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