More On Racism

Henry C.K. Liu hliu at mindspring.com
Tue Jun 15 07:07:28 PDT 1999


Although never mentioned in the report, ethnic profiling was obviously a major problem.

The New York Times today reports on its front page:

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.

Lee's lawyer, Mark Holscher, said his client

was an innocent scientist

who had been publicly

branded as a spy even

though he had not even

been charged with any

crime.

" Lee has been unfairly

injected into a politically

charged debate over

America-China relations

and has been subject to

improper leaks in violation

of Federal law," Holscher

said

There are no witnesses who saw Lee engage in

espionage.

There is no evidence of a motive in the form of

unexplained income or a change in his style of life.

Nor are there indications that Lee, a naturalized

American who was born on Taiwan, was ideologically

allied with Beijing.

Even the evidence that a theft occurred is

circumstantial.

One crucial component is missing. There is no direct

evidence that Lee ever passed or tried to pass on to China

any classified national security information. In mid-1997, the Office of Intelligence Policy Review at the

Justice Department found that the evidence was so nebulous

and dated that it refused the F.B.I. request for electronic

monitoring. After a bureau official had questioned the

decision, Attorney General Janet Reno ordered a second

review by the Justice Department, which also found that the

bureau had failed to produce enough evidence to justify the

request.

Ms. Reno has said bureau officials dropped the issue. For

her part, she said recently, "I assumed that since I did not

hear from the F.B.I. that the matter had been resolved to

their satisfaction."

Instead, bureau officials said investigators decided to pursue

other avenues. An agent who was posing as a Chinese

intelligence officer approached Lee. The scientist rebuffed an

invitation to spy for Beijing, Government officials said, but

he did not tell authorities about the contact until they had

approached him to explain it.

Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/061599china-nuke.html



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