[CTRL] WP: China Spy Probe Shifts to Missiles
-Caveat Lector- China Spy Probe Shifts to Missiles By Walter Pincus and Vernon Loeb Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, October 19, 2000; Page A01 A new review of Chinese military documents provided by a defector in 1995 has led U.S. intelligence agencies to conclude that Chinese espionage has gathered more American missile technology than nuclear weapons secrets, senior U.S. officials said. The conclusion was reached only this year because the CIA and other intelligence agency linguists did not fully translate the huge pile of secret Chinese documents, totaling 13,000 pages, until four years after the agency obtained them, according to a senior law enforcement official, who described the delay as a major blunder. The belated translation and analysis has prompted a major reorientation of the FBI's investigation into Chinese espionage. From 1996 until late last year, the FBI probe centered on the suspected loss of U.S. nuclear warhead data, and quickly narrowed into an investigation of Wen Ho Lee, a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Now, however, the FBI--which never found evidence that Lee spied for China--has shifted its focus to the Defense Department and its private contractors. That is because the documents provided by the defector show that during the 1980s, Beijing had gathered a large amount of classified information about U.S. ballistic missiles and reentry vehicles. The missile secrets are far more likely to have come from defense officials or missile builders than from Los Alamos or other U.S. nuclear weapons labs, officials said. The shift in the investigation's focus follows several years of highly public and controversial efforts by the FBI, CIA and Energy Department to determine whether China stole the designs of advanced nuclear warheads from the United States, and if so, whether Beijing was aided by U.S. spies. Plagued by internal disputes between agencies, partisan pressures from Congress, and an apparently mistaken decision to focus on Lee, counterintelligence investigators were slow to review the full 13,000 pages that originally sparked the inquiry. The CIA concluded several years ago that the defector who supplied the documents was a Chinese double agent, casting doubt on the information he delivered and delaying its translation from Mandarin to English. But the FBI, which has interviewed the defector in the United States, believes that he is legitimate. The CIA now says the evidence about the defector is "inconclusive," but agrees that the information he handed over has proven accurate, a senior government official said this week. The FBI, officials said, pressed for translating more of the document and, to support its case, began to question directly the Chinese informant, a former Chinese missile specialist whom the bureau brought to the United States. Although the FBI refused to say where he is now living, a senior intelligence official said earlier this week, "We know his whereabouts." Because the informant was a volunteer who approached the United States with an unsolicited offer to provide Chinese secrets, he is known in intelligence jargon as a "walk-in." He smuggled the documents out of China through DHL, the private delivery company, according to a former intelligence official who has reviewed much of the translated material. The documents appear to be a five-year "strategic plan" for development of China's new generation of missiles, the former official said. Another intelligence expert familiar with the material described it as "an embarrassment of riches." When the walk-in first delivered the documents, a senior U.S. official said, the CIA read and translated the titles of each major portion, then ordered a full translation of a 76-page section dealing with "nuclear" information--data on U.S. warheads, including the most advanced weapon in the U.S. arsenal, the W-88. One nuclear weapons official familiar with the process said the CIA had Chinese linguists read the documents for "intelligence purposes," to see whether they contained valuable information about Chinese missiles and warheads, and decided they did not. The agency did not perform a "counterintelligence review" to determine whether they contained classified information about U.S. missiles and warheads, the official said. Because of the CIA's belief that the walk-in was a double agent, a full translation of the documents seemed less pressing. "He failed an agency polygraph," one intelligence official explained. The CIA's suspicions about the informant also slowed the FBI's already limited investigation at Los Alamos of Wen Ho Lee. Another reason for the FBI's limited inquiry at Los Alamos in 1996 and 1997, a former FBI agent said, was that the bureau's Chinese counterintelligence agents were "already swamped" by highly publicized allegations of Chinese campaign contributions to the 1996 Democratic presidential campaign. One official who did pay attention to the
[CTRL] WP: China Spy Probe Shifts to Missiles
-Caveat Lector- China Spy Probe Shifts to Missiles By Walter Pincus and Vernon Loeb Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, October 19, 2000; Page A01 A new review of Chinese military documents provided by a defector in 1995 has led U.S. intelligence agencies to conclude that Chinese espionage has gathered more American missile technology than nuclear weapons secrets, senior U.S. officials said. The conclusion was reached only this year because the CIA and other intelligence agency linguists did not fully translate the huge pile of secret Chinese documents, totaling 13,000 pages, until four years after the agency obtained them, according to a senior law enforcement official, who described the delay as a major blunder. The belated translation and analysis has prompted a major reorientation of the FBI's investigation into Chinese espionage. From 1996 until late last year, the FBI probe centered on the suspected loss of U.S. nuclear warhead data, and quickly narrowed into an investigation of Wen Ho Lee, a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Now, however, the FBI--which never found evidence that Lee spied for China--has shifted its focus to the Defense Department and its private contractors. That is because the documents provided by the defector show that during the 1980s, Beijing had gathered a large amount of classified information about U.S. ballistic missiles and reentry vehicles. The missile secrets are far more likely to have come from defense officials or missile builders than from Los Alamos or other U.S. nuclear weapons labs, officials said. The shift in the investigation's focus follows several years of highly public and controversial efforts by the FBI, CIA and Energy Department to determine whether China stole the designs of advanced nuclear warheads from the United States, and if so, whether Beijing was aided by U.S. spies. Plagued by internal disputes between agencies, partisan pressures from Congress, and an apparently mistaken decision to focus on Lee, counterintelligence investigators were slow to review the full 13,000 pages that originally sparked the inquiry. The CIA concluded several years ago that the defector who supplied the documents was a Chinese double agent, casting doubt on the information he delivered and delaying its translation from Mandarin to English. But the FBI, which has interviewed the defector in the United States, believes that he is legitimate. The CIA now says the evidence about the defector is "inconclusive," but agrees that the information he handed over has proven accurate, a senior government official said this week. The FBI, officials said, pressed for translating more of the document and, to support its case, began to question directly the Chinese informant, a former Chinese missile specialist whom the bureau brought to the United States. Although the FBI refused to say where he is now living, a senior intelligence official said earlier this week, "We know his whereabouts." Because the informant was a volunteer who approached the United States with an unsolicited offer to provide Chinese secrets, he is known in intelligence jargon as a "walk-in." He smuggled the documents out of China through DHL, the private delivery company, according to a former intelligence official who has reviewed much of the translated material. The documents appear to be a five-year "strategic plan" for development of China's new generation of missiles, the former official said. Another intelligence expert familiar with the material described it as "an embarrassment of riches." When the walk-in first delivered the documents, a senior U.S. official said, the CIA read and translated the titles of each major portion, then ordered a full translation of a 76-page section dealing with "nuclear" information--data on U.S. warheads, including the most advanced weapon in the U.S. arsenal, the W-88. One nuclear weapons official familiar with the process said the CIA had Chinese linguists read the documents for "intelligence purposes," to see whether they contained valuable information about Chinese missiles and warheads, and decided they did not. The agency did not perform a "counterintelligence review" to determine whether they contained classified information about U.S. missiles and warheads, the official said. Because of the CIA's belief that the walk-in was a double agent, a full translation of the documents seemed less pressing. "He failed an agency polygraph," one intelligence official explained. The CIA's suspicions about the informant also slowed the FBI's already limited investigation at Los Alamos of Wen Ho Lee. Another reason for the FBI's limited inquiry at Los Alamos in 1996 and 1997, a former FBI agent said, was that the bureau's Chinese counterintelligence agents were "already swamped" by highly publicized allegations of Chinese campaign contributions to the 1996 Democratic presidential campaign. One official who did pay attention to the
