-Caveat Lector- February 4, 2001 Single-Page Format The Making of a Suspect: The Case of Wen Ho Lee By MATTHEW PURDY (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times) Dr. Wen Ho Lee, shown here in a portrait made in December, was all but threatened with execution for not admitting spying. But prosecutors were never able to connect him to espionage. UNDER SUSPICION After Wen Ho Lee was freed from jail last September, a furor erupted over how the government had handled the case and how the press, especially The New York Times, had covered it. Several weeks later, The Times published an unusual statement assessing its coverage. It found many strengths, but also some weaknesses. In the note, the paper promised a thorough re-examination of the case. After more than four months of reporting, the results appear today and tomorrow. Related Articles: F.B.I. Ends an Inquiry at Los Alamos (Jan. 19, 2001) Discarded Tapes Checked for Los Alamos Link (Dec. 14, 2000) Reno Says She'll Seek Release of U.S. Study on Los Alamos (Oct. 6, 2000) News Analysis: A Judge's Indignation (Sept. 15, 2000) From the First, a Feud Between Justice Dept. and the F.B.I. (Sept. 15, 2000) Nuclear Scientist Set Free After Plea in Secrets Case (Sept. 14, 2000) News Analysis: Back to Square One (Sept. 12, 2000) U.S. to Reduce Case Against Scientist to a Single Charge (Sept. 11, 2000) In Defense, Small but Dedicated Team (Sept. 11, 2000) Court to Consider Bail for Scientist In Secrets Case (Sept. 7, 2000) Spies vs. Sweat: The Debate Over China's Nuclear Advance (Sept. 7, 1999) Suspect in Loss of Nuclear Secrets Unlikely to Face Spying Charges (June 15, 1999) China Stole Nuclear Secrets For Bombs, U.S. Aides Say (March 6, 1999) >From the Editors The Times and Wen Ho Lee (Sept. 26, 2000) Slide Show Key Players in the Wen Ho Lee Case (4 photos) Diagram Building a Smaller H-Bomb Video President Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno (Credit: APTV; Sept. 14, 2000) Wen Ho Lee (Credit: APTV; Sept. 13, 2000) Audio Wen Ho Lee's family (Credit: APTV; Sept. 12, 2000) Text Excerpts From Testimony at Congressional Hearing on Wen Ho Lee Case (Sept. 27, 2000) Statement by Judge in Los Alamos Case With Apology for Abuse of Power (Sept. 14, 2000) Los Alamos National Laboratory A delegation of Chinese weapons officials visiting Los Alamos in 1994 included Hu Side, front row, third from left. Wen Ho Lee appeared uninvited at the meeting, raising concern when he was greeted warmly by Dr. Hu, a top Chinese nuclear scientist. The crime sounded alarming: China had stolen the design of America's most advanced nuclear weapon. The suspect seemed suspicious enough: Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwanese-born scientist at Los Alamos nuclear laboratory, had a history of contact with Chinese scientists and a record of deceiving the authorities on security matters. After a meandering five-year investigation, Dr. Lee was incarcerated and interrogated, shackled and polygraphed, and all but threatened with execution by a federal agent for not admitting spying. But prosecutors were never able to connect him to espionage. They discovered that he had downloaded a mountain of classified weapons information, but he was freed last September after pleading guilty to one felony count of mishandling secrets. Ultimately, the case of Wen Ho Lee was a spy story in which the most tantalizing mystery was whether the central character ever was a spy. In the aftermath, the government was roundly criticized for its handling of the case; so was the press, especially The New York Times. In an effort to untangle this convoluted episode, The Times undertook an extensive re-examination of the case, interviewing participants and examining scientific and government documents, many containing secrets never before disclosed. This review showed how, in constructing a narrative to fit their unnerving suspicions, investigators took fragmentary, often ambiguous evidence about Dr. Lee's behavior and Chinese atomic espionage and wove it into a grander case that eventually collapsed of its own light weight. Before the criminal investigation began, weapons experts consulted by the government concluded that stolen American secrets had helped China improve its nuclear weapons, according to inside accounts of the experts' meetings. They also said the Chinese wanted to replicate key elements of America's most sophisticated warhead, the W-88, and had obtained some secrets about it. However, most of the experts agreed that those secrets were rudimentary, and that there was no evidence China had built anything like the W-88. But in the echo chamber of Washington, that measured scientific finding was distorted and amplified as it bounced from intelligence analysts to criminal investigators to elected officials, most of them ill equipped to deal with the atomic complexities at the heart of the matter. Eventually, the notion that the Chinese had swiped the W-88 design became the accepted wisdom. Investigators made Dr. Lee their prime suspect in the W-88 case even though they had no evidence he had leaked weapons secrets. Unanswered questions about his contacts with foreign scientists had made him suspect, but as it searched for a spy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation ignored the urging of a senior agent on the case to look beyond Dr. Lee. As a result, it failed to examine hundreds, if not thousands, of people outside Los Alamos who had access to the stolen information about the W-88. When the government's case fizzled, Wen Ho Lee went from public enemy No. 1 to public victim No. 1. But the new label seemed no more appropriate than the first. Off and on for two decades, Dr. Lee's behavior was curious, if not criminal. He had a knack for wandering into circumstances that aroused suspicion. In 1982, he had a walk-on role in a major espionage investigation, when he inexplicably offered to help the suspect, whom he apparently did not even know. In 1994, Dr. Lee surprised laboratory officials when he appeared uninvited at a Los Alamos briefing for visiting Chinese scientists and warmly greeted China's leading bomb designer. [The above was Page 1 of 15. For the entire article and pictures, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/04/national/04WEN-EDIT.html ================================================================= Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT FROM THE DESK OF: *Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends ================================================================= <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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