratory since its inception as the creator of the atomic bomb, but now find themselves under a microscope as potential threats after allegations of Chinese espionage. Many of them are watching anxiously developments in Washington that could have impact on their lives at the lab….. ``A lot of our very best people are from sensitive countries,'' said Hans Ruppel, associate lab director. Of the 7,000 lab employees about half are scientists and engineers. The latest figures for 1999 show 182 foreign employees at the lab are from countries designated as sensitive by the Energy Department -- China, India, Iran, Israel, Russia, and Taiwan. An additional 274 foreign employees are from nonsensitive countries…… At Los Alamos, as of April 1, there were 97 employees who were Chinese nationals….. Lab scientists said attempts to limit contact with foreign counterparts could hurt exchanges that are crucial to the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction. …."

Defense Information And Electronics Report 6/18/99 Richard Hill "…Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) this week accused President Clinton of giving short shrift to the burgeoning information technology phenomenon, saying the president's inattention and inability to engage the public on the issue will eventually harm the United States' ability to defend itself against an enemy clever enough to attack the country at its computer-based core. …. "In each of the past five defense budgets, we in the Congress plussed-up funding in the area of cyber terrorism by significant amounts of money well above what the president requested," he said. "We were the ones who were pressing the money and moving the services into information technology dominance." He added, "I support the efforts of the administration. I don't think they're enough, and I do fault the president of the United States for not raising this issue to a level of national security concern. This whole issue needs to be taken to the American people in a way that everyone understands." ….One way to do that, he said, was through what's called an electromagnetic pulse attack, whereby an enemy with a nuclear payload detonates such a bomb in the atmosphere over the United States. The effect of the explosion would be to paralyze the nation's power grids, possibly for up to a year. People and other living things would be otherwise unaffected, however. A Pentagon official recently downplayed the threat of an EMP attack, noting the probability of such an electronic assault is low (Defense Information and Electronics Report, June 4, p1)….."

AP Newswire 6/19/99 "…Using the weekly GOP radio address, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., accused the Clinton administration of taking ``half measures'' in dealing with security at nuclear weapons laboratories. Kyl is one of three GOP senators who have proposed putting nuclear weapons programs under a largely autonomous agency within the Energy Department _ an idea also urged this week by a panel of intelligence experts advising the president…"

"INTRODUCTORY NOTE FROM THE REVIEW PANEL The Intelligence Community's Damage Assessment on the Implications of China's Acquisition of US Nuclear Weapons Information on the Development of Future Chinese Weapons …This damage assessment was reviewed by a panel of independent, national security and weapons experts--Admiral David Jeremiah, General Brent Scowcroft, Dr. John Foster, Mr. Richard Kerr, Dr. Roland Herbst, and Mr. Howard Schue--prior to its publication…The panel would add the following observations: ….* The panel feels strongly that there is too little depth across the Intelligence Community's analytic elements and they are too frequently occupied with whatever current crisis takes front stage. The necessity to pull Intelligence Community analysts and linguists off other activities to assess the compromises to US nuclear weapons programs and their value to the Chinese further reinforces the panel's view that the depth of Intelligence Community technical and language expertise has eroded. * A separate net assessment should be made of formal and informal US contacts with the Chinese (and Russian) nuclear weapons specialists. The value of these contacts to the US, including to address issues of concern-safety, command and control, and proliferation-should not be lost in our concern about protecting secrets. * The panel recognizes that countries have gained access to classified US information on a variety of subjects for decades, through espionage, leaks, or other venues. While such losses were and continue to be unacceptable, our research and development efforts generally kept us technologically ahead of those who sought to emulate weapons systems using our information. However, decreases in research efforts have diminished the protective edge we could have over those using our information, making such losses much more significant in today's world…."

Unclassified Statement for the Record by Special Assistant to the DCI for Nonproliferation John A. Lauder on the Worldwide WMD Threat to the Commission to Assess the Organization of the Federal Government to Combat the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction As Prepared for Delivery on 29 April 1999 …DCI George Tenet has emphasized in his appearances before Congress that no issue better illustrates the new challenges, complexities, and uncertainties that we in the Intelligence Community face than the proliferation of WMD and their delivery means. Over the past year, we have witnessed the nuclear tests in South Asia, continued concerns about Iraq's WMD programs, broader availability of technologies relevant to biological and chemical warfare, and accelerated missile development in Iran, North Korea, and--most recently--in Pakistan and India. Particularly worrisome to the Intelligence Community is the security of Russian WMD materials, increased cooperation among rogue states, more effective efforts by proliferants to conceal illicit activities, and growing interest by terrorists in acquiring WMD capabilities. US intelligence is increasing its emphasis and resources on many of these issues, but there is a continued and growing risk of surprise. We appropriately focus much of our intelligence collection and analysis on some ten states, but even concerning these states, there are important gaps in our knowledge. Moreover, we have identified well over 50 states that are of proliferation concern as suppliers, conduits, or potential proliferants. Our analytical and collection coverage against most of these states is stretched, and many of the trends seen, such as the possibility of shortcuts to acquiring fissile material and increased denial and deception activities, make it harder to track some key developments, even in the states of greatest intelligence focus…."

Rueters 6/20/99 "...University of California President Richard Atkinson has ordered a review of newly tightened security measures at nuclear weapons labs managed by the university, the Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday. The order comes amid mounting pressure in the federal government over allegations of Chinese espionage at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which is managed by the university under a contract with the U.S. Department of Energy..... The university also manages the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory east of San Francisco and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which does some unclassified research. Although the government sets security policy at the labs, university officials help enforce the rules..... The U.S. House of Representatives and President Clinton's own Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board have suggested fining the university -- or other lab managers -- for future security violations, the Times said. The U.S. General Accounting Office also is advocating that the energy department end the university's 50-year-old hold on running the labs when its contract expires in 2002...."

Washington Post 6/20/99 Walter Pincus "...In the aftermath of allegations of Chinese espionage, the Department of Energy and its congressional critics are moving toward a compromise: creating a new agency within the department to oversee the production of America's nuclear weapons. The proposed reorganization is aimed not only at reducing the vulnerability to spying but also at clarifying lines of authority and making more efficient the $6 billion-a-year complex of weapons laboratories, reactors and assembly plants that stretch from coast to coast, employ more than 30,000 people and are vital to the nation's security. ...Last week, however, Richardson acknowledged that his aides were "trying to merge our differences" with Cox, Rudman and other critics. "I don't think we are that far apart," Richardson said in an interview Friday. "We all want accountability, clear lines of authority, centralization and security." The emerging compromise may be outlined on Tuesday when Rudman is to testify before an unprecedented joint meeting of the Senate committees on commerce, armed services and energy...."

FoxNews 6/20/99 Carl Cameron "...Senior FBI and CIA administrators tell Fox News that they are planning a shake-up in counterintelligence procedures in the wake of the China espionage scandal.... Last year, FBI Director Louis Freeh and CIA Director George Tenet testified before Congress that various reforms were being considered. Since then, however, several reports on the China espionage scandal have been released. The Congressional Cox Report, the White House's Rudman Report, the CIA's declassified publication on the matter, and the Department of Energy Inspector General have all been highly critical of the relevant performance of the CIA, the FBI, the Justice Department, the Department of Energy, and the Clinton administration. The CIA and FBI reforms may be made public within the next week to ten days. There are several closed hearings of the Senate Intelligence Committee planned. The FBI has already announced one major change: full-time counterintelligence squads will be assigned to the Energy Department weapons laboratories....Lawmakers say both Freeh and Tenet have said the latest counterintelligence breakdown with China has shown them that there is more work to be done, particularly in the area of economic espionage...."

The New York Post 6/21/99 Deborah Orin "...America needs a new agency to run the spy-haunted U.S. nuclear labs because their officials have an "astounding" attitude that led to outright defiance of President Clinton's order for lie-detector tests, a top watchdog says. The labs still haven't implemented polygraphs or toughened restrictions on foreign visitors, even though Clinton ordered those moves 16 months ago, ex-Sen. Warren Rudman (R-N.H.) told NBC's "Meet the Press." "When your commanding general tells you to walk to the right, you walk to the right," added Rudman, who examined the nuclear labs at Clinton's request, and last week blasted their security....."

Reuters 6/20/99 "...In the wake of allegations of spying by China, the federal government has begun polygraphing an estimated 5,000 nuclear weapons scientists and other sensitive employees at the Department of Energy, the Washington Post reported Monday. The newspaper said it was the first time the wholesale use of lie-detector tests had been extended beyond the CIA and the National Security Agency. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson told the Post in an interview that he had ordered the testing in response to allegations that Chinese spies stole nuclear secrets from national laboratories run by the Department. But strong opposition is emerging as the Department prepares to publish regulations this week spelling out how the polygraphs will be administered to thousands of contract workers and employees as a condition of employment in sensitive weapons programs, the newspaper reported...."

The Associated Press Jim Abrams 6/21/99 "...The Energy Department's bureaucracy has failed to take several steps key to reducing the threat of espionage and should cede control of the country's nuclear weapons program to a new agency, the head of a presidential panel on nuclear weapons security said Sunday. But Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, reiterating the administration's position, said he wouldn't give up authority over weapons production. ``What I don't want is a new agency that is autonomous, that does not report to me,'' he said on ``Fox News Sunday.'' ``The attitude of people within that department, in that bureaucracy, is astounding,'' said former Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H., who headed a panel of the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board that last week issued a highly critical report of the DOE's counter-intelligence efforts. The report recommended creation of a largely independent agency within the department with responsibility for nuclear weapons programs, including the weapons labs, which have been the focus of investigations into alleged Chinese thefts of American nuclear weapons secrets. ``These weapons are not safe. These secrets are not safe. We have a terribly long way to go. It's been an accident waiting to happen for 20 years,'' Rudman said on NBC's ``Meet the Press.''...."

The Associated Press 6/21/99 "...China remains unconvinced that NATO didn't target its embassy in Belgrade, but President Clinton believes that Beijing ultimately will accept the bombing as ``a truly tragic accident.'' Clinton acknowledged that the embassy bombing, which killed three Chinese journalists, had created ``a difficult, painful period'' for U.S.-Chinese relations..... China's state-controlled media dismissed Pickering's presentation as ``deceitful talk'' and said the United States possesses too much sophisticated reconnaissance technology to have made such a mistake. .... In Washington, Defense Secretary William Cohen said Congress will soon get a report on what he called ``intelligence failures and institutional failures'' in the bombing. ``But I'm not sure how much more can be done to persuade the Chinese that this was in fact a serious mistake - a case of mistaken identity,'' Cohen said at a Pentagon press conference. ``It will take some time, perhaps, for them to accept that, but that is in fact the truth.'' ..."

