| -Caveat Lector-
Another outing of a CIA agent? - JR
By Jerry Markon A former high-ranking State Department official who is one of the nation's
leading experts on China passed documents to Taiwanese intelligence agents and
was charged yesterday with concealing a trip to Taiwan, court papers say. Donald W. Keyser, who was elevated to principal deputy assistant secretary
for East Asian and Pacific Affairs this year, made the trip last year, according
to an FBI affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. Keyser, 61, who
advised Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on China issues, met with one of the
agents in Taipei last September during an official trip to China and Japan, the
affidavit says. Tailed by the FBI in recent weeks, Keyser and two Taiwanese agents conducted
a series of covert meetings around Washington. At a meeting July 31 at the
Potowmack Landing restaurant, the affidavit says, Keyser handed the Taiwanese
two envelopes "that appeared to bear U.S. government printing.'' On Sept. 4 at the same Alexandria restaurant, on the Potomac River with a
view of downtown Washington, FBI agents saw Keyser pass a document captioned
"discussion topics,'' the affidavit says. FBI agents stopped the three men
outside the restaurant and took the six-page document, described in the
affidavit as something "derived from material to which Keyser had access as a
result of his employment with the Department of State." The court documents do not say that Keyser accepted money and do not
otherwise ascribe a motive. Neither Keyser nor his attorney returned phone calls
yesterday. Keyser told the FBI that the document he gave the two Taiwanese agents
contained "talking points" that he often would prepare for his meetings with the
two agents, according to the affidavit. He said that his trip to Taiwan had been
for sightseeing and that he had not notified anyone about it, including his
family. His wife is a CIA
officer. State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher said the department is
cooperating with the FBI, but he declined to comment further. The affidavit does
not describe the documents Keyser allegedly handed over as classified, and it is
unclear whether any damage could have been done to national security. Keyser is charged with concealing the trip to Taiwan by lying in May on State
Department forms for security clearance that required him to disclose foreign
travel. News of Keyser's arrest stunned some in diplomatic circles, in which he is
highly regarded as a China analyst. Keyser, a Foreign Service officer for three
decades, speaks fluent Mandarin and is knowledgeable about the former Soviet
Union. He has served in high-ranking positions in the U.S. embassies in Beijing
and Tokyo, and was deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and
Pacific Affairs when he allegedly made the trip to Taiwan. Keyser retired in July as the No. 2 person in the State Department's East
Asia bureau, but he is still assigned to the department's Foreign Service
Institute in Arlington. "He is an absolutely superb specialist on China and a fine Foreign Service
officer. I've never had the slightest reason to question his loyalty to the
United States,'' said J. Stapleton Roy, a three-time U.S. ambassador who was
Keyser's boss when Keyser was deputy director of the State Department's Bureau
of Intelligence and Research. Roy quit his job in protest in 2000 after then-Secretary of State Madeleine
K. Albright suspended Keyser for 30 days and reassigned him because of lax
security stemming from a missing top-secret laptop computer. Keyser was one of
at least six State Department employees disciplined over the loss of the
computer, which contained thousands of pages of information about weapons
proliferation issues and was never found. Roy said yesterday that Keyser had
nothing to do with the computer's disappearance. This is the second recent instance of a federal official being implicated in
passing documents to countries friendly with the United States. The FBI is
investigating whether Lawrence A. Franklin, a Pentagon policy analyst, provided
a draft presidential directive on Iran to the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee, and whether that committee passed the information to Israel, law
enforcement sources have said. No charges have been filed. The United States has a longstanding "one China" policy, under which it
maintains diplomatic relations only with China, not with Taiwan. But Chinese
officials recently have expressed frustration over the Bush administration's
willingness to sell arms to Taiwan. China and Taiwan are adversaries, with China
insisting that Taiwan reunite with the mainland. According to court documents, Keyser traveled to China on official State
Department business about Aug. 31, 2003. He then went to Tokyo on official
business, but while in Tokyo took a three-day "side trip" to Taiwan, the
documents say. While in Taiwan, Keyser met with someone referred to in court documents as
"Foreign Person One." He is described as a Taiwanese intelligence agent
stationed at the Taipei Economic Cultural and Representative Office on Wisconsin
Avenue in the District. Court documents say James A. Kelly, assistant secretary of state for East
Asian and Pacific Affairs and Keyser's superior at the time, told the FBI that
Keyser was not permitted to travel to Taiwan on official business because the
United States and Taiwan don't have diplomatic relations and that he would have
vetoed such a trip. Experts were surprised that Keyser would travel to Taiwan right after
visiting China. "The whole idea that he could take a trip like this that was not authorized
while he was deputy assistant secretary is ludicrous to me. People in that
position don't just move around anonymously,'' said a former high-ranking State
Department official who specialized in Chinese affairs and who spoke on
condition of anonymity because of the case's sensitivity. Keyser appeared in federal court in Alexandria yesterday and later was
scheduled to be released on $500,000 bond. Staff writer Walter Pincus contributed to this report.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om |
<<dot.gif>>
imp.gif?client=ca-washingtonpost_454x190&event=noscript
Description: Binary data
uc.GIF?1.13&wpost&wpost&noscript
Description: Binary data
