Congressional Leaders Irate at Handling of Spy Probe

Congressional Leaders Irate at Handling of Spy Probe

May 1, 1999

By Lawrence Morahan
CNS Staff Writer

(CNS) – The FBI has widened its investigation into Chinese spying at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico after reports that scientist Wen Ho Lee, a suspect in the case, moved highly classified computer data onto an unprotected office network.

"They don't know at this point what went out of the lab," said Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-AL), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, after his committee questioned FBI director Louis Freeh for nearly three hours Thursday in a closed-door hearing about the case.

"It's obvious to me that the FBI and perhaps Justice, both, treated this as a routine, or ordinary case, rather than what it was, an extraordinary case involving the highest levels of our national security – our nuclear labs," Shelby said.

"Somebody has not done the job," Shelby said. "Is it the FBI? Is it the Justice Department? Is it both?"

CNS calls to the FBI agency in Albuquerque, NM, which is handling the investigation into Lee, was not returned.

Administration and congressional sources told The Washington Post that Lee has been under investigation for 20 years. Failure of the FBI to follow up on an intercepted phone call in the early 1980s was one critical focus of the session, the paper said. The call by Lee, then a new Los Alamos employee, was to an individual at another U.S. nuclear lab who was under suspicion of having given neutron bomb secrets to the Chinese.

In the call, Lee said: "I can help you – I can tell you who ratted on you."

The name of the other scientist, who was employed at the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Laboratory, is still classified.

"Where were [government investigators] on the whole deal? This should have set off alarm bells ringing everywhere. If you intercept a phone call from one Chinese American at one laboratory to another Chinese American spy [suspect] at another laboratory, that should set off an alarm," a source present at the grilling of Freeh told the newspaper.

Another issue raised during the Senate session was the failure of the FBI to search Lee's computer when the bureau's investigation of him began in 1996. Two months into the inquiry, agents running the case sought authority to search Lee's computer only to be told that under the law they needed a search warrant, a source told the paper.

Freeh also stunned senators when he disclosed that in 1994 a fellow Los Alamos employee reported to security officials that Lee was "embraced" by a "Chinese delegation to the lab that included an officer of that country's intelligence service."

[Free Daily Front Page]

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