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Espionage at U.S. Labs is Continuing, Cox Says
By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
May 24,1999
U.S. nuclear-weapons labs will not even meet "minimum" security standards until some time next year, Rep. Christopher Cox said yesterday.
"That's unacceptable," said Mr. Cox, California Republican, who chairs a special U.S.-Chinese national security committee. A 700-page committee report detailing Chinese attempts to buy and steal U.S. technology for rocket launching and nuclear programs is set to be released tomorrow.
"The espionage . . . continues, we state in our report, to this very day," Mr. Cox said.
His disclosure came amid demands by Senate lawmakers -- including a Clinton-administration ally -- that Attorney General Janet Reno's job be put on the line over the Justice Department's failure to actively pursue suspected Chinese spying in U.S. nuclear-energy labs.
"I believe it's time, considering her role, or lack of role . . . for new leadership at the Justice Department," Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Richard C. Shelby, Alabama Republican, said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
"I believe the attorney general ought to resign, and she ought to take her top lieutenants with her. She ought to do it now, for the sake of the country," he said.
Said Sen. Robert G. Torricelli, New Jersey Democrat: "I think it's time for President Clinton to have a conversation with the attorney general about her ability to perform her duties and whether or not it is in the national interest for her to continue."
The lawmakers specifically pointed to the Justice Department's repeated denials of requests by the FBI to wiretap Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee, who is suspected of passing classified nuclear-weapons information to the Chinese.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said simply, "Heads should roll."
Also yesterday, the deputy intelligence director at the Department of Energy (DOE) suggested the White House was informed about China's theft of U.S. nuclear secrets much sooner than it has acknowledged, opening the door to speculation of a potential cover-up to justify U.S. policy toward the communist power.
Concerns about China's ability to acquire U.S. technology dominated the Sunday morning TV talk shows. Some lawmakers said the release of the Cox report -- along with new revelations about Chinese espionage and campaign fund raising -- may "connect the dots" first set out by Sen. Fred Thompson in a 1997 Senate investigation.
"At the end of the investigation in 1997, the way I viewed it is that we were left with a lot of dots on a canvas, but they were not connected," said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat. "I think what's happened in the last couple of months . . . is that the dots are beginning to be connected."
One of the senators who was privately briefed on the report's contents last week called it "scary," and Energy Secretary Bill Richardson echoed that sentiment yesterday on ABC's "This Week."
"It is a scary report. Nuclear-weapons information, design information was obtained. There was lax security at the labs in the '70s, '80s, and '90s. But we are correcting the problems," he said.
Mr. Richardson was not specifically asked about Mr. Cox's assertions about the dismal state of counterintelligence at the DOE and its labs. But he said, "We have to implement a lot of cyber-security measures I've proposed. We have to implement increased security at all the labs. I've got to get the budget from the Congress to have strong counterintelligence measures."
Later in the interview, Mr. Richardson acknowledged, "There have been endemic problems, as Chairman Cox said, with security at the entire DOE complex. I am correcting that."
The Cox report -- some of which has leaked out in recent weeks -- concludes that over the past two decades, China has obtained sensitive information about seven nuclear weapons -- much of the modern U.S. arsenal. Intelligence officials and others have said U.S. secrets probably accelerated China's nuclear development and were likely to show up in future weapons.
Rep. Porter J. Goss, Florida Republican, said the blame belongs at the top.
"There was completely insufficient attention at the White House at the appropriate levels -- which would be the highest levels -- to deal with what are our most important national security matters," Mr. Goss told "Fox News Sunday."
Notra Trulock, deputy intelligence director at the DOE, said he began talking to administration officials as early as April 1996, but that his warnings went largely unheeded.
Mr. Trulock told NBC's "Meet the Press" he met with National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger three years ago to warn him about Chinese espionage at U.S. nuclear laboratories, which are run by the DOE.
"I was explicit and to the point," he said.
Mr. Berger has said he subsequently briefed Mr. Clinton and took steps to address the problem.
But a year after his first meeting with Mr. Berger, Mr. Trulock said, "we were sufficiently concerned about the lack of progress . . . that we specifically went to the White House and sought their assistance."
On March 19, Mr. Clinton said: "To the best of my knowledge, no one has said anything to me about any espionage that occurred by the Chinese against the labs during my presidency."
"I'd be very concerned if the president didn't know about these things," Mr. Cox said.