Tiger Trap: America's Secret Spy War With China (40 page)

[>]
"whatever they got saved them time, maybe two to fifteen years":
Ibid.

[>]
"has stolen classified information on all of the United States' most advanced thermonuclear warheads":
Final Report, unclassified version, of the Select Committee on US National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China, H.R. Rep. 105–851 (Cox Report) (1999), p. 60.

[>]
China was "capable of producing small thermonuclear warheads based on the stolen U.S. design information, including the stolen W-88 information":
Ibid, p. 61.

[>]
"the PRC had conducted only 45 nuclear tests in the more than 30 years from 1964 to 1996":
Ibid., p. 76.

[>]
"China obtained at least basic design information on several modern US nuclear reentry vehicles, including the Trident II (W-88) ... and weaponization features, including those of the neutron bomb":
Central Intelligence Agency, "Key Findings: The Intelligence Community Damage Assessment on the Implications of China's Acquisition of US Nuclear Weapons Information on the Development of Future Chinese Weapons," April 21, 1999,
https://www.cia.gov/news-information/press-releases-statements/press-release-archive-1999/key-findings.html
.

9. KINDRED SPIRIT: WEN HO LEE

[>]
Counterintelligence at the department was "little more than a joke":
Notra Trulock interviews, August 5, 1999, and July 23, 2009.

[>]
China, in achieving a small warhead in a very short time, probably gained its success through espionage:
Notra Trulock,
Code Name Kindred Spirit: Inside the Chinese Nuclear Espionage Scandal
(San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2003), p. 72.

[>]
In September, DOE opened a formal investigation:
US Department of Justice,
Final Report of the
Attorney General's Review Team on the Handling of the Los Alamos National Laboratory Investigation
(Bellows Report) (May 2000), p. 275.

[>]
[Footnote] A secret Justice Department report:
"Executive Summary of the OPR Report on the Investigation and Prosecution of Wen Ho Lee," p. 255. The report, produced by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, was classified
SECRET/NOFORN/RESTRICTED DATA
but later declassified. It was released to the author under a Freedom of Information Act request.

[>]
"There were Americans of Chinese origin and not of Chinese origin on the list":
Trulock interviews, August 5, 1999, and July 23, 2009.

[>]
"An initial consideration will be to identify those US citizens, of Chinese heritage":
Daniel J. Bruno memorandum, quoted in Trulock,
Code Name Kindred Spirit,
p. 111.

[>]
"there are seven Chinese restaurants in Los Alamos":
Bellows Report, p. 385.

[>]
"no evidence of racial bias" by DOE:
Ibid., p. 342.

[>]
"a virtual indictment of the Lees":
Ibid., p. 341.

[>]
Wen Ho Lee "was the only individual identified during this inquiry":
Ibid., quoting the DOE report.

[>]
"Wen Ho Lee was its man":
Bellows Report, p. 378.

[>]
the scientist was singled out "because Lee is ethnic Chinese":
Declaration of Robert Vrooman in United States v. Wen Ho Lee, 99-CR-1417, August 10, 2000,
http://www.fas.org/irp/ops/ci/vrooman.html
.

[>]
the cause was not "ethnic profiling or racism":
PBS,
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,
September 13, 2000,
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/july-dec00/wenholee_9-13.html
.

[>]
he read "in a popular Chinese-language magazine" that "a Taiwanese nuclear scientist was fired from Lawrence Livermore":
Wen Ho Lee, with Helen Zia,
My Country Versus Me: The First-Hand Account by the Los Alamos Scientist Who Was Falsely Accused of Being a Spy
(New York: Hyperion, 2001), p. 24.

[>]
"Ko Pau Ming," whom he knew was from Taiwan, "was having trouble with some men in China" and "out of curiosity" had telephoned him:
"Psychophysiological Detection of Deception (PDD) Examination of Wen H. Lee," Wackenhut polygraph report to Edward J. Curran, director, DOE Office of Counterintelligence, December 28, 1998, Defendant's Exhibit A, United States v. Wen Ho Lee.

[>]
Min was later identified by name:
Dan Stober, "How FBI Wiretap Launched Spy Case China Probe: Wen Ho Lee Phoned Nuclear Espionage Suspect, Now Identified,"
San Jose Mercury News,
April 13, 2000.