Reuters, via Yahoo! News 6/21/99 "...The nation's three nuclear weapons laboratories shut down operations Monday for a two-day security review in the wake of allegations of Chinese espionage and lax oversight, lab officials said. The so-called standdown at Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico and Livermore Laboratory in California comes after heavy criticism in Congress of security standards at the labs. ``A standdown is a very unusual thing,'' John Bass, a spokesman for Los Alamos lab, said. During the two days, employees will review security procedures for the areas they work in. ``It's the responsibility on the part of every employee to pay attention to the security of what they do. If they are near classified material ... how do they handle it? How do they protect it?'' Bass said...."

CNN 6/22/99 Jonathan Carl "...Senators on Tuesday added momentum to the call to overhaul the Energy Department, which is reeling from charges that lax security at nuclear laboratories has encouraged international theft of atomic secrets. In a unique arrangement, 55 senators from four Senate committees heard testimony from Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and former Sen. Warren Rudman, chairman of a presidential advisory board that has called for a dramatic reshuffling of the Energy Department. Richardson bore the brunt of stinging criticism from congressional members Tuesday. Many of them cited last week's report from Rudman that proposed the department have a semi- autonomous agency to oversee lab security...... "It's time to fundamentally restructure the management of the nuclear weapons labs and establish a system that holds people accountable," Rudman testified. He said accounts from department employees were "startling," quoting one as saying it "is about as well-organized as the Titanic in the eleventh hour.".... "

New York Post 6/23/99 Brian Blomquist "...The drive to shake up and refashion the Energy Department, a favorite hunting ground for Chinese spies, picked up steam yesterday and now appears inevitable. Two influential Democrats, Sens. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, endorsed a plan to strip the nuclear-weapons program from the rest of the Energy Department...."

Washington Post 6/24/99 Vernon Loeb and Steven Mufson "...A mid-level intelligence officer assigned to the CIA persistently questioned the targeting of a building that turned out to be the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia, but his concerns went unheeded inside the spy agency and at the U.S. military's European Command, a senior U.S. intelligence official said yesterday. ...The analyst's warnings are noted in a classified internal report by the CIA's inspector general, which has not been made public but has been given to some members of Congress. According to the senior intelligence official, the analyst had "some familiarity" with the Directorate of Supply and Procurement -- an arms purchasing agency -- and was not sure that his colleagues had correctly located it on a map. "He was concerned, raised some questions, and they didn't get resolved," the senior official said. Another intelligence officer said the analyst "raised his doubts with working level counterparts" at both the CIA and the European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, but the questions "were never raised to senior levels before the strike took place." ...... According to a high-ranking State Department official, an intelligence officer got the correct address of the Yugoslav arms procurement agency from the Internet but then used the numbering of buildings on parallel streets to mistakenly identify a spot on a map of Belgrade. He took that map to an expert in aerial photography who determined coordinates for the building. The bombs accurately hit those coordinates, which turned out to be the Chinese Embassy. A cross-check of various databases listing sensitive sites, such as schools, hospitals and embassies, failed to catch the error because the data had not been updated after the Chinese Embassy moved in 1996..... At CIA headquarters, meanwhile, analysts and case officers involved in erroneously targeting the Chinese Embassy expressed concern that their actions could be unfairly judged and their careers jeopardized if policymakers hunt for scapegoats. At least one veteran CIA case officer with a military background has retained a lawyer. "We are concerned because there is a great deal of political pressure to blame someone, to blame an individual," said attorney Roy W. Krieger, who declined to identify his client but said he was "involved in the chain of command in the accidental targeting of the Chinese Embassy."...."

Los Angeles Times 6/23/99 CHRISTOPHER LAYNE "....Although it was NATO's ostensible ally against Yugoslavia, it is hard to grasp why U.S. and NATO policymakers have concluded that the KLA forces are the "good guys." * First, the KLA is a nasty and thuggish lot. This is a coalition of the despicable: a radical right wing (descendants from the numerous ethnic Albanians who fought for the Nazis in World War II), a radical left wing (communist hard-liners), liberally mixed with Islamic fundamentalists and drug traffickers and other criminals. * Second, the KLA's ideology is inconsistent with America's postwar vision for the province, which, as President Clinton reiterated this week, calls for creation of a multiethnic democracy. The KLA is hostile toward democracy.... * Third, the KLA's long-term political ambitions are antithetical to those of the United States and NATO. Washington and the alliance seek a postwar Kosovo that enjoys substantial self-rule as an autonomous province within Serbia. The KLA, however, is committed to attaining independence for Kosovo and ultimately to uniting Kosovo, by force if necessary, with Albania and with the ethnic Albanian portion of Macedonia, which could trigger a wider Balkan conflict.... * Fourth, the KLA craftily orchestrated events in Kosovo in order to draw the U.S. and NATO into the conflict against Serbia. Early this year, the U.S. intelligence community warned the Clinton administration that the KLA would attempt to force NATO's intervention by staging provocations designed to elicit brutal Serb reprisals and thereby gain the West's sympathy and support. The KLA's strategy worked: The U.S. intervened in Kosovo's civil war, absolving the KLA insurgents and naively concluding that the Serbs alone were responsible...."

Insidechina 6/26/99 AFP "...China is using Cuba as a base for a sophisticated spying operation targeting the United States, the Nuevo Herald daily said here Thursday. China is using its collaboration with Cuba in the field of electronics and radio telecommunications as a smokescreen for the operation, the paper said, citing US intelligence sources and official US documents. The main Chinese bases for listening and tracking are located northeast of Santiago de Cuba and in Bejucal, in the province of Havana, according to the report...."

China Times 6/27/99 CAN "...US Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) has introduced a House resolution prohibiting US assistance to Panama if a defense site or military installation built or formerly operated by the United States is provided by the Panamanian government to any foreign government-owned entity. A US congressional delegation that recently toured Central America in anticipation of the handover of the Panama Canal at the end of this year concluded in its report that mainland Chinese dominance of the Panama Canal zone represents a threat to US security. The US-Panama Security act of 1999, introduced by Hunter on June 16, was referred for consideration to the House Committees on International Relations, Banking and Financial Services, Armed Forces, and Intelligence. Hunter noted that a recent grant to Hutchison Whampoa, a Hong Kong firm with ties to the Beijing government, of management control of the Panamanian ports at either end of the Panama Canal has raised the specter of the expansion of mainland Chinese political influence in Panama, a situation aggravated by unanswered questions concerning the methods used by the Hong Kong firm to win its bid. The resolution requires the US president to submit to the Congress a report explaining how Hutchison Whampoa was selected to receive a grant for management control of the Panamanian ports at either end of the Panama Canal, and whether or not the US government had any knowledge of ties between the Hong Kong firm and the Beijing regime. The bill also requires the secretary of defense to report to the Congress on the extent to which such control by Hutchison Whampoa poses a threat to the security of the United States, and how the US strategic interests with respect to the Panama Canal will continue to be protected after its handover to Panama....."

New York Times 6/27/99 James Risen Jeff Gerth "...The White House was told about China's apparent theft of American nuclear weapons technology in July 1995, soon after it was detected by the Energy Department and the Central Intelligence Agency, several officials said. Until now, the Administration has left the impression that the White House first learned about the matter in April 1996, when Samuel R. Berger, then President Clinton's deputy national security adviser, was briefed on the case by Energy Department officials. But interviews with current and former officials show that warnings about possible Chinese nuclear espionage received high-level attention within the Clinton Administration early in the Government's investigation of the matter...."

I New York Times 6/27/99 James Risen Jeff Gerth "...Evidence that China may have stolen nuclear secrets first came to the attention of the White House during a meeting in July 1995, when the White House Chief of Staff, Leon Panetta, was informed of the problem by Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary, Panetta and other officials said. She added that Energy Department officials had also been told that the C.I.A. had gathered intelligence about the possible theft, they said. Panetta then called the C.I.A. Director, John Deutch, to find out what the agency was doing about the case, Panetta said. Deutch, who had also just received a call about the same matter from Deputy Energy Secretary Charles Curtis, told Panetta he would investigate. Panetta then told Deutch to work with the National Security Council at the White House on the case. Upset that he had not heard about the case first from officials in his own agency, Deutch called Panetta back a day or two later and told him what the C.I.A. knew about the spy case, officials said. A brief reference to such meetings between Energy Department, C.I.A. and White House officials in the summer of 1995 is also included in a new report on the case issued by the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board...."

New York Times 6/27/99 James Risen Jeff Gerth "...Deutch finally briefed the national security adviser, Anthony Lake, on the case in November 1995. Lake said he did not recall the briefing, but he and White House officials said there was a record of it. Before meeting with Lake, Deutch received a full briefing from the C.I.A. analysts, who convinced him that design information on the nuclear weapon -- known as the W-88 -- had been stolen by Beijing, officials said. President Clinton was not told of the evidence in 1995 by Panetta, Lake, or any of the other officials who had been briefed, according to the National Security Council spokesman, David C. Leavy. Berger also did not tell President Clinton about the case following his briefing in 1996...."

New York Times 6/27/99 James Risen Jeff Gerth "...Berger, now the national security adviser, has said that it was not until after he received a second, more specific briefing in July 1997 that he told Clinton about security problems at the nuclear weapons laboratories. Berger did take some action after his 1996 briefing, Leavy said, including directing that Congress be secretly informed. In that meeting, he also agreed with Energy Department officials on the need to strengthen security at the weapons laboratories. Working along two separate tracks initially unknown to each other, C.I.A. and Energy Department officials first began to unravel the case in the spring of 1995, when weapons designers from the Los Alamos laboratory told Energy Department intelligence officials that they were convinced China had stolen design information on the W-88, based on their analysis of a series of Chinese nuclear tests. At about the same time, American officials received a package filled with Chinese government documents, which arrived by DHL express service, officials say. Officials refused to say where the package was received or how they determined the identity of the sender...."

New York Times 6/27/99 James Risen Jeff Gerth "...C.I.A. officials analyzing the documents quickly focused on one that included what appeared to be classified design information about American nuclear weapons, including the W-88. Dated 1988, the document also included a hand drawing of a United States nuclear warhead re-entry vehicle. But initially, the C.I.A. did not tell the Energy Department -- or anyone else in the Government -- that it had obtained the W-88 document, officials say. A former senior C.I.A. official said that soon after the agency realized the significance of the W-88 document, Deutch ordered him not to disseminate it to other United States intelligence agencies. But other current United States officials familiar with the matter said that Deutch did not try to suppress the document. Instead, they said the document was not distributed immediately because it took time for the C.I.A. to translate and analyze it. Deutch refused to comment on the matter. Nevertheless, by August 1995 Energy Department's analysts had obtained a copy, even though it would not be officially distributed throughout American intelligence agencies until that December. By then, analysts had concluded that the document indeed included American nuclear secrets, officials say..."

