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UNITED STATES
MAY 10, 1999 VOL. 153 NO. 18
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While that process was under way, other agents were growing increasingly frustrated by stonewalling lab managers at Los Alamos. The Energy Department contracts out day-to-day operation of the country's nuclear labs to the University of California and Lockheed Martin Corp. "Security is something they don't even think about," says a retired FBI agent. To break the logjam, agents arranged for Freeh and CIA director George Tenet to receive a stunning briefing in 1997 on security lapses and suspicions of Chinese snooping at Los Alamos. The directors then told Energy Secretary Federico Peña that security was in need of an overhaul. The two also convened a committee of U.S. counterspies, which informed the National Security Council in mid-1997 that the labs needed tighter security and stricter vetting of foreign visitors. Clinton signed off on the proposal in February 1998.
By then the investigation of Lee had devolved into a bureaucratic Byzantium. The Albuquerque agents filed their warrant request with the Justice Department in July 1997. Officials there concluded that the FBI did not have sufficient proof that Lee posed a national-security threat grave enough to merit a raid on his computer. Exasperated FBI authorities appealed to Attorney General Janet Reno, but she wouldn't budge. Attempts to get more goods on Lee turned up nothing. Says a veteran counterespionage investigator of China's spy network: "They're everywhere, but it's hard to catch them doing anything."
Lee's undoing came about not from conclusive evidence of his spying but from disclosure of the case late last year to Representative Christopher Cox's committee investigating allegations of Chinese spying. The committee informed the Administration that it would reveal China's alleged W-88 theft in its report. That put the pressure on Richardson. In February he ordered a polygraph of Lee, who failed it. On March 5, FBI agents confronted Lee and extracted permission to search his computer. Three days later, Richardson fired Lee and assured everyone the worst was over. It was not. On March 28, he got the mind-blowing news: not only had Lee downloaded the legacy codes onto his unclassified computer, but he also later tried to delete them from his hard drive. And someone using Lee's password had already accessed the codes. Richardson briefed Clinton the next day, got approval to shut down the nuclear labs for two weeks and vowed to can staff members who had impeded the investigation.
But nothing the Administration does now is likely to repair damage already done. Why didn't the FBI and doe monitor computer activity at Los Alamos more closely? Why did the Justice Department turn down the FBI's appeal for help? Freeh and former Energy Secretaries Peña and Hazel O'Leary are certain to be targets of the Cox panel's probe.
No matter what became of the legacy codes, the Clinton Administration stands to pay a heavy price. Republicans are lining up to hammer the White House for the mess. And since Clinton and Vice President Gore have pushed for closer U.S.-China ties, they are also likely to face charges of elevating politics and commercial interests over national security. After White House stonewalling on two other China-related investigations (the fund raising and the technology transfers), Republicans will assume the worst about the Lee case. Says Republican Senator Richard Lugar: "This kind of thing is grist for the mill for endless investigations." With an election year coming up, Wen Ho Lee may prove to be the most dangerous man for Democrats on the campaign trail.
Reported by James Carney, Elaine Shannon, Mark Thompson, Karen Tumulty and Douglas Waller/Washington
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