-Caveat Lector-
The FBI 'Profiles' Wen Ho Lee
Friday, September 29, 2000 12:01 a.m. EDT
An excerpt from the joint statement for the record by Attorney
General Janet Reno and Federal Bureau of Investigation Director
Louis J. Freeh on the investigation and prosecution of Wen Ho
Lee, before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the
Senate Judiciary Committee, Sept. 26, 2000. The full statement
is available at:
www.fbi.gov/pressrm/congress/congress00/wenholee.htm.
A related editorial appears here.
FBI Counterintelligence Investigations of Wen Ho Lee
Dr. Lee has been known to the FBI since 1982. At the time, he
worked in Los Alamos in X Division. His name surfaced when he
contacted a suspected agent of a foreign power who was the
subject of an ongoing FBI counterintelligence investigation. He
offered to help that person identify who had brought him to the
attention of the authorities. When Dr. Lee was first confronted
by the FBI in November 1983, he denied having contacted the
individual. In fact, he denied even knowing the person. Only
after Dr. Lee learned that the FBI had indisputable proof that
the contact took place did he finally admit it. After providing
an explanation of the reasons for the contact, he agreed to
cooperate with the FBI regarding the individual being
investigated for passing classified information. After he
provided limited cooperation, the FBI ultimately closed that
first inquiry into Dr. Lee because nothing else developed.
A decade later, in 1994, Dr. Lee again came under investigation
because of his actions. Dr. Lee met with a senior foreign
government nuclear weapons designer who was part of an officially
approved delegation visiting the United States. The
circumstances of the encounter clearly indicated that they knew
one another, even though Dr. Lee had never reported meeting this
weapons designer on prior trips abroad, as he was required by the
conditions of his employment to do. As in the 1982 case, Dr.
Lee did not reveal his relationship with this individual. . .
.
The FBI's investigation into this 1994 matter was still ongoing
when Dr.
Lee emerged as a potential subject in the 1996 Administrative
Inquiry by the Department of Energy (DOE) into the possible
compromise of information related to the W-88 nuclear warhead.
. . . Ultimately it was closed in favor of the larger W-88
investigation that began to be focused on Dr. Lee.
On May 26, 1996, DOE's Administrative Inquiry identified possible
potential candidates for the leak but concluded that "Wen Ho Lee
appears to have opportunity, means and motivation" to have
compromised the W-88 information. The FBI opened an
investigation of Dr. Lee in May 1996 based on this predicate.
Clearly, the FBI should have conducted an additional, independent
investigation to verify what was reflected in the Administrative
Inquiry. The same should have been done to eliminate other
suspects and to validate the conclusion that Dr. Lee was the most
likely individual to have compromised the W-88 information.
Nevertheless, when his name surfaced in the DOE investigation,
Dr. Lee already had a history with the FBI. . . . Given those
circumstances, the FBI began an investigation of the person who
DOE concluded to be the most probable candidate for the W-88
leak. Additional classified information has been provided to the
Committees about this episode.
As of December 1998, the FBI had not been able to verify that Dr.
Lee was responsible for the possible compromise of the W-88
information. However, in subsequent months the investigation led
to the discovery of the secret nuclear weapons information that
Dr. Lee had been accumulating over a period of years from Los
Alamos, as explained in greater detail below, in the section
dealing with the criminal investigation.
After opening the investigation into Dr. Lee's possible
involvement in the W-88 matter, the FBI sought to develop
sufficient indicia of probable cause for a warrant under the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to conduct
surveillance of Dr. Lee. The initial FISA application was
submitted in 1997 but was not presented to the Court. The
Department of Justice and the FBI had a good faith disagreement
as to whether the application alleged sufficient probable cause
to support a FISA warrant. The FBI's subsequent efforts to
enhance probable cause, which admittedly could and should have
been more aggressive, were ultimately unsuccessful. Additional
classified information about this portion of the investigation
has been provided to the Committees.
In March 1998, Dr. Lee traveled to Taiwan. In later
investigation it was determined he consulted with the Los Alamos
computer "Help Desk" to determine if he could access the secure
Los Alamos computer system from overseas. He was told he could
not.
In December 1998, Dr. Lee again traveled to Taiwan for three
weeks. He returned on December 21, 1998. DOE, which oversees
Los Alamos, conducted a polygraph examination of Dr. Lee with
the concurrence of the FBI on December 23, 1998. To avoid
alerting Dr. Lee of the FBI's interest in him, DOE characterized
the examination as a standard, post-travel polygraph, combined
with his five-year reinvestigation for security clearance
purposes.
