Times Delayed China Espionage Story By BETH J. HARPAZ .c The Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) -- The New York Times has confirmed that it acceded to the FBI's request and held for one day a front-page story about China's theft of U.S. nuclear secrets. A second request was rejected. The article said that China had miniaturized its nuclear bombs using information stolen from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The story was supposed to run on March 5. The FBI asked the Times to delay the article because the main suspect in the theft, a Taiwanese-American scientist, was due to be interviewed by the bureau that day. The story contained at least two facts the scientist didn't know, including his failing a lie detector test, Times executive editor Joseph Lelyveld told The Washington Post. Lelyveld told the Post that when the FBI asked the Times to hold off for a second day, he said he would only do so if FBI Director Louis Freeh called him directly. When Freeh failed to call by 7 p.m., Lelyveld went ahead with the story. It appeared March 6. The story did not name the suspect, Wen Ho Lee. Two days later, he was fired. He has not been charged. Times spokeswoman Lisa Carparelli confirmed that the Times delayed publication for a day at the FBI's request. She was unable to provide further details and Lelyveld did not return a call for comment. Bill Carver, an FBI spokesman in Washington, refused to comment. Columbia Journalism Review editor Marshall Loeb said the practice of editors delaying stories at the request of government officials is appropriately rare. ``It is legitimate for an editor to hold a story for a brief period if he or she has persuasive reason to believe that reporting it might endanger national security or hurt a significant criminal investigation,'' Loeb said Monday. ``But such withholding should be done only rarely and only when a really important issue is at stake.'' Loeb said the most famous example of a newspaper honoring such a request was when President Kennedy asked the Times to withhold disclosing the Bay of Pigs invasion before it began. ``They withheld it much to the regret of one and all,'' Loeb said. ``Had the information been revealed, there might have been sufficient public outcry to get the whole operation called off. In the end, the operation was a total fiasco.''
