-Caveat Lector-
FBI Veteran Heads China Spy Probe
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN
.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - A 21-year FBI veteran with a background in
counterintelligence is taking over the task force conducting the bureau's
newly broadened investigation into the alleged Chinese theft of nuclear
weapons secrets.
The FBI announced Tuesday that Stephen W. Dillard, currently head of its
Jackson, Miss., office, has been named inspector in charge of the task force,
a job he took over Monday. The bureau is still deciding how many agents are
needed for the probe of whether data about the miniature W-88 warhead and
other weapons was taken from U.S. nuclear laboratories.
China has rejected any allegations of espionage.
Dillard, who has a law degree from Mississippi College School of Law, has
served in the FBI's national security division at headquarters where he
managed all foreign counterintelligence and counterespionage operations as
chief of the global section. He also has served as assistant chief of the
counterterrorism section, unit chief of the Russian section and unit chief of
the counterterrorism section of that division. He also previously worked in
the Kansas City, Washington and Salt Lake City field offices.
The FBI broadened its investigation last week, after focusing for nearly four
years on a scientist at the Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab in New Mexico.
Attorney General Janet Reno said the expansion ``is in response to questions
that have been raised in terms of new evidence. I think there may have been
new facts brought to the attention of the FBI.''
Several outside panels have criticized the original probe for concentrating
exclusively on Los Alamos and pointed out that many other government and
industry people - more than the FBI originally realized - had access to the
information that may have been taken.
Technical information about the miniature W-88 warhead ``had been widely
available'' from numerous places in government and among private contractors
``and could have come from many organizations other than the weapons labs,''
a panel of the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board concluded in a
report in June.
A government official said the FBI will put more resources into the
investigation and expand it beyond the Los Alamos laboratory, where the
bureau's attention has been concentrated since early 1996.
More serious consideration will be given to other agencies or individuals as
possible sources of the technical information that China is believed to have
obtained in the 1980s, said the official, speaking on condition of not being
further identified.
Nevertheless, a former Los Alamos computer scientist, Wen Ho Lee, who was
fired in March for violating security rules, remains a suspect in the FBI's
investigation, said another official, also speaking on condition of
anonymity.
Although not charged with a crime, he has been the prime - some say virtually
only - target the FBI has pursued in the nearly four-year investigation.
Lee, a Taiwan-born computer scientist who worked with the top-secret weapons
design team at Los Alamos since the late 1970s, has denied giving any secrets
to China and has accused the government of singling him out because he is
Chinese-American.
Government sources familiar with the investigation have expressed doubt that
an espionage case can be made against him, although prosecution on lesser
security violations has not been ruled out.
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