The DOE polygraph examination, done by a contract polygrapher,
focused on whether Dr. Lee had any unauthorized contacts or
shared any classified information with unauthorized persons.
During the polygraph, Dr. Lee admitted for the first time that
he had been approached in 1988 by PRC nuclear weapons scientists,
one of whom became the head of the PRC nuclear weapons
development program, in an effort to obtain classified
information about U.S. nuclear weapons. At the conclusion of
the DOE contract polygraph on December 23, 1998, FBI agents on
the scene were told that Dr. Lee had passed the examination.
This was an opinion that FBI and polygraph experts from another
agency later concluded was mistaken.
Immediately after the December 23 polygraph, based on admissions
by Dr. Lee about unreported contacts that he had had during
foreign travel, Los Alamos officials informed him that for the
next 30 days his access to the section of X Division where he
worked would be denied. He was instructed to report to unsecure
space in T Division. Dr. Lee's section within X Division was
one of the most secure portions of Los Alamos and a location
where research into nuclear weapons design takes place. Despite
being informed that his access was removed, and that he could no
longer enter X Division space without an escort, Dr. Lee
improperly attempted, without success, to enter his section
within X Division five different times on the evening of December
23, 1998. He then tried again on Christmas Eve, December 24,
1998, at 3:30 in the morning. In addition to those six attempted
entries, Dr. Lee made 12 other attempts to enter X Division
between Christmas Eve, 1998 and February 10, 1999. All such
attempts were improper.
Records also indicate that when Dr. Lee officially reported to T
Division on January 4, 1999, after the Christmas holiday, he
sought assistance from the Los Alamos computer "Help Desk" to
revive his X Division secure computing privileges. In making
this request, Dr. Lee did not disclose that DOE officials had
removed his access to the Division X server. Being unaware that
Dr. Lee's access to Division X's server had been blocked for
security reasons, the computer Help Desk reactivated his account.
Once he regained access to his account, Dr. Lee deleted files
from his X Division server.
In the meantime, after being informed on December 23, 1998 that
Dr. Lee had passed the DOE polygraph, the Albuquerque Division of
the FBI arranged an interview of Dr. Lee in preparation for
closing out the pending FBI investigation of him on the W-88
matter. The FBI conducted this interview on January 17, 1999.
Throughout the four-hour interview, Dr. Lee sought to appear
cooperative and forthcoming. He provided new and additional
details about contacts he had with foreign scientists, one of
whom was related to information causing the FBI's 1994
investigation. Dr. Lee denied any involvement with the loss of
the W-88 information. On January 21, 1999, at the request of the
FBI, Dr. Lee signed, under oath, a statement that memorialized
this interview. At that point, Albuquerque FBI, believing that
Dr. Lee had passed the polygraph and was cooperating, advised
FBI Headquarters that it had serious doubts that Dr. Lee was the
appropriate suspect in the W-88 investigation. Consideration was
given to closing the case.
The FBI had requested and later received from DOE copies of the
charts from Dr. Lee's polygraph examination of December 23,
1998. These were submitted to FBI Headquarters for review by the
polygraph experts who do quality control for the FBI. The
Polygraph Unit at FBI Headquarters did not receive the copies
until January 28, 1999, because the FBI did not aggressively
pursue receipt of the charts from DOE. After completing the
internal review of the polygraph results on February 2, 1999, the
FBI polygraphers who conducted a "blind" review concluded that
Dr. Lee's response to the question whether he had ever committed
espionage against the United States was at best inconclusive.
Review by experts at another agency of government reached a
similar conclusion. The FBI shared the FBI results with DOE
immediately.
As a result of this development, Dr. Lee was asked to submit to
a polygraph administered by the FBI. On February 10, 1999, the
FBI conducted a polygraph examination of Dr. Lee, after advising
him of his rights. During this examination, the FBI asked Dr.
Lee whether he had provided "these two sensitive [nuclear weapon]
codes" to any unauthorized person and whether he had deliberately
obtained any W-88 documents. The examiner found Dr. Lee's
responses to be inconclusive. After discussion between the
examiner and Dr. Lee about exactly what was being asked, the
examiner rephrased the questions by asking Dr. Lee: "Have you
ever given any of those two codes to an unauthorized person?"
