Wen Ho Lee | |
|---|---|
| 李文和 | |
| Born | (1939-12-21)December 21, 1939 (age 85) |
| Education | National Cheng Kung University (BS) Texas A&M University (PhD) |
| Known for | Mathematical work innuclear explosion and influid dynamics, pleaded guilty to felony count of illegal retention of national defense information |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Nuclear physics |
| Institutions | Los Alamos National Laboratory Texas A&M University University of California |
| Wen Ho Lee | |||||||||||||||
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| Chinese | 李文和 | ||||||||||||||
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Wen Ho Lee orLi Wenho (Chinese:李文和;pinyin:Lǐ Wénhé; born December 21, 1939) is a Taiwanese-Americannuclear scientist andmechanical engineer who worked for theUniversity of California at theLos Alamos National Laboratory inNew Mexico. He created computerized simulations ofnuclear explosions for the purposes of scientific inquiry, as well as for improving thesafety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
A federalgrand jury indicted him on charges of stealing secrets about the U.S.nuclear arsenal for thePeople's Republic of China (PRC) in December 1999.[1] After federal investigators were unable to prove these initial accusations, the government conducted a separate investigation. Ultimately it charged Lee only with improper handling ofrestricted data, one of the original 59 indictment counts, a felony count. He pleaded guilty as part of a plea settlement.
He filed a civil suit that was settled. In June 2006, Lee received $1.6 million from the federal government and five media organizations as part of a settlement for leaking his name to the press before any charges had been filed against him.[2]
Federal judgeJames A. Parker eventually apologized to Lee for denying him bail and putting him insolitary confinement. He excoriated the government for misconduct and misrepresentations to the court.[3]
Wen Ho Lee was born on December 21, 1939, to aHoklo family inTaiwan during Japanese rule.[3] He graduated from Keelung High School in the northern part of the island in 1959, after which he attendedNational Cheng Kung University inTainan, where he graduated with aBachelor of Science inmechanical engineering in 1963.[4]
InMy Country Versus Me, Lee describes life as being harsh. His father died when Lee was very young. His mother suffered fromasthma and eventually committed suicide so that she would not 'burden' the family. He was a young boy in Taiwan whenRepublic of China (ROC) forces violently suppressed theFebruary 28 Incident of 1947. Taiwan was placed undermartial law; his brother died when he was a conscript and his commanding officers allegedly would not allow him to take medicine. Lee overcame steep odds. He had what he describes as a wonderful teacher in the 6th grade who encouraged his intellectual abilities. Eventually, he made his way to university, where he became interested influid dynamics and studiedmechanical engineering.[3]
Lee came to the United States in 1965 to continue his studies inmechanical engineering atTexas A&M University. He received hisdoctorate in mechanical engineering with specialization influid mechanics in 1969 and was naturalized as aU.S. citizen in 1974.[4]
He was employed at industrial and government research firms before he moved toNew Mexico in 1978. He worked as a scientist in weapons design atLos Alamos National Laboratory, inapplied mathematics and fluid dynamics, from that year until 1999. He createdsimulation software fornuclear explosions, which were used to gain scientific understanding and help maintain the safety and reliability of theUS nuclear weapons arsenal.[3]
Lee was publicly named byUnited States Department of Energy officials, includingSecretary of EnergyBill Richardson, as a suspect in the theft of classified nuclear-related documents from Los Alamos.[5] Richardson was criticized by the Senate for his handling of the espionage inquiry because he had not testified sooner beforeCongress. Richardson was less than truthful in his response by saying that he was waiting to uncover more information before speaking to Congress.[6]
On December 10, 1999, Lee was arrested, indicted on 59 counts, and jailed insolitary confinement without bail for 278 days. On September 13, 2000, he accepted aplea bargain from the federal government. Lee was released on time served after the government's case against him could not be proven.[5] Part of his defense rested on agraymail strategy, which tried to compel prosecutors to release large amounts of classified material related to nuclear weapons.[7] He was ultimately charged only with one count of mishandling sensitive documents, which did not require pre-trial solitary confinement. The other 58 counts were dropped.
PresidentBill Clinton issued a public apology to Lee over his treatment by the federal government during the investigation.[5] Lee filed a civil lawsuit to gain the names of public officials who had leaked his name to journalists before charges had been filed against him.[5] It raised issues, similar to those in theValerie Plame affair, of whether journalists should have to reveal their anonymous sources in a court of law.[5]
Lee's lawsuit was settled by the federal government in 2006 just before theSupreme Court was set to decide whether to hear the case.[5] The federal judge