New York Times 6/27/99 James Risen Jeff Gerth "...After the analysts reported to Deutch in November, a broader review, dominated by the Energy Department, reported similar conclusions in April 1996. Berger was then briefed that same month, and the F.B.I. opened its criminal investigation on May 30, 1996. But in late June or July 1996, the F.B.I. dropped its investigation, a senior United States official said. The C.I.A. had just re-issued the W-88 document with a warning that the agency now believed that the source of the document was a double agent. The C.I.A.'s new assessment, coming a year after it had first received the document, led the F.B.I. to "stand down," or suspend, its investigation, the senior American official said. The suspension of the investigation lasted for about six weeks in the summer of 1996, according to the official. It resumed after the Energy Department assured the F.B.I. that even if the source was a double agent, the document nonetheless contained accurate, classified data about the W-88 warhead, and so represented a security breach.

New York Times 6/27/99 James Risen Jeff Gerth "...The C.I.A. agreed that the information in the document was accurate, and also continued its own analysis. But while the F.B.I. re-started its investigation, it remained a low priority, F.B.I. officials now concede. Only one or two agents were assigned to the investigation in 1996, officials say. By 1997, when the Justice Department denied the F.B.I.'s request to seek court authorization to wiretap and electronically monitor Lee, a move that has since become the subject of congressional inquiry, the F.B.I. still had only three or four agents on the case...."

AP 6/25/99 H Josef Hebert "...Amid the uproar over Chinese espionage, scientists at the Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory are being told their loyalty is not in question, but still many of them will soon be subject to lie detector tests. So when Energy Secretary Bill Richardson came to the laboratory where a half century ago the atomic bomb was born, he was confronted with the question: Shouldn't he be tested too?..... It was not until the last question, when a woman stood and made clear the matter wasn't going to be dropped. She wanted to know if an employee of 25 years were asked to subject herself to a lie detector test under threat of being removed from her job and replied ``I might,'' would that be greeted with laughter? She repeated the question. ``I'm prepared to take it,'' Richardson finally answered, somewhat taken aback by the exchange......``Asian Americans feel their patriotism is being questioned ... and that their careers will suffer as a result,'' he said. In remarks to workers at both Los Alamos and Sandia, Richardson vowed to aggressively combat any discrimination against the Asian American scientists. While the issue confronting Asian American scientists -- about 3 percent of the Los Alamos work force -- prompted a number of questions, clearly the issue uppermost on many of the scientists minds was the call for polygraph tests.....

Yahoo Reuters 6/25/99 "...Three days before NATO bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, an intelligence officer told CIA colleagues and a military officer in Europe that the alliance had picked the wrong target but his concerns never reached senior levels, U.S. officials said Thursday. They said the mid-level intelligence analyst noticed imagery of the building proposed for a NATO strike did not appear to show the intended target, the Yugoslav Federal Directorate of Supply and Procurement (FDSP)..... ``He was not saying 'you are about to bomb the Chinese embassy', all he said was 'I've looked at this and I have some questions about whether you're aiming at the right target','' Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said..... ``On May 4, this mid-level officer called a mid-level officer in Europe and conveyed his concerns, and at the same time he attempted to arrange a meeting within the CIA to clarify his concerns,'' Bacon said. He failed to arrange the meeting at the CIA, he said...... One of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the analyst could not notify the right people of his fears ''in a timely enough fashion''. He contacted a military officer at the combined air operations command in Italy, the headquarters for NATO air strikes, but with no sense of urgency because he did not know the strike was going to occur soon, officials said...... ``He tried again to reach folks, he couldn't reach them. He did talk to some people, and there's confusion about exactly what he said or what people heard,'' the official said. ``At that point they told him that the bombers were already in the air,'' the official said. ``It was a missed opportunity to prevent it from happening.'' ....."

FOXNEWS 6/25/99 Carl Cameron "...Tonight FOX NEWS has learned the FBI plans to propose a new division solely for rooting out spies, part of an agency wide overhaul of spy catching operations. FBI sources say the breadth of the shakeup is "huge." .....The CIA, FBI and Pentagon have never undertaken concurrent restructuring efforts, it's seen as a clear sign of how seriously counter intelligence broke down in the China spying case. Sources say the pentagon adn CIA plan to revamp numerous procedures and retool entire departments. As FOX NEWS has already reported the FBI has already sent teams of counter intelligence experts to the labs for the foreseeable future...."

Whitehouse.gov PFIAB 6/23/99 Rudman Freeper notes: This is an amazing read and I am posting what was the most important of Page 6 here. "...However, the brilliant scientific breakthroughs at the nuclear weapons laboratories came with a very troubling record of security administration. For example, classified documents detailing the designs of the most advanced nuclear weapons were found on library shelves accessible to the public at the Los Alamos laboratory. Employees and researchers were receiving little, if any, training or instruction regarding espionage threats. Multiple chains of command and standards of performance negated accountability, resulting in pervasive inefficiency, confusion, and mistrust. Competition among laboratories for contracts, and among researchers for talent, resources, and support distracted management from security issues. Fiscal management was bedeviled by sloppy accounting. Inexact tracking of the quantities and flows of nuclear materials was a persistent worry. Geographic decentraliza-tion fractured policy implementation and changes in leadership regularly depleted the small reservoirs of institutional memory. Permeating all of these issues was a prevailing cultural attitude among some in the DOE scientific community that regarded the protection of nuclear know-how with either fatalism or naiveté. Twenty years later, every one of these problems still existed. Most still exist today...."

Whitehouse.gov PFIAB 6/23/99 Rudman "...In response to these problems, the Department has been the subject of a nearly unbroken his-tory of dire warnings and attempted but aborted reforms. A cursory review of the open-source literature on the DOE record of management presents an abysmal picture. Second only to its world-class intellectual feats has been its ability to fend off systemic change. Over the last dozen years, DOE has averaged some kind of major departmental shake-up every two to three years. No President, Energy Secretary, or Congress has been able to stem the recurrence of fundamental problems. All have been thwarted time after time by the intransigence of this institution. The Special Investigative Panel found a large organization saturated with cynicism, an arrogant disregard for authority, and a staggering pattern of denial. For instance, even after President Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive 61 ordering that the Department make fundamental changes in security procedures, compliance by Department bureaucrats was grudging and belated. Time after time over the past few decades, officials at DOE headquarters and the weapons labs themselves have been presented with overwhelming evidence that their lackadaisical oversight could lead to an increase in the nuclear threat against the United States...."

Whitehouse.gov PFIAB 6/23/99 Rudman "...Throughout its history, the Department has been the subject of scores of critical reports from the General Accounting Office (GAO), the intelligence community, independent commis-sions, private management consultants, its Inspector General, and its own security experts. It has repeatedly attempted reforms. Yet the Department's ingrained behavior and values have caused it to continue to falter and fail. The panel found a department saturated with cynicism, an arrogant disregard for authority, and a staggering pattern of denial...."

AP 6/29/99 "... The Pentagon said today it is investigating an attempted computer security breach last week at a defense agency responsible for reviewing sensitive technology exports. An unidentified employee of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency is under investigation for allegedly seeking unauthorized access to the computer system of a coworker, agency spokesman Clem Gaines said. Gaines said the employee under investigation by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations had requested access to the government computer used by Peter Leitner, a senior advisor to the defense agency on matters involving exports of sensitive technologies. Gaines declined to identify the individual. The individual's request for use of Leitner's computer was denied and there was no security breach, Gaines said....."

Fox News 6/29/99 Carl Cameron "...He [Richardson] met June 24 with the heads of the three largest weapons labs, and two days later Victor Reis, the head of the DOE weapons program, stepped down from his post, reportedly over disagreements with Richardson over how to improve and streamline security at the labs. Following the meeting, three Republican senators - Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and John Kyl, R-Ariz. - released a statement expressing concern that the meeting was called "to twist arms of the lab directors into supporting the Secretary's increasingly isolated position at the expense of professional analysis."..."

WorldNetDaily 6/28/99 Charles Smith "...On June 1, 1999, the acting chief of the FBI's Litigation Unit, Scott A. Hodes, released sections of a still-secret report on Chinese espionage in written testimony submitted in a federal lawsuit by this reporter.... "This document is described as an FBI report dated April 1995, and designated by the Department of Commerce as document #98-02018-OSY1-001, originated and classified 'Secret' by the FBI. Portions of the document contain information responsive to plaintiff's request for Department of Commerce records on the subject, China's Commission of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense or COSTIND." .... According to the FBI report, "COSTIND generally oversees a whole host of weapons production corporations with their own needs to collect S&T. It is the primary coordinating control over these corporations and also tasks a wide range of Chinese commercial and research institutes to collect high-tech military and industrial items." In addition, the report shows that known commercial espionage by the People's Liberation Army is directly linked to military and diplomatic espionage. According to the report, "The State Science and Technology Commission (SSTC) is the non-military counterpart of the COSTIND, and like COSTIND it is involved in China's S&T modernization effort. The SSTC largely oversees civilian S&T collection, using the S&T diplomats in the United States as a key collection tool." The secret report was generated as part of the standard counter-intelligence task assigned to the FBI. The report was given to U.S. Commerce officials at a classified level. The report describes both PLA "collection" operations and tools such as "diplomats in the United States." ..."

WorldNetDaily 6/28/99 Charles Smith "...The FBI has come under fire recently for providing poor counter-intelligence to the Department of Energy, concerning PLA espionage involving nuclear weapons. Yet, counter to prevailing opinions, as the report shows, the FBI counter-intelligence team was busy warning the Clinton administration about COSTIND and the PLA back in 1995....Much of the equipment included U.S. manufacturing equipment and U.S. training; thus, not only was the technology exported, but so were the American jobs. Some of the documented transfers include: Rockwell Collins GPS navigation to Shanghai Aviation, a company owned by the PLAAF, for missiles and bombers. Radiation-hardened chips for nuclear warheads, including training for Chinese technicians inside America. Blade cutters and molds for a NORINCO artillery-fuse production facility owned by the PLA. McDonnell Douglas machine tools to PLAAF-owned China National Aero-Technology Import Export Corporation for fighter/bomber production. SUN super-computer to COSTIND-owned Yuanwang Corp. for nuclear weapons development. $100 million of Tandem (now Digital) computers to Great Wall Industries, a company owned by the PLA, for long range missiles and satellites. AT&T fiber-optic communications systems to New Galaxy Technology, a PLA company, for the Chinese Army General Logistics Division. Hughes secure Air Traffic Control systems directly to the PLAAF for "military" air defense. $200 million of Motorola secure radios for the People's Armed Police, the Chinese "Gestapo" that executes dissidents and runs the "Lao Gai" prison camps. Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar from Loral Defense to National Remote Sensing Center, State Sciences & Technology Commission of China, identified by the FBI and the Defense Department as a PLA missile guidance lab. RSA/Security Dynamics computer security encryption technology to the Laboratory of Information Security, a PLA information warfare lab, under the control of China's Ministry of Trade and Economic Co-operation (MOFTEC) and COSTIND..."