Answer: "No." "Have you ever provided W-88 information to any
unauthorized person?" Answer: "No." The polygraph examiner
concluded that Dr. Lee's responses to these two questions were
deceptive. In a post-polygraph interview, Dr. Lee admitted
helping nuclear weapons scientists from the People's Republic of
China to solve a mathematical problem that they had previously
been unable to solve. Dr. Lee conceded that the solution he had
provided could easily be used in developing nuclear weapons, but
he stated that he had not given up any classified information.
On March 5, 1999, the FBI interviewed Dr. Lee again. During
this interview, he consented to a search of his X Division and T
Division offices at Los Alamos. On March 7, 1999, the FBI
questioned Dr. Lee one last time in an attempt to secure
information about his involvement in the compromise of the W-88
information. Unfortunately, by that time, the investigation
concerning Dr. Lee had been leaked to the press. This
effectively eliminated any possibility of the normal, structured
counterintelligence interview by specifically trained agents
fitting for this circumstance. The interview was rushed, an
inappropriate level of aggressiveness was applied, and the
interview was unsuccessful. Dr. Lee did not admit or discuss
what is now known to have happened. He gave no indication of
having made any tapes or having done anything improper or
illegal.
One approach that was taken during that interview was not
consistent with the conduct expected of agents during an
interview. Specifically, Dr. Lee was reminded of the fate of
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed for espionage.
Confrontational interviews often call for tough statements by
investigators, but that implication was inappropriate. Again,
Dr. Lee ended the interview without providing any useful
information and without giving any indication of the actions to
which he has now pled guilty. Meanwhile, however, the search of
Dr. Lee's office at Los Alamos was underway. That search
disclosed evidence that led eventually to his indictment.
The Criminal Investigation Of Wen Ho Lee
The search of Dr. Lee's X Division office produced a notebook
containing a one-page, computer-generated document that listed
all of the files on a directory that Dr. Lee had created within
the computer Common File System (CFS) at Los Alamos. An X
Division physicist examined this list of files (given the name
"kf1" by Dr. Lee) and determined that the files listed in Dr.
Lee's "kf1" directory were contained in the open or unclassified
part of the CFS. The physicist then confirmed that the file
descriptions appeared to refer to highly classified information
concerning thermonuclear weapons design and testing--information
that under no circumstances should have been in an unclassified
directory.
This discovery caused Los Alamos scientists to search the X
Division portion of the Common File System. The physicist who
reviewed the list found in Dr. Lee's notebook logged on to the
system and tried to access the files listed in Dr. Lee's "kf1"
directory. He discovered that the majority of the files had
recently been deleted. Examination of all of Dr. Lee's
directories showed that Dr. Lee had deleted more than 360 files
and two complete directories between January 20, 1999 (three days
after being interviewed by the FBI) and February 10, 1999 (the
day he was polygraphed by the FBI). The Government was able to
determine that the deleted files contained highly classified
nuclear weapons data.
As an indication of Dr. Lee's criminal intent, and his awareness
of the classified nature of the files, the following
circumstances, among others, are relevant:
Dr. Lee started improperly manipulating and moving the files in
question from the classified to the unclassified system in 1993.
He did not begin to delete those files until January 20, 1999.
They remained on the unclassified system for as long as six years
before Dr. Lee began deleting them. The deletions started three
days after the FBI's January 17 interview.
In addition, two days after the deletions began, Dr. Lee
contacted the "Help Desk" at Los Alamos and asked for help in
deleting files. Specifically, he was concerned that despite his
best deletion efforts, the files were "not going away." The help
desk explained to Dr. Lee that this was a safeguard built into
the system in case a file was accidentally deleted. This
safeguard ensured that a backup copy of the deleted file remained
in the system for a period of days. Dr. Lee inquired whether
there was a way to delete these backup copies, and after being
instructed how to do so, he deleted the backup files that had
been automatically created by the system as a result of his
deleting the original files.
On February 1, 1999, Dr. Lee again contacted the Help Desk for
assistance because he was connecting to the Los Alamos computer
system from home but he kept getting disconnected.
Finally, Dr. Lee deleted files again on February 10, 1999, the
day he failed the FBI polygraph examination. On that day, Dr.
Lee deleted 310 of the 470 files that he had improperly moved
from the classified to the unclassified system. . . .
By the end of March 1999, experts at Los Alamos had retrieved the
entire contents of the "kf1" files and confirmed that Dr. Lee
had indeed moved highly sensitive nuclear weapons information
from the classified to the unclassified side of the Los Alamos
computer system. As exhaustive computer forensic efforts later
established, effecting these transfers required numerous
deliberate steps. There was no accidental or inadvertent method
for completing the transfers.
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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