[>]
Lee went up to Hu and was warmly embraced by the top Chinese weapons scientist:
Matthew Purdy, "The Making of a Suspect: The Case of Wen Ho Lee,"
New York Times,
February 4, 2001, p. 18.

[>]
"We know him very well. He came to Beijing and helped us a lot":
Arlen Specter, US Senate,
Report on the Government's Handling of the Investigation and Prosecution of Dr. Wen Ho Lee,
December 20, 2001 (Specter Report II),
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2001_rpt/whl.html
.

[>]
"he did not know the answer" and did not wish to discuss the matter:
Affidavit of FBI special agent Michael W. Lowe in support of search warrant to search the home of Wen Ho Lee, April 9, 1999, p. 3. The quote describes Lee's answer when questioned by the FBI on January 17, 1999 about the hotel room episode.
http://www.fas.org/irp/ops/ci/lowe_affidavit.html
.

[>]
Lee ... omitted any mention of his hotel room meeting with Hu Side:
Robert S. Vrooman interview, August 15, 2009, and Robert S. Vrooman, "Clinton's Scapegoat: The Persecution of an American Scientist," unpublished manuscript, p. 68 (Robert S. Vrooman Collection Pertaining to Wen Ho Lee and Los Alamos National Laboratory, Center for Southwest Research, University Libraries, University of New Mexico). Vrooman writes that his notes from his interview with Wen Ho Lee after the 1988 trip show that "Lee did not tell me about the incident with Hu Side. It was not just an oversight, because the entire purpose of my meeting with him was to learn if something like this had happened. He answered no to a direct question. He lied to me."

[>]
on May 30, 1996, at the request of DOE, the FBI opened a full-fledged investigation of Wen Ho and Sylvia Lee:
Bellows Report, p. 290.

[>]
In 1999, months after Wen Ho Lee was fired from the Los Alamos lab, a broader investigation was finally begun by the FBI:
Bellows Report, p. 364; Stephen W. Dillard interview, October 16, 2009.

[>]
"the FBI investigated the wrong crime":
Bellows Report, p. 336.

[>]
With his brothers and sisters, he caught fish and frogs each day for dinner:
Wen Ho Lee biographical details are from Lee,
My Country Versus Me,
pp. 21, 97–99, 100, 165–68.

[>]
She also reported to the FBI and the CIA on what she gleaned from those contacts:
Purdy, "Making of a Suspect."

[>]
An FBI agent who was a Chinese American telephoned Lee, claiming he was "a representative of the 'concerned department' from Beijing":
Specter Report II. Other details of the failed "sting" operation against Wen Ho Lee are cited in the same report.

[>]
It ... described "the main suspect" as "a Los Alamos computer scientist who is Chinese-American":
James Risen and Jeff Gerth, "China Stole Nuclear Secrets for Bombs, U.S. Aides Say,"
New York Times,
March 6, 1999, p. A1.

[>]
Trulock had leaked the story to the
Times
, a fact he later publicly confirmed on CBS's
60 Minutes
:
Notra Trulock, interview by Lesley Stahl,
60 Minutes,
December 17, 2000, CBS News Transcript, p. 4. "Mr. TRULOCK: I reached out to the New York Times.... Yes, I did."

[>]
"There's a person at the laboratory that's committed espionage and that points to you!":
Excerpts from the FBI interrogation of Wen Ho Lee are from the Bellows Report, pp. 649–51, and "Executive Summary of the OPR Report on the Investigation and Prosecution of Wen Ho Lee," pp. 152–61.

[>]
operation
SEA CHANGE
:
Dan Stober and Ian Hoffman,
A Convenient Spy: Wen Ho Lee and the Politics of Nuclear Espionage
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), p. 213.

[>]
"I feel like a pariah in this department":
Trulock interview, August 5, 1999.

[>]
"The truth is I'm innocent":
Wen Ho Lee, interview by Mike Wallace,
60 Minutes,
August 1, 1999, CBS News Transcript, p. 1.