The American Spectator 6/99 Kenneth R. Timmerman "...A former Green Beret colonel, McCallum headed DOE's Office of Safeguards and Security, and detailed his concerns regarding deteriorating security of U.S. nuclear storage and research sites in annual reports to the president. He also sent dozens of memos to his immediate superior at DOE, Joseph Mahaley, who colleagues say backed him and raised the issue of lax security at DOE's nuclear facilities with top DOE management, to no avail. McCallum warned that contractors were slashing the guard force, failing to replace outdated alarm systems, and reducing the number of guard dogs at nuclear storage sites in order to boost profits. Some security systems "were so outdated, we couldn't even get spare parts," a DOE security consultant who worked with McCallum told TAS..."

The American Spectator 6/99 Kenneth R. Timmerman "...At one point, McCallum ordered DOE agents to place surveillance devices at the plant, in order to keep track of security guards believed to have ties to local militia groups. When the guards' employer, Wackenhut, discovered the bugs, it thought a disgruntled former employee was trying to gather information for a labor dispute, and brought in a private security firm to sweep the facility. "That in itself was a security violation," a source familiar with the incident told TAS. "No one but DOE-approved security people should ever have been allowed into a nuclear weapons storage facility."..."

The American Spectator 6/99 Kenneth R. Timmerman "...But the problems raised by McCallum went far beyond physical security and even beyond Rocky Flats. He also warned that, under O'Leary's "get-loose" policy at DOE, routine five-year security clearance reviews were no longer being conducted for lab scientists and other persons with access to nuclear weapons design information (known as "Q" clearances).... "

***Media Research Center CyberAlert*** 7/1/99 Vol Four No 177 "...The national media in Washington don't care, but an Alabama editorial writer is out in front on the fresh revelations of an Energy agent: "Whistleblower's Tale May Detail Another Spy Case."....In a column in Wednesday's (June 30) Mobile Register,"Whistleblower's Tale May Detail Another Spy Case," Hillyer outlined what happened in Washington, DC last week, which all the DC electronic media but FNC have skipped, and what it might mean: The more Bobby Henson talked, the more his interviewers blanched. Should we get ready for the next spy scandal? Bobby Henson is the twice-fired nuclear physicist who first alerted his boss, Notra Trulock, to possible espionage at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory. Trulock, in turn, alerted the world. On June 18 The Wall Street Journal ran a 1,100 word story about how Henson had finally gotten his job back, courtesy of publicity about the spying he had so bravely identified. Five days later, members and staff of the House Committee on Government Reform were debriefing Henson about testimony he would give the next day. He was a scheduled witness in the committee's hearing about federal whistleblowers who had been punished, rather than praised, for their efforts. By the time he was finished, the whole scenario had changed. It seems he had more to talk about than mere mistreatment at his job. The next day, the hearing began as planned, with four other federal workers telling of being harassed or demoted for trying to wan about national security lapses. But when Henson's turn arrived, the hearing suddenly became classified. It was moved to a secure room where reporters were disallowed, as were any staff ithout the highest security clearance. What Henson had started to say the night before involved yet more security breaches, reportedly by the Chinese and the Russians. The committee followed up with another classified meeting on Monday. This could be big...." Interrupt Excerpt Indeed it could, but you'll probably have to order a subscription by mail to the Mobile Register or watch Fox NewsChannel to hear any more about it...."

World NetDaily Exclusive Commentary 7/1/99 Jon Dougherty "...Several days ago I wrote an article suggesting that perhaps the recent spate of U.S. Theater Ballistic Missile test failures were the result of some espionage. The theory goes that Chinese agents working at U.S. nuclear weapons facilities may have uploaded viruses into the missiles, causing their failures. I wrote, based on an interview with Ken Russell -- who's an expert in the area of missile/aircraft guidance software -- that it would be arduous if not impossible to locate such viruses..... Now, just under two weeks later, here is this -- sent to me by Russell -- from yesterday's Washington Post: DOE Probe Finds External Security Ills at Livermore Lab The team -- which included active and retired FBI, CIA, Secret Service and military personnel -- probed the Livermore lab's response to external security threats, such as attacks by terrorists or computer hackers, and determined it was not prepared for them. (Russell highlighted the important parts for me)."This proves what I suspected is probably right," he said in his email message. Indeed it certainly seems that way or, at a minimum, it certainly seems more plausible now. ...For some time now China experts and research analysts at the CIA, DIA, NSA and other intelligence organizations have known that one of China's military strategies is something called "asymmetric warfare." That is a concept whereby a China that is weaker in conventional weapons systems attacks critical computer, satellite and communications infrastructures of "an enemy in order to achieve relative parity on the battlefield. Many of the systems China has targeted for this kind of warfare are endemic only to the United States. The Chinese strategy is simple. Take out the enemy's ability to see us, to communicate with their forces, and to launch and guide weapons against us and we can make this an even fight..... So it's not a "conspiracy theory" and it isn't something that's "five to ten years down the road." Russell, who has been involved in B-1 and B-2 bomber software development, has held the belief for years that spies -- especially Chinese spies -- have been screwing with our software programs designed for our latest weapons systems. He became all but convinced when the U.S. theater missile defense tests failed several times in a row. Now, after the Washington Post story, he is more than convinced -- he's worried. And he ought to know because he knows what he is looking for. He will admit that such software "glitches" all the time. But what he has seen surpasses what he believes are simple "glitches." Is he right? Well, maybe the more pertinent question is, "Do we want to take a chance thinking he's wrong?"..."

The Oklahoman On-line AP 5/12/99 "...Stung by an espionage scandal, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson ordered a broad array of security upgrades Tuesday and directed a slowdown of the administration's declassification of Cold War-era nuclear documents. "It's critical that we guard our secrets more thoroughly," and there has been some concern that the declassification program was moving too fast, he said in an interview. Richardson said he will consolidate the department's $800 million, widely dispersed security apparatus under a single "security czar" with increased power over the weapons laboratories, which traditionally have cherished their independence..... "

Public Diplomacy Query 7/10/99 Freeper Born in a Rage "…TN- none given, Title: Unprecedented Joint Hearing Examines Security at DOE Weapons Labs Date: 6-23-99 "How can it be it took less than three years for this country to constuct the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos, but it took in the last several years, four years, for someone to fix a lock on a door protecting nuclear secrets," Rudman told senators. "It's pathetic," he said. "Never before," said Murkowski, "have the members of the special investigative panel witnessed a bureaucracy, a culture so thoroughly saturated with cynicism and disregard for authority." …"

Baltimore Sun 7/8/99 Mark Matthews "…The United States is ill-prepared to combat a growing and "grave" threat from proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons around the world, a high-level government commission concludes. Nightmare scenarios include a disgruntled Russian scientist selling nuclear-weapons fuel to Iran, or anthrax being released in a subway at rush hour, sending 6,000 people to emergency rooms. "These events have not taken place. But they could," warns the panel, chaired by former director of Central Intelligence John M. Deutch. The commission will officially release its report next week, but a draft was obtained by The Sun. Particularly alarming is what the panel calls the continuing economic meltdown in Russia…..But the federal government's ability to respond to this threat is hamstrung by a series of policy and bureaucratic obstacles, the panel says. "The commission finds that the U.S. Government is not effectively organized to combat proliferation," it says in a summary of the 140-plus page report…. "We still can detect on a handful of the thousands of possible chemical and biological threats, and those few that can be detected require the use of many sensors that have limited range," the report says. Efforts to prevent leakage of technology and talent from the former Soviet Union have been hampered by overlapping and confused assistance programs, the report says…. The intelligence community and law enforcement came in for some of the most detailed criticism. Discussing intelligence, it said, "There is no better reminder of the need for improvement than the unexpected Indian nuclear test in May 1998." Further on, the report hints at the danger of injecting political bias into the intelligence process, saying "biased intelligence courts policy failure, and said "good intelligence and the rough and tumble of the open political process do not mix." …."

Associated Press 7/14/99 H Josef Hebert "…The Energy Department official in charge of nuclear weapons programs said Wednesday he felt "out of the loop'' about a three-year espionage investigation at the Los Alamos lab and only learned the identity of the key suspect from the newspapers. Victor Reis, who recently submitted his resignation as assistant secretary for defense programs, said he knew of concerns being raised by DOE security officials about the weapons labs, but felt the problems were being addressed by others in the department. Reis conceded that perhaps he "could have pressed harder'' in addressing the security issue, but he said he understood that "people recognized there was a growing problem'' and were dealing with it….But some DOE security officials said Reis was briefed to a point where he should have expressed greater alarm. "He was interested in the science and not the security. He distanced himself from the issue whenever he could,'' maintained Edward McCallum, director of DOE's Office of Safeguards and Security. "He took advantage of the structure to dodge and move. We told him in grueling detail about the (security) problem and he did not react.'' …"


fox news wire 7/15/99 "…A U.S. House of Representatives panel Thursday moved to withhold $1 billion to force the Energy Department to overhaul its counter-espionage programs after China's alleged theft of U.S. nuclear secrets. An Appropriations subcommittee agreed during a closed session to bar the Energy Department from spending $1 billion of the roughly $4 billion it is slated to use on nuclear weapons next fiscal year until its security programs have been restructured or spun off to a separate agency….."

Sacramento Bee 7/8/99 H Josef Herbert Nando Media AP "…Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has agreed to a Republican proposal to consolidate nuclear weapons programs under a semiautonomous agency under the Energy umbrella, a department official said Wednesday. The agency, which would remain under his control, would run the department's complex of nuclear weapons laboratories and other facilities that assemble and maintain the weapons stockpile, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity….. "

AP 7/22/99 "...The CIA has found maps showing the correct location of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade that NATO mistakenly bombed on May 7, but accurate maps were never consulted by target planners, CIA director George Tenet said today. Testifying before a House committee today, Tenet also said that some CIA employees were aware of the correct location of the Chinese Embassy but they were not part of the target planning process....Although the CIA was not intending to target the embassy and therefore was not looking for it, Tenet said that had target planners consulted knowledgeable individuals for accurate maps the error in pinpointing the Yugoslav directorate would have become clear.....Hamre said that despite Tenet's testimony, he considered the bombing error being primarily the Pentagon's responsibility, not the CIA's. In particular Hamre said that the process of developing "no strike'' lists with information about schools, hospitals, embassies, and other facilities to be avoided, is clearly flawed. "The system is inadequate because it is currently dependent on databases which are not adequately updated, '' Hamre said...."

