-Caveat Lector-
Posted at 6:45 p.m. PST Sunday, Dec. 17, 2000
Intelligence official raised warning of Chinese espionage
He disdained spy-catching job, he says
BY DAN STOBER
San Jose Mercury News
Notra Trulock was the Washington official who in 1995 launched
the investigation of Wen Ho Lee that eventually led to criminal
charges against the Los Alamos scientist.
But his most significant role in the drama lies elsewhere,
outside the closed circle of law enforcement and spy catching.
By briefing Congress, especially the Cox committee in late 1998,
and by being quoted in the New York Times in March 1999, Trulock
played a big part in turning allegations of Chinese espionage at
nuclear weapons labs into front-page news.
Since then he's become somewhat of a national issue himself.
He's disliked by Lee supporters who say he helped create an
atmosphere of hysteria, and hailed by anti-Clinton conservatives
as a whistle-blower who pointed out serious lapses in security at
the nation's nuclear laboratories.
Trulock says he sought out neither role. He says he is -- or
used to be
-- a ``basic Indiana conservative,'' a Republican who voted twice
for Ronald Reagan and twice for Bill Clinton.
He graduated with a political-science degree from Indiana
University and then joined the Army, which sent him to the
Defense Language Institute in Monterey in 1971 to learn Russian.
That was the beginning of an intelligence and consulting career
that remained focused primarily on Russia.
The Army Security Agency sent Trulock to West Germany during the
Cold War, where he spent his time with earphones, listening to
the radio traffic of Soviet soldiers across the border. After a
soldier in his unit went AWOL in Czechoslovakia, apparently into
enemy hands, the Soviets suddenly changed their radio
frequencies. It was an early lesson in the game of spy vs.
spy.
Trulock then worked for several years in Maryland for the
super-secret National Security Administration, the world's
largest electronic eavesdropping organization. While he still
donned the earphones, he also advanced into analysis of the
intercepted communications, specializing in the command and
control systems of the Russian military, including its nuclear
forces.
``Working there was nourishing, exciting,'' he said in an
interview with the Mercury News. ``I just had a ball. I loved
it.''
When he left the security administration, he stayed inside the
Beltway, working as a consultant on Russian military affairs for
several years. In 1990, for family reasons, he left the
Washington scene for the high desert of New Mexico, taking a job
at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
He was miserable there; a political analyst among scientists, a
Washington type stuck in the outback. He quickly managed to get
involved in a large, Washington-based study of the Soviets'
nuclear capability. For that, he received the Intelligence
Community Seal Medallion from CIA Director James Woolsey and was
able to leave New Mexico for Energy Department headquarters in
Washington.
There he became the department's director of intelligence. The
position also came with the counterintelligence operation -- spy
catching -- which Trulock says he didn't want.
``It is one of the ironies of all this,'' he said.
After there were indications in 1995 that China had stolen
nuclear secrets from Los Alamos, Trulock began briefing top
Clinton administration officials.
His presentations left little doubt that espionage was rampant.
His briefing of Louis Freeh prompted the FBI director to
recommend that the Energy Department ``quickly and furiously''
develop a response.
He also took his road show to Capitol Hill, briefing oversight
committees.
The Cox committee came to him in late 1998, through formal Energy
Department channels, he said. He did not seek out the committee,
chaired by Rep. Christopher Cox, a Newport Beach Republican.
But Trulock was undeniably the committee's star witness. The
committee's report painted a vivid picture, some say exaggerated,
of laboratories leaking nuclear secrets from every seam. It
created an uproar in Congress and was used to batter the Clinton
administration.
How much help Trulock gave the New York Times in the blockbuster
story March 6, 1999, has been the subject of much conjecture.
``It's commonly assumed that I was one of the Times' sources,''
he acknowledges, but no more than that.
After that story was published, he the left the Energy Department
and went to work for TRW, a defense contractor.
Then came the final insult. The FBI arrived at his door in July
and took away his computer. His lengthy personal account of the
Lee case, highly critical of the FBI, was stored on the
computer's hard drive, and the FBI said it contained classified
information.
When he was at his lowest point, conservative radio talk shows
came to this rescue.
``I was not always a `true believer' '' in anti-Clinton
conservative causes, he said. But the experiences of the past 18
months have made him one. Today he is director of media
relations for Free Congress, a Washington outlet for conservative
views.
He marvels that he became the villain of the Wen Ho Lee case.
``Every story needs a villain,'' he said. ``I never saw myself
as a hero, but I certainly never saw myself as a villain.''
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
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