[IWAR] ESPIONAGE Doubts Persist In U.S. Over Nuclear Spying Suspect(fwd)

[Puhelin Luettelo <waste@zor.hut.fi>]

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Doubts Persist In U.S. Over Nuclear Spying Suspect
1.40 p.m. ET (1740 GMT) April 22, 1999
   
     FOOTNOTE: WASHINGTON The Chinese-born computer scientist sacked from
     a U.S. nuclear weapons lab last month showed a suspicious pattern of
     behavior and failed to protect classified information, the laboratory
     head said Thursday.
     
     But thousands of other people had access to the same information on
     the W-88 miniature warheads and investigators have not yet
     established that the scientist even took information out of the Los
     Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico, director John Browne
     told a group of reporters.
     
     The case of the scientist, Wen Ho Lee, has become a cause celebre in
     the United States because of speculation that China obtained data on
     the W-88 warheads from Los Alamos. Members of Congress say security
     was too lax at the laboratory.
     
     Lee was fired in March this year, more than two years after the start
     of investigations into whether he might have provided sensitive
     nuclear information to the Chinese government.
     
     Browne defended the apparent delay in acting. "We had been getting
     very little information up until probably 1998 that this guy was
     anything more than a suspect,'' he said.
     
     "One of the issues is whether he took specific information out of the
     laboratories. I'm not able to comment on that.
     
     "In this individual case there was a pattern of behavior and that was
     one of the reasons (he was fired) and the second thing was the lack
     of protection of classified information ... that was very serious,''
     the director added.
     
     In the early stages of the investigation the authorities did not
     appear to treat Lee as a serious suspect.
     
     "They were not able at that point to get the kind of approvals that
     you would expect ... from people who approve wiretaps and so on,''
     said Browne.
     
     Some of Lee's colleagues at Los Alamos have cast doubt on the
     allegations about Lee, who has not been charged.
     
     "There's no evidence, no link between him and the information getting
     to China,'' said Judith Binstock, a former physicist who shared an
     office with Lee in the late 1980s.
     
     Chris Mechels, a Los Alamos scientist and vice president of Citizens
     for LANL Employee Rights, called the charges against Lee "concocted''
     and "politically motivated''.
     
     Browne said hundreds of organizations, including the manufacturing
     plants, had plans and drawings of the W-88 and he could not
     understand why Los Alamos was the focus of investigations into
     whether China obtained the information.
     
     But the laboratory has tightened up security, strengthening its
     counter-intelligence procedures and making it more difficult to
     transfer data from the network of classified computers to the
     unclassified computers.
     
     It has introduced positive vetting for foreign students who have
     access to unclassified parts of the laboratory complex but is
     resisting attempts to eliminate them altogether, he said.
     
     Chinese officials have repeatedly denied stealing U.S. nuclear
     secrets. Prime Minister Zhu Rongji, visiting Washington earlier this
     month, said he had "no knowledge'' of any theft.
     
     President Clinton is to meet the leaders of a House panel
     investigating the nuclear secrets theft later Thursday.
     
     "He wanted a chance to sit and talk with them about the situation,''
     White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart said of the late afternoon
     session with Reps. Christopher Cox, a California Republican, and
     Norman Dicks, a Washington Democrat.
     
     Aides to the lawmakers said the meeting will include a discussion of
     38 recommendations by the special House committee on steps to take to
     protect secrets at U.S. laboratories.
     
     CIA Director George Tenet briefed congressional intelligence
     committees Wednesday on an intelligence report assessing the extent
     of China's acquisition of nuclear secrets.