Washington Post 7/23/99 Vernon Loeb "...The director of the CIA told Congress yesterday that he takes "ultimate responsibility" for the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and promised to change the agency's procedures to ensure that such a mistake cannot happen again. In his first public testimony about the May 7 incident, Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet said the air strike by a U.S. B-2 bomber was aimed at a Yugoslav arms agency, which was the first and only target selected by the CIA during NATO's entire 78-day bombardment of Yugoslavia..... Tenet attributed the error, which cost the lives of three Chinese citizens and wounded more than 20, to poor targeting procedures, inadequate review and faulty databases -- all factors previously explained in detail to the Chinese government by the Clinton administration. "It was a major error," Tenet told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. "I cannot minimize the significance of this." ..."

CNN 7/22/99 Brad Wright "...CIA Director George Tenet said Thursday a flood of news leaks about sensitive matters are jeopardizing national security -- and 95 percent of the leaks are coming from the executive branch of government. "The nature of the leaking that's going on in this town is unprecedented. It is compromising sources and methods. It is jeopardizing American security and there are people in our government who think they have some free pass to do this for their own pleasure," said Tenet, who was testifying before the House Intelligence Committee at its first public hearing about the bombing of the Chinese Embassy. ....However, the tone of concern over the purported leaks was unmistakable. Tenet pledged that those responsible will be held accountable. "I want to catch somebody more than anyone else in this government because (of) what it does to the effort of the men and women of our intelligence community and how it abuses the security of Americans," he said. "Sooner or later we will catch somebody, and we'll fire them or prosecute them but what they're doing is devestating to the security of this country. It's shameful and we're doing everything we can to catch them." ...."

Washington Times 7/25/99 Andrew Gillagan (London Sunday Telegraph) "...Serious failings in intelligence, training, weapons and other hardware lay behind NATO's disappointing performance in Kosovo, according to extracts from a British Royal Air Force study seen by the London Sunday Telegraph. Intelligence reports about Serbian troop and equipment locations took up to three days to reach front-line attack squadrons, by which time the Serbs had changed position. Many pilots found themselves "bombing old tank tracks" or civilians as a result, the document says. U.S. intelligence "bureaucracy" is blamed...."

Investor's Business Daily 7/27/99 John Berlau "...The Chinese military is getting more than U.S. weapons technology. It's soaking up U.S. money, too. The unanimous House report on technology transfers to China concluded: ''Increasingly, (China) is using U.S. capital markets both as a source of central government funding for military and commercial development and as a means of cloaking U.S. technology acquisition efforts by its front companies with a patina of regularity and respectability.'' ....Investor's Business Daily has learned that some of the funding for companies believed to have connections with Chinese military or intelligence operations has come from America's largest public pension fund: the California Public Employees' Retirement System, or Calpers. Calpers has $159 billion in assets. About a million state and municipal employees depend on it for their retirement. Investments in state-owned Chinese companies could pose financial risks for the retirees as well as national security risks, some analysts warn. IBD showed a list of Chinese companies held by Calpers as of April 30 to Roger Robinson, a director of international economics policy on President Reagan's National Security Council. ''It should cause some concern if they're still holding that paper in light of what are now publicly identified concerns,'' Robinson said..... Robinson says three Chinese companies stand out: Cosco. Calpers held $2.7 million worth of Cosco Pacific Ltd., a subsidiary of the China Ocean Shipping Company, three years after a company ship was caught trying to smuggle illegal firearms into California..... Citic. Calpers held about $18 million in two subsidiaries of the China International Trust & Investment Corp...... China Resources. Calpers holds $8.7 million in China Resources, a holding company some China experts say is often used as cover for spying..... ''Aside from moral implications,'' the report concluded, ''there are potential financial consequences of (investing in companies that aid weapons) proliferation activity, which could negatively impact investors.'' For example, Robinson says, a company tied to a foreign government that's caught illegally dealing in weapons could have sanctions imposed on it by arms-control agencies. Owners of the fund could take a huge financial hit....."

WorldNet Daily 7/27/99 Jon Dougherty "...As if this should surprise us, the London Times reported this past weekend that Russian computer hackers had stolen enough U.S. weapon systems data to make China's nuclear weapons theft seem like honest bargaining. That's a pretty remarkable feat, to say the least, but it also proves what critics of this administration's pitiful security record have repeatedly said -- that there is no security for the nation's most advanced weapons and computer systems. The Times reported that U.S. officials have uncovered a Moscow-based intelligence operation known as "Moonlight Maze," a continual cyberattack "so sophisticated and well coordinated that security experts trying to build ramparts against further incursions believe America may be losing the first 'cyber war.'" The computer systems of U.S. corporations and think tanks have also been 'attacked' and have had large amounts of data stolen.....Gee whiz, if we don't figure out how to stop these cyber-thefts, our weapons technology will eventually be used against us and then there won't be anyone left to give a tax cut to. Nothing -- not government or private industry secrets -- will be immune from hacking nor safe from cyberattack. Cyberattacks can also be used to disrupt information systems or destroy them, as well as extract information from them...."

7/23/99 to Louis Freeh FBI from Rep Weldon "...I am writing to convey my strong concern about a serious breach of United States national security. According to Insight Magazine, in October Sandia National Laboratory officials sold as surplus an Intel Paragon XPS supercomputer with a capability between 150,000 and 200,000 million theoretical operations per second (MTOPS) -- one of the United States' most capable supercomputers operating today. The potential national security ramifications of this sale are disastrous. As I understand it, we remain unaware of the current location of this supercomputer -- it may even have already been transferred out of the country. If, in fact, this computer is or has been successfully transported out of the United States, the capability it will provide to the Chinese in their efforts to improve their nuclear weapons capability is enormous. In my opinion, this could be one of the most significant breaches of our national security. The problem is magnified because we do not know what the computer was used for at Sandia National Laboratory. There is a very real possibility that nuclear secrets may be stored on the system's hard drive. Even with a "wipe" of the supercomputers memory, much of the information that was stored on the system can be retrieved using advanced techniques. There also exists the very real possibility that the Chinese have reassembled the supercomputer and are utilizing the system's capabilities right here in the United States. The possibility also exists that the Chinese may attempt to reverse-engineer the machine. ....As I understand it, the Department of Energy -- once alerted by the Intel Corporation of efforts by the buyer to obtain key components to reassemble the supercomputer -- attempted to reacquire the supercomputer by offering $2.5 million for its return. It had been sold to the Chinese national at the bargain basement price of $30,000. This appears to me as an attempt by DOE to quietly cover up the diversion...."

Broken Arrow 8/2/99 "...According to U.S. intelligence authorities, China's own political intelligence analysts are keenly aware of the facts surrounding the bombing, and recognize the problems in American intelligence which caused it..... As one of these authorities told SOURCES, "China can't be so stupid that they don't understand what happenedthey have very good intelligence analysts of their own and they know the problems that caused this. They just aren't so stupid that they wouldn't understand what has happened." .... "Over the last 13 years, we have gutted our intelligence and military capabilities, and now the chickens have come home to roost," said Sen. Richard Shelby, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, during the recent hearings on the intelligence budget which were in response to the Chinese embassy bombing. The bombing is "indicative of what happens when you ask too few people to do too much," he said, adding that years of intelligence budget cuts "have stretched our people to the breaking point." Bernard Trainor, a retired general and co-author of a book on the Persian Gulf War, was quoted as saying that "it's incredible at this stage of the game that they don't have up-to-date maps.". John Pike, director of the Space Projects program of the Federation of American Scientists and an imagery intelligence expert, says that U.S. intelligence is behind in developing the kind of building-by-building information that modern strike planners would require. In addition, he stated that the intelligence community isn't currently focused on the intelligence requirements for targeting individual buildings...."

Wall Street Journal 7/30/99 Jamie Suchlicki "...In February, a top-level Chinese military delegation, led by Defense Minister Chi Haotian, visited Cuba. It was the first time a Chinese minister of defense had been to the island... In 1993, President Jiang Zemin visited Cuba and Fidel Castro reciprocated by visiting China in 1995. Within the past two years, Cuba and China have exchanged high-level military and civilian delegations, including visits by Raul Castro and Cuba's top generals to China and a trip to Cuba by General Dong Liang Ju, head of the Chinese Military Commission. China has become increasingly vocal in its opposition to the U.S.'s Cuba policy, particularly the embargo, and Cuba condemned last month's accidental NATO attack on the Chinese embassy as "an act of aggression, a genocidal action" by the U.S.. A U.S administration official, who asked not to be identified, says that "the U.S. is tracking very closely Chinese activities in Cuba. As closely as we can."....There can be little doubt about what Cuba wants from China: economic aid in the form of trade and investment from a partner that couldn't be less interested in human rights. ... But evidence is mounting that China's main interest in Cuba is not dissimilar to a use that attracted the Soviets to the island: It is an ideal spot for electronic eavesdropping on communications on the American mainland--in other words, a good base for spying. It also is a useful relay point for routing intelligence back home, which is what the Soviets used it for back in the Cold War days.....Intelligence sources say that the 1970s Soviet electronic facility in Lourdes, near Havana, is still operational for monitoring U.S. military and commercial communications. These sources also say that China is using and improving Cuban capabilities in this area and moving to develop its own on the island. An internal May 13, 1999 U.S. government memorandum claims that "China may have participated in the construction of a short-wave transmitting site" in Havana. The U.S. administration official I spoke with said the U.S. is aware of the rumors that China seeks to establish a signals collection facility on the island, "but we are not aware of any evidence that such a facility exists." Richard Baum, UCLA professor of political science and China expert, points out that an electronic collection facility in Cuba "would fit with Chinese electronic warfare priorities and objectives."..."

