July 20, 2000
NYTimes
F.B.I. Seizes Computer Drive in a China Nuclear Inquiry
By JAMES RISEN
ASHINGTON, July 19 -- Federal Bureau of Investigation agents
seized a computer hard drive from the home of a former Energy
Department intelligence official in an effort to determine
whether he had disclosed classified information about the
government's investigation into whether China stole United States
nuclear secrets, officials here said.
The F.B.I. agents removed the computer drive last Friday from
the home of Notra Trulock, the Energy Department's former
director of intelligence, after a Central Intelligence Agency
official determined that an unpublished, 62-page manuscript he
had written revealed secrets from the investigation.
Mr. Trulock, who resigned from the department last year and has
been a major critic of the government's handling of the espionage
inquiry, said the seizure of the computer drive was an effort to
intimidate him into silence.
"I came to expect this kind of treatment while I was at D.O.E.,"
he said in an interview. "But I thought by leaving D.O.E. and
going into the private sector, I would avoid it. Instead, it's
only gotten worse. I have no job, no benefits and I was trying
to start a consulting business and all my contact information was
on the computer the F.B.I. seized. So I am dead in the water."
Mr. Trulock was also questioned by the F.B.I. agents about
whether he had kept any classified documents, and whether he
believed there was any classified material in the manuscript, Mr.
Trulock said.
He said he told the agents that he had not had access to
classified material on the spy case since he left the government
and that there was nothing classified in the document.
The agents also questioned the owner of the suburban Virginia
town house where Mr. Trulock lives who is an Energy Department
employee. She consented to the search of the house and agreed to
the removal of the computer, which she also owns. But the F.B.I.
agents did not show a search warrant to either Mr. Trulock or
the owner of the town house, they said.
Mr. Trulock acted as a whistleblower on the handling of the
nuclear espionage case, revealing that the investigation had not
been pursued aggressively within the government.
In late 1998 he was a secret star witness for the House panel
that investigated illegal technology transfers to China and
revealed the existence of the long-delayed espionage
investigation at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Mr. Trulock became a lightning rod for criticism of the way the
spy case played out. Scientists and Asian-American groups
attacked the F.B.I. and the Energy Department for prematurely
making Wen Ho Lee, a scientist at Los Alamos, the focus of the
counter-intelligence inquiry.
Dr. Lee was never charged with espionage, but has been arrested
on charges of mishandling classified material.
The F.B.I. now says that the initial inquiry conducted jointly
by the bureau and the Energy Department into the possible theft
of nuclear data from Los Alamos was flawed, and has broadened the
espionage inquiry to look beyond the New Mexico lab.
Mr. Trulock wrote the manuscript about the spy case earlier this
year, and then distributed a few copies to, among others,
Congressional aides and former intelligence officials. One
former intelligence official who read it suggested that it be
submitted for possible publication in Studies in Intelligence, a
C.I.A. journal.
Studies in Intelligence declined to publish the manuscript and
told Mr. Trulock that he should have it checked to determine
whether it contained classified material. But at the same time,
a C.I.A. official also referred the matter to the F.B.I.,
informing the bureau that the article represented an unauthorized
disclosure of classified material.
The F.B.I. has begun what one official described as a
preliminary investigation to determine whether the manuscript
revealed secrets.
"The F.B.I. received information from other government agencies
that classified information was subject to a possible
compromise," said an F.B.I. spokesman, John Collingwood. "The
F.B.I., working with the Department of Justice, has an obligation
to at least preliminarily determine the facts and determine if
further investigation is warranted."
Mr. Trulock recently wrote a shorter article on the spy case for
the conservative magazine National Review, but that article did
not prompt the F.B.I. inquiry, officials said.
By the time he left the government last year, Mr. Trulock had
not only become controversial with outside groups angered by the
Wen Ho Lee case, but his willingness to speak out and criticize
senior administration officials had made him plenty of enemies
within the government. He was given a $10,000 award last year by
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson for persevering in the espionage
case.
After leaving Energy, Mr. Trulock moved to the Washington office
of TRW, a government contractor. But he was dismissed from his
job in June. He says that he was told by one official there that
he was being let go because TRW had a big contract with the
Energy Department, and company officials had received pressure
from the Energy Department to dismiss him.
Both TRW and Energy Department deny the accusation.
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