[>]
"change the global strategic balance":
Matthew Purdy with James Sterngold, "The Prosecution Unravels: The Case of Wen Ho Lee,"
New York Times,
February 5, 2001, p. A1.

[>]
"I believe you were terribly wronged":
"Statement by Judge in Los Alamos Case, With Apology for Abuse of Power,"
New York Times,
September 24, 2000, p. A 21.

[>]
the suit was settled for $1,645,000:
Paul Farhi, "U.S., Media Settle with Wen Ho Lee,"
Washington Post,
June 3, 2006, p. A1.

10. SEGO PALM

[>]
"I got a phone call out of the blue from Bob Bryant":
Stephen W. Dillard interview, August 28, 2009.

[>]
an "overall investigation" ... "to examine other potential areas of compromise":
Ibid.

[>]
Dillard put together a task force of three hundred people in eleven government agencies:
Ibid.

[>]
the information in the walk-in document "had to have come from X Division":
Ibid.

[>]
"the FBI's own lack of investigative interest in looking beyond Wen Ho Lee":
US Department of Justice,
Final Report of the Attorney General's Review Team on the Handling of the Los Alamos National Laboratory Investigation
(Bellows Report) (May 2000), p. 342.

[>]
the information obtained by China had come from more than one document:
Dillard interview, August 28, 2009.

[>]
four scientists at the lab believed that the documents originated with a defense contractor in Colorado Springs:
Robert S. Vrooman, "Memo for the Record," September 21, 1999, Operation Fallout, Robert S. Vrooman Collection Pertaining to Wen Ho Lee and Los Alamos National Laboratory, Center for Southwest Research, University Libraries, University of New Mexico.

[>]
"It is clear that you did not give proper attention to your driving":
J. Edgar Hoover letter to Kenneth J. Schiffer, March 16, 1970. Schiffer showed the letter, framed on the wall of his study, to the author during an interview at his home on August 13, 2009.

[>]
Schiffer was required to learn Toishan:
Kenneth J. Schiffer interview, May 26, 2009.

[>]
the walk-in's document on the W-88 appeared to match a 1986 "interface" document:
Ibid.

[>]
"If you translated the US document ... back to inches there could be a slight discrepancy":
Raymond H. Wickman interview, October 27, 2008.

[>]
"the compromises were likely to have been made by either multiple personnel or multiple means over a several-year period from the '70s to the early '90s":
Dillard interview, August 28, 2009.

11. TROUBLE IN PARADISE

[>]
"Secretary Jiang asked, 'What are President BUSH's chances of being reelected?'":
This and the other quotes from the Chinese leaders and Leung are from J.J. Smith report to headquarters on Leung's 1991 meeting in Beijing, FBI Leung Asset File, US Department of Justice, Exhibit 18, United States v. Katrina Leung.

[>]
Lei Feng Day, named for the national hero:
People's Daily Online
(English), "Lei Feng Remembered throughout China," March 3, 2003, http://English.peopledaily.com.cn.

[>]
she had acquired the code name Luo from none other than Zhu Qizhen:
RT2, p. 21.

[>]
PARLOR MAID
asked an official in the Chinese consulate in San Francisco to call her from a pay phone:
OIG DOJ, p. 7.

[>]
the FBI received the information that
PARLOR MAID
had tipped off the Chinese to the FBI's bugging of China's consulate in Los Angeles:
Multiple interviews with former FBI counterintelligence agents; and OIG DOJ, which obliquely refers to the consulate bugging as information received by the FBI "indicating that Leung had disclosed to PRC officials the existence and location of a then-active sensitive technical operation."

[>]
PARLOR MAID
could not have informed the Chinese of the electronic eavesdropping of the Los Angeles consulate, because J.J. himself did not know about it:
OIG DOJ, p. 9.

[>]
At the very time that J.J. was investigating Miller:
OIG DOJ, p. 7.

[>]
The videotape showed the entrance and then a courtyard inside the spy headquarters:
Interview with former US intelligence agent.

[>]
It was, one of the CIA officers remarked, "too good to be true":
Ibid.

[>]
Kelly was startled to see both J.J. and
PARLOR MAID
, whom she knew, going through customs:
OIG DOJ, p. 12.