Defense News 8/9/99 George Seffers "...Despite increasing rhetoric from the U.S. Defense Department on the need for improved computer network security, hackers and other computer experts say the Pentagon's deeds so far do not keep pace with its words. The Pentagon just underwent what John Hamre, deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition, calls "the first cyber war" in Kosovo -- and did so apparently without losing any significant cyber battles, but hackers insist the department's information systems still are not secure. There were some hacker attacks detected on NATO Web pages during the air campaign over Yugoslavia, but Pentagon officials have said little damage was done. Largely in reaction to FBI raids on known or suspected hackers, some retaliated with attacks on U.S. government sites and taunting of the FBI. Among the sites hit this year were the White House and Senate Internet home pages, as well as some Army and Navy sites. .... "

Insight Magazine 5/26/97 Timothy Maier "...Red Chinese spies are among us. Their infiltration is so deep, say U.S. intelligence experts, that the prime targets appear to be America's supersecret encryption and satellite technologies. Once obtained, their possession by Beijing could provide access to the most sensitive U.S. military secrets and wreck American intelligence-gathering worldwide. Interviews with Russian and U.S. intelligence specialists indicate that China also has plotted covertly to acquire top U.S. computer technology to disrupt U.S. intelligence operations and prevent American spies from monitoring Red Chinese activities.....Insight also has learned that Chinese agents have formed a secret partnership with Russian military intelligence, according to intelligence specialists working closely with the FBI. Intercepting signals from satellites and breaking into private and government computer systems are part of the purpose of this joint agreement secretly signed in 1992, says a former high-ranking Russian military intelligence agent who was stationed in Beijing and has spoken exclusively to Insight. ...The FBI learned of a major Chinese espionage plot to influence the elections last year and launched an investigation. The ex-Russian agent says China's political leaders initiated the operation after meeting to discuss how best to penetrate the U.S. government. "It was a poligical group decision," the source observes. What's surprising, says a former NSC staffer, is the reaction in the administration when the FBI reported the Chinese plot to influence the elections. "We have the smoking guns that the Chinese are trying to direct covert actions against the U.S., and nothing is done," the former staffer says. "Any other time it would have meant the expulsion of the Chinese ambassador." ..."

Insight Magazine 5/26/97 Timothy Maier "...The ex-Russian intelligence agent's allegation of Chinese penetration has been confirmed by Randolph Quon, a former Hong Kong investment banker for two decades. Quon is close to several of the Chinese princelings--the sons and nephews of China's ruling leaders who head the major Red Chinese trading companies. He says China had a "guan-zi," or connection to get access, for its U.S. political operation. "Li Peng was told the Lippo Group had a back channel to the White House, to Bill Clinton," Quon says, through "deal-maker" John Huang, the former Commerce official and ex-vice president of the Indonesia-based Lippo Group, which had estensive joint ventures with Chinese power companies. All utility companies in China are operated by the People's Liberation Army, or PLA, say defense-intelligence specialists. Quon claims 20 members of the Communist Party undertook a "strategic-information warfare campaign in the U.S." Part of that plan, he says, was taking control of Lippo--a company that worked to form a strong relationship with China for economic and military opportunities. Four days after Clinton's 1992 victory the Lippo Group sold 15 percent, and then later 50 percent, of its interest in the Hong Kong Chinese Bank to China Resources [Holdings] Co., a Chinese military front company for spy operations, according to U.S. defense intelligence agents.

Insight Magazine 5/26/97 Timothy Maier "...Senior U.S. intelligence officials say the Chinese waited patiently for an opportunity to strike and found vulnerability in a White House that seemed more concerned with filling a depleted Democratic National Committee war chest than with national security. Clinton denies security has suffered under his tenure, and Vice President Al Gore says he did nothing wrong in granting access to big-buck donors, but claims he won't "do it again." Sven Kramer, who long served the NSC at the White House under Republican and Democratic presidents, says he is disgusted with the cavalier actions of an administration that critics say put a dialing-for-dollars campaign ahead of national security. Kramer asserts he finds it difficult to believe that the United States would surrender key ports in Long Beach and at either end of the Panama Canal to a PLA-led shipping company called COSCO. He cites the "foolishness of the intelligence community" for not blowing the whistle on these operations. He is not alone. Bipartisan former intelligence officials, who asked not to be identified, trace this national-security breakdown to Clinton's out-of-control fund-raising campaign. They cite the selling of White House access to drug dealers and heads of Chinese gun-smuggling companies, as well as presidential one-on-ones with sons and daughters of the highest commanders in the PLA. They note that security clearances were overlooked and access to the president and high administration policy wonks was granted without so much as a FBI background check even for White House coffee-klatsch guests.

Insight Magazine 5/26/97 Timothy Maier "...ut for China to influence Clinton it needed a back door to the White House to push Beijing's agenda--or risk losing billions if MFN were rejected. The door was there. Enger John Huang, that former vice president of the Lippo Group, whose whereabouts now are unknown. although he was granted top-secret clearance on Jan. 31, 1994, Huang officially didn't begin work as deputy assistant secretary of Commerce for international economic policy until July 18, 1994. Senate investigators characterize Huang as a "human vacuum cleaner" who sifted through an enormous amount of classified information dealing with China as if he knew his opportunity to do so would be short-lived. During his 18 months at the Commerce Department, Huang was privy to at least 109 intelligence briefings--70 in 1994 and 39 in 1995, according to recently released records from Commerce. the numbers are a far cry from the 37 classified briefings initially admitted by Commerce, and this has Senate investigators extremely upset. "We could have been plugging up holes" and controlling the damage, says an angry investigator. "The FBI is now doing a damage assessment." Other former senior intelligence officers in both NSC and the National Security Agency, or NSA, say it would have been extremely unusual for Huang, who served in the Taiwan air force, to have been cleared for such access with a background check. "That's only done with congressmen," says a former senior NSA official. Senate investigators say they are concerned about Huang meeting with a Chinese Embassy official inside his Commerce office 30 minutes after being briefed by John Dickerson, head of the CIA's office of intelligence liaison at Commerce. Records also show Huang placed at least six telephone calls to Lippo shortly after intelligence briefings. Alarmed intelligence sources say Huang's top-secret clearance would have allowed him to see hundreds of classified documents in addition to attending briefings. Huang's clearance was not pulled until Dec. 9, 1996, nearly a year after he left Commerce to join the DNC fund-raising campaign as a finance vice chairman, Commerce records show. It is yet to be revealed whether he attended classified meetings while at the DNC. "What this says is that Huang's security clearance was waived," former NSC staffer Kramer says. "That's is rare and far too generous of the president. The president can waive security if it is considered urgent in order to go on a trip or be involved rapidly in a project." Records show Huang was not planning any trips...."

Jolly 8/4/99 "...What The Chinese Were Doing...DANGEROUS DEAL: The National Security Agency unwittingly dashed any remaining hope the administration had that China was following the agreement. In August 1996-less than three months after Beijing's May 11 pledge-National Security Agency electronic eavesdropping picked up what could only be called a smoking gun: CNEIC, the arm of the Chinese government that had sold the ring magnets, agreed to sell additional illegal nuclear weapons equipment to Pakistan. This time the Chinese were supplying diagnostic equipment and a special furnace to unsafeguarded facilities in Pakistan. According to a highly classified intercept obtained by the National Security Agency, the furnace and diagnostic equipment were to be delivered to Pakistan on September 2. The furnace was special equipment that is used for all types of high-technology metals. It is a key component for manufacturing the equipment that is used to make nuclear weapons material. The diagnostic equipment was part of the deal and is believed to be used in similar high-technology weapons production equipment. The intercept was unwelcome intelligence at the State Department, which wanted its past diplomacy on Chinese nuclear proliferation to be the end of the problem. But the information could not be ignored completely. It prompted the State Department to file a diplomatic demarche asking for an explanation of the equipment sale. It was delivered to the Chinese Foreign Ministry by a U.S. embassy official on August 30. In response, a Chinese official involved in the nuclear industry notified the U.S. embassy in Beijing on September 11 that the equipment had been sent in 1995 or early in 1996 to the Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission. He had no further information. The National Security Agency intercept was one of the rare times when secret intelligence scores a direct hit. Had its consequences not been explained away in a diplomatic exchange by the White House and State Department, it would have been remembered as one of the most important intelligence coups in the area of international security in decades. The intercept showed conclusively how the Chinese and Pakistani governments conspired to deceive the United States about their collaboration on nuclear weapons and technology transfers.

The intercept prompted the CIA to lay out the conspiracy in a memorandum sent to top officials at the State Department, Pentagon, and White House National Security Council. Written by Ken Sichel and Ray Bogusz of the Office of Weapons Technology and Proliferation, with help from Ted Clark at the Office of East Asian Analysis, the September 14 memorandum was sent on a Saturday, showing its urgency, and was classified at the highest level used for data based on intercepted messages. It bore the markings "TOP SECRET UMBRA NOFORN ORCON GAMMA." UMBRA and GAMMA are code words designating special intelligence obtained from intercepted electronic communications. NOFORN means that "no foreign" nationals should be permitted to see it, and ORCON is the intelligence marking signaling that material contained is "originator controlled" and cannot be distributed further without the National Security Agency's permission. The fact that such a highly classified document was leaked shows the frustration felt by many in the U.S. intelligence community about the way the Clinton administration was ignoring important information about weapons sales. Betrayal, Regnery Publishing, Bill Gertz, 05/99; pp. 151-152..."

Defense Information And Electronics Report 8/6/99 Richard Lardner "...Pentagon officials are considering plans to bolster the department's counterintelligence capabilities in an effort to better protect the military's critical technologies and important research programs from foreign threats, according to internal budget documents. In particular, DOD has an eye on a "data correlation" system that models and maps current and prospective threats in a way that allows military officials to better concentrate CI resources on the most serious problems. Without the improvements being debated, defense officials believe they will be fighting a 21st-century battle with outdated equipment....."Defense leadership has recognized that simply shifting resources to the crisis du jour (Khobar towers/force protection following a terrorist attacks, technology protection following the DOE experience) does not provide adequate protection nor recognize the growing threats/challenges the department's CI program must address," the documents read. Hamre, the papers add, has indicated on several occasions "that the country in general and DOD in particular has allowed its CI resources to be inappropriately reduced as a result of the end of the Cold War."..."

House of Representatives 4/15/97 Rep Cunningham "...John Huang, the Commerce Department and Lippo. John Huang, with no background check, with no background check, received top-level security clearance for work at the Commerce Department while still working for Lippo. This, despite Mr. Huang's ties to a Lippo bank that was ordered to cease and desist money laundering and despite Lippo commercial ties to China and its intelligence services, was granted access to top level intelligence services within the White House..."

House of Representatives 4/15/97 Rep Cunningham "...A January 13, 1997, letter from the Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor says that Mr. Huang got a weekly intelligence briefing centered on the People's Republic of China and the materials related to those briefings were under the control of the CIA. And again there was no security clearance whatsoever, although they were warned, the administration, that this man [Huang] had ties to Communist China...."

House of Representatives 4/15/97 Rep Cunningham "...Robert L. Suetting, a Chinese specialist on National Security Council, warned that Mr. Chung was quote a hustler who appeared to be involved in setting up some kind of consulting operation that will thrive by bringing Chinese entrepreneurs into the town for exposure to high level United States officials...Three months later Mr. Suetting expressed concern to Anthony Lake, who was at the time President Clinton's national security adviser, after the White House learned that Mr. Chung was leaving for China and planned to get involved in the sensitive case of imprisoned Chinese dissident Harry Wu. Mr. Chung visited the White House 51 times, records show. Twenty-one of these times he was cleared for entry by the office of the First Lady. Mr. Chung made 17 visits to the White House after the April 1995 Committee on National Security memorandums identify him as a hustler and urged caution, and 8 visits after the second warning memorandum was sent to the NSC, Director Anthony Lake, in July 1995. In March 1997, in her first extensive public remarks about the DNC fundraising controversy, the First Lady said she did not know why Johnny Chung had as much access and was spending so much time around her staff offices in the executive office building, but yet 21 of the 51 times it was the First Lady's office that granted direct access to Mr. Chung...."

House of Representatives 4/15/97 Rep Cunningham "...Mr. Speaker, there is a current report, an updated report from the FBI, that states that Cosco is currently actively involved in placing intelligence officers, spies, in all of their ports of call. That is a national security interest....We cannot discuss the actual details of that intelligence briefing as it would not be prudent and it was a classified briefing. But I want to mention that two of the representatives that represent, and I understand their needs, they represent the people that are looking for jobs, one of those individuals stated that, and I quote, `All intelligence agencies that briefed us have assured us that Cosco represents no threat to our national security.' I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, it is an untruth, the fact that the same intelligence briefers, the CIA, the National Security, the Coast Guard, have all stated that no such comment was ever made and ever intended. And as a matter of fact, they were very, very upset at the dear colleague press release. Why? Because they stated that this is a policy issue for them to discuss, and they would never say that there is a national security interest, nor would they say that there is not. So I would submit that is not the case and that after careful deliberation of experience that there is a national security interest...."

House of Representatives 4/15/97 Rep Cunningham "...According to the New York Times, Chinese officials had conveyed an ominous message to Anthony Lake, President Clinton's national security adviser, just weeks earlier: `The possibility that American interference in Beijing efforts to bring Taipei to heel could result in devastating attack on Los Angeles.' [Page: H1535] [TIME: 2245] San Diego Union Tribune, March 31, 1996..."

http://www.senate.gov/~thompson/wen-ho.html 8/6/99 Senator Fred Thompson and Joseph Lieberman "... In 1995, the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) independently acquired certain information indicating that the People's Republic of China (PRC) may have acquired certain highly-sensitive information on several U.S. nuclear weapons, including design information on the W-88 warhead Although this new information indicated the possible compromise of several warheads, DOE's initial investigation focused exclusively upon the W-88. The DOE team apparently failed to look into the theft of information on the other warheads at all.

http://www.senate.gov/~thompson/wen-ho.html 8/6/99 Senator Fred Thompson and Joseph Lieberman "... The DOE completed its administrative inquiry on May 28, 1996. It was forwarded to the FBI, which began its own full-scale field investigation at the direction of the FBI's "Agent A." The FBI already knew of Wen-Ho Lee, having investigated him not only for the abovementioned 1982-84 matter, but also on account of a separate FBI investigative lead This third FBI look at Wen-Ho Lee -- this time in connection the W-88 matter -- began only two days after DOE's inquiry report had arrived. The Bureau's Albuquerque Division field office took primary responsibility for the investigation, assigning it principally to "Agent D" and his supervisor, "Agent C."

http://www.senate.gov/~thompson/wen-ho.html 8/6/99 Senator Fred Thompson and Joseph Lieberman "... Not long into its investigation, FBI officials at the Albuquerque field office decided that it would be important to gain access to Wen-Ho Lee's office computer. In November 1996, the FBI's "Agent D" contacted Terry Craig, team leader for counterintelligence at LANL, regarding the possibility of searching Lee's computer. ..... To begin with, their discussions -- and subsequent dealings between FBI and LANL -- showed a remarkable degree of confusion between the idea of computer "search" and computer "monitoring."...Though he had apparently failed to ask Craig for information directly relevant to a full computer "search," "Agent D" advised FBI headquarters that he would provide the Bureau's National Security Law Unit (NSLU) with any documentation he received from LANL in this regard. This documentation, it was hoped, would permit the FBI to determine whether it had the authority to monitor the suspect's activities without having to apply for a search or electronic surveillance warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) In response to this request, Craig consulted certain officials at Los Alamos and then advised "Agent D" that while LANL was implementing a new computer training program that involved signing a waiver form, employees at LANL's weapons division -- including Wen-Ho Lee -- had yet to complete this process. Craig also provided "Agent D" with three documents describing current computer policies at LANL...While it was apparently true that employees of the weapons division had not signed this "training waiver," Craig's inquiries around the laboratory failed to disclose that Wen-Ho Lee (and other LANL employees) had in fact signed different consent-to-monitoring waivers with regard to both classified and unclassified laboratory computers in April 1995 Craig, however, never looked further into this matter, and did not learn of the 1995 waiver until 1999 Craig's failure to supply the FBI with accurate information was critical. It is still unclear whether Lee's computer waiver actually would have permitted the FBI searches desired This said, however, if the Bureau had known of the 1995 waiver, it might have been possible to access Lee's computer much earlier. In turn, had investigators thus discovered the classified file transfers that Lee was actually undertaking with his computer, there would likely have been little dispute with the Department of Justice over the existence of probable cause for FISA surveillance of the Lees.

http://www.senate.gov/~thompson/wen-ho.html 8/6/99 Senator Fred Thompson and Joseph Lieberman "... To make matters worse, Craig had also assumed, on the basis of his own experience elsewhere in the laboratory, that LANL's weapons division did not employ security "banners" to persons using unclassified e-mail accounts. He did not discuss this issue with anyone at this division, however, and thus failed to learn that some computers -- apparently including the one Wen-Ho Lee used -- did indeed display such banners. Thus unaware of the facts, Craig informed "Agent D" that no banners were used in the division. (Craig did not discover this mistake until 1999. It is uncertain precisely what banners were used in the weapons division at that time, but had Craig pursued this matter further, it would at least have been possible for NSLU to make an informed decision on whether or not FISA authority was required.

http://www.senate.gov/~thompson/wen-ho.html 8/6/99 Senator Fred Thompson and Joseph Lieberman "... Given that the FBI believed that probable cause existed to mount FISA surveillance against Wen-Ho Lee and viewed this espionage case as an extremely important national security matter -- one important enough to provoke the first-ever appeal of a FISA denial within the Justice Department -- it is remarkable that Director Freeh at no point contacted the Attorney General about this issue. As even OIPR's then-Acting Counsel agreed, the vast "significance of the case" was not "lost on any of us." Apart from Lewis' effort to raise the matter with the Attorney General, however, the Bureau was apparently content to take "no" for an answer. It is equally remarkable that no Justice Department official apparently felt that this matter deserved any serious personal attention from the Attorney General.

http://www.senate.gov/~thompson/wen-ho.html 8/6/99 Senator Fred Thompson and Joseph Lieberman "...After Seikaly's decision, the FBI was frustrated that "the FISA review had been turned down again" and discouraged about its ability to mount electronic surveillance against the Lees. Indeed, FBI Director Louis Freeh met with Deputy Energy Secretary Elizabeth Moler to tell her that there was no longer any investigatory reason to keep Lee in place at LANL, and that DOE should feel free to remove him in order to protect against further disclosures of classified information. In October 1997, Freeh delivered the same message to Energy Secretary Frederico Peña that he had given to Moler.

http://www.senate.gov/~thompson/wen-ho.html 8/6/99 Senator Fred Thompson and Joseph Lieberman "...Freeh took this step out of concern that DOE might be using the investigation as an excuse to avoid making necessary security reforms at the nation's nuclear laboratories. An FBI report in April 1997 had identified major security problems at the laboratories, but thus far DOE had taken no action. DOE officials, in fact, were apparently resisting these changes, ostensibly on the ground that they did not wish to interfere with the FBI's "ongoing investigation" by alerting Lee in some fashion. Freeh's messages to senior DOE leadership were intended to help remove the grounds for this excuse and help prompt the Energy Department to take action, though the recent report on security at the DOE laboratories suggests that Freeh's hopes were apparently in vain.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette 8/8/99 Meredith Oakley "...Surmising that things are a mess today within the Department of Justice doesn't require any great stretch of the imagination. Things were a mess there from the get-go. Or should one say Waco? If we could reconstitute the combined genius of Peter Sellers and Blake Edwards, we still couldn't do justice--excuse the pun--to the Clinton administration's Justice Department under Janet Reno in one feature-length film. It would require more sequels than Rocky, more installments than "The Perils of Pauline." Take, for instance, the latest episode involving Chinese pilfering of America's nuclear secrets. According to a report just released by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, the U.S. government's three-year inquiry into Chinese espionage at several U.S. nuclear weapons labs was a major fiasco, flawed from beginning to end. "The government's investigation was not a comedy of errors, but a tragedy of errors," said the ever-eloquent Joe Lieberman, Democratic senator from Connecticut.....But here's the kicker: Los Alamos officials told the FBI back in November 1996 that Lee had signed a privacy waiver allowing his computer to be searched, which would have avoided all the squabbling. For its part, the FBI says it did not search the computer until recently because it did not learn until this year that the waiver had been signed...."

AP 8/8/99 "...The White House hasn't decided whether to veto a proposal that would create a semiautonomous agency to protect nuclear weapons programs and laboratories, Chief of Staff John Podesta said Sunday. "We're looking at it right now,'' Podesta said on NBC's "Meet the Press.'' The Clinton administration has some problems with the proposal, he said, "but whether it rises to the level that we're going to have to veto'' remains unclear..... The National Nuclear Security Administration would remain under the energy secretary but largely would control its own budget. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has said he would go along with a new agency but only one that does not sap the authority of the energy secretary and place security and counterintelligence responsibilities outside the agency...."

http://www.senate.gov/~thompson/wen-ho.html 8/6/99 Senator Fred Thompson and Joseph Lieberman "... For his part, the FBI's "Agent D" also inexplicably failed to pursue this computer-access issue with appropriate diligence. Despite having been advised by Craig that Wen-Ho Lee and the rest of the weapons division had not yet signed computer-monitoring waivers as part of the ongoing LANL training program -- but, implicitly, that they were expected to do so -- "Agent D" apparently never again consulted Craig about this issue. Moreover, though the purpose of requesting documentation from Craig was to provide FBI headquarters with the information necessary to support a determination as to whether FISA authority would be needed in this case, "Agent D" neglected to send headquarters the documents Craig gave him. According to "Agent D," he simply got distracted, and "got involved in many other things at the time. These failures were also potentially quite significant. To the extent that a subsequent waiver through the LANL training program could have been obtained, it might have (as described above) greatly affected later disputes over probable cause under FISA. Moreover, "Agent D's" apparent failure to forward Craig's computer training documentation to Washington also deprived the NSLU of any firm basis for its determination that FISA authority would be required. Even were no waiver to have existed, it is significant that LANL's computer policy assumed that the laboratory did have the right to monitor employees' computers at will for "waste, fraud, and abuse"; the documents provided "Agent D" by Craig were intended to convey the substance of this policy to the FBI. Because of "Agent D's" failure properly to inform his superiors, the NSLU was apparently never informed of this policy, and thus never given the chance to decide whether the ability of LANL to access these computers in order to prevent "abuse" also meant that the FBI could do so in order to prevent espionage or the unauthorized disclosure of classified information.

http://www.senate.gov/~thompson/wen-ho.html 8/6/99 Senator Fred Thompson and Joseph Lieberman "... The FBI has conceded that it proceeded too slowly with its investigation, and perhaps should have requested FISA authority earlier, but in April 1997 -- prompted by Lee's request to his LANL superiors to hire a Chinese national as his research assistant -- the Bureau finally began preparing a formal FISA request. On June 5, 1997, the FBI's "Agent A" completed a "letterhead memorandum" (LHM) addressed to DOJ's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR), asking that office to submit to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) a request for a FISA surveillance warrant. For unexplained reasons -- and despite the fact that the FBI's field office had wanted a computer search in 1996 -- the Bureau did not request a computer search in this application; it merely requested other types of surveillance.

On June 30, the FBI sent its completed FISA request to OIPR. After receiving the FBI's draft FISA request, OIPR reviewed it and drafted a proposed application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). Allan Kornblum, then OIPR's Deputy Counsel for Intelligence Operations -- the office within OIPR responsible for FISA matters -- received the letterhead memorandum and immediately recognized the huge national security importance of this case. Kornblum thought the case "important and urgent," and was "shocked to read about the loss of the nuclear weapon design [information]. * * * I was also shocked by the facts, the idea that this guy is making official trips to the PRC to meet with his counterparts in nuclear weapons design. I couldn't believe that. Spurred by these concerns, Kornblum quickly assigned the Lee case to David Ryan, a line attorney in his office, who prepared a draft application to the FISC over the Independence Day holiday weekend. Kornblum reviewed Ryan's draft application, and "found it wanting."It would be necessary, he felt, to consult further with the FBI "in order to complete the application and send it forward." Kornblum annotated Ryan's draft with his questions and comments. A series of discussions then ensued, both within OIPR and with FBI agents knowledgeable about the case, and two further draft FISA applications were prepared as the FBI added additional information in response to Kornblum's queries. (Only drafts one and three can presently be found, however.) As described below, OIPR attorneys and the FBI agents held their final 1997 meeting on this subject in August. As Allan Kornblum recalls, "Following that meeting, the case was put back to the Bureau to further the investigation in order to flesh out and eliminate some of the inconsistencies, to flesh out some of the things that had not been done * * *." OIPR would not hear back from the FBI for nearly a year and a half.

Defense Daily 8/5/99 Vago Muradian "...Despite Pentagon invitations that British Aerospace and Germany's DaimlerChrysler Aerospace [DCX] consider unions with leading U.S. firms, executives on both sides of the Atlantic are growing increasingly convinced that the prospects of a successful deal are dim in the face of political, diplomatic and export control hurdles, according to senior government and industry sources.... Defense globalization, and shaping policies that balance security concerns with economic necessity, has been a focus of the Pentagon leadership for more than a year, since DoD disclosed its opposition to the planned $11.6 billion merger between Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Northrop Grumman [NOC]. Soon after the Pentagon and Justice Department concerns with the deal became public on March 9, 1998, Lord Simpson, the chief executive of Britain's GEC, expressed interest in buying Northrop Grumman should the deal fail.....Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre and Pentagon acquisition chief Jacques Gansler initially were cool toward the notion of defense globalization, over security questions. But over the year, both have expressed growing support for major transnational deals involving U.S. contractors. The Pentagon leadership also has commissioned several studies on globalization, and a Defense Science Board panel on the topic last week submitted a draft version of its recommendations to Gansler....The recent DSB study on globalization recommends that the U.S. government focus its attention on protecting systems, with less attention on the parts that go into them. The ability to move U.S. technologies across worldwide operations remains a key issue that has been raised by both DASA Chief Executive Manfred Bischoff and Weston during their meetings with Hamre..."

U.S. News & World Report 8/16/99 Kevin Whitelaw Warren Strobel "... On August 20 last year, 13 American cruise missiles slammed into a dusty pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. The strike, the White House said, was in retaliation for the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania two weeks earlier. But many of the U.S. intelligence analysts who keep tabs on African affairs were kept out of the loop, and they were skeptical that the plant, known as El Shifa, was a chemical weapons facility connected to the alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden.... It's still down today. The administration's evidence against El Shifa remains secret-even to most American officials. What is known isn't encouraging. In the strike's immediate aftermath, an informal review conducted by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research failed to turn up a single piece of evidence linking El Shifa to chemical weapons or bin Laden. The bureau was discouraged from even reporting its findings. Says one U.S. intelligence official, "To this day, I don't know" why they chose El Shifa. ..... The decision to bomb El Shifa was made by fewer than a dozen top U.S. officials. This meant that experts on both Sudan and chemical weapons were not consulted about the government's evidence. Over the past year, White House officials, including National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, have backed away from their charge that El Shifa was actually producing chemicals for weapons as opposed to being a storage or transshipment point. But Clinton advisers insist they have seen no new evidence to undercut their conclusion that the plant was linked to bin Laden and the Iraqi chemical weapons program. Another factor, says one official, "tipped the scales": It could be struck with little risk of civilian casualties...."

USA Today 8/15/99 Edward Pount "...In a stinging draft report, a congressional agency says the Defense Department has "created risks to national security" by failing to conduct thorough security background investigations on personnel requiring access to classified information. Nine out of every 10 security investigations reviewed by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, were found to have been incomplete, according to government officials familiar with the preliminary report. The officials say the GAO reviewed 531 background investigations and found that 488, or 92%, did not fully meet federal investigative standards. In 59 cases, or 12%, the Defense Department failed to follow leads on potentially serious issues involving criminal histories, alcohol and drug use, and financial problems, the GAO reported. The figures could change. The GAO will issue its final report in October, and officials declined to comment, except to say their analysis is continuing...."

http://www.scmp.com/News/HongKong/Article/FullText_asp_ArticleID-19990818015125294.asp 8/18/99 Alex Lo "…


US computer giant Sun Microsystems has refused to send two expert witnesses to Hong Kong to testify in a case alleging the illegal sale of a supercomputer to a PLA weapons research institute, a court heard yesterday. Prosecutor Louisa Lai Nga-man sought an adjournment to allow time to take statements from the witnesses in the United States. "Sun Microsystems has said it will not send its two employees to Hong Kong to testify," Ms Lai told Sha Tin Court. "In light of this, we will have to interview the witnesses in the US." She said summonses would be issued by a US court and statements taken from the two witnesses in America….Automated Systems allegedly imported three high-performance Sun Microsystems computers into Hong Kong and re-exported one of them, an Enterprise E5000 Network Server, to the mainland between February and August 1997, without proper licences. The computer is said to have found its way to the Changsha Institute of Science and Technology, which is involved in research on advanced weapon systems for the PLA…."

http://www.newsday.com/ap/rnmpne04.htm 8/20/99 Robert Burns AP "…The Central Intelligence Agency said Friday it has cut off former CIA Director John Deutch's access to classified information in response to his having violated agency rules by keeping secret files on an unsecured computer at his home. Suspending the security clearances of a former CIA director is highly unusual. Agency spokesman William Harlow said he knew of no precedent. The decision was made by CIA Director George Tenet, Deutch's immediate successor, who acted after reviewing a CIA inspector general's July 13 report on the former director's improper handling of classified materials. ``Director Tenet regrets that it was necessary for him to take this action, particularly in light of Dr. Deutch's distinguished record of public service,'' the CIA public affairs office said in a written statement. The CIA normally does not announce suspension of security clearances but did this time because of prior news coverage about the Deutch case, officials said. Deutch, a former deputy defense secretary who spent 38 years in public service, was CIA director from May 1995 to December 1996. When he was leaving his CIA post, agency technicians went to his home for routine checks to ensure that secrets were properly protected. They found 31 classified documents on a CIA-issued computer not configured for classified work. In April 1999 the Justice Department decided not to prosecute Deutch but recommended that the CIA review Deutch's continued suitability to hold high-level security clearances. Justice concluded Deutch's security lapses were reckless rather than criminal….."

USA TODAY 8/20/99 Edward T Pound "…The general counsel of the Defense Security Service was removed and transferred to another Pentagon agency after he repeatedly warned superiors they were violating government regulations by taking shortcuts on security background investigations. In a series of interviews, several current and former Defense Department officials said counsel Thomas Willess was moved to the National Imagery and Mapping Agency in September 1998. During the prior two years, they say, Willess cautioned his superiors against relaxing investigative standards for background reviews. They either ignored him or in other cases didn't consult him, officials say….. The disclosure of Willess' removal takes on added significance in the wake of a draft report done by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress. According to government officials, the GAO says top security service managers changed policies and relaxed standards, contrary to regulations and despite objections of other officials….The GAO said 92% of the investigations it reviewed did not fully meet the standards. The security service's new managers vow to fix the problems…. In a statement, Willess would say only that he had "taken positions that were not always in lockstep" with them. Current and former officials say Willess argued that the standards couldn't be changed unilaterally. When the agency decided to do many interviews by telephone in an effort to save money, he objected Willess has never been given a reason for his transfer. He also reports to the Pentagon's Office of General Counsel. He told associates he was called to that office last August and informed of his transfer. The Pentagon declined comment.

Washington Post 8/21/99 Vernon Loeb "…"Nothing that we've learned subsequent to the attacks has led anybody to [conclude], if they had to do it over again, that they would make a different decision," one senior administration official said this week. However, in a three-page analytical paper written late last July, well before the embassy bombings or the retaliatory targeting of El Shifa, CIA analysts raised questions about what conclusions could safely be drawn from the soil sample. According to officials familiar with the paper, the CIA analysts considered the presence of EMPTA to be a virtually sure-fire indicator that the plant had something to do with chemical weapons. But they could not be sure whether the plant actually manufactured VX or merely served as a warehouse or transshipment point for chemicals used in making nerve gas. Nor could they be sure how recently that activity might have occurred. The paper, which was reviewed at senior levels in the CIA and disseminated to the National Security Council staff, recommended covert efforts to obtain more soil samples to try to answer those questions. Intelligence officials also said in interviews this week that even if El Shifa did make nerve gas, they cannot explain why a high concentration of EMPTA would have been present in the soil outside the plant. EMPTA is a viscous substance that is not volatile enough to vaporize, and the plant's drainage system is unlikely to have deposited effluent in surface soil on its periphery. That uncertainty, the officials said, is another reason why CIA analysts recommended additional soil sampling at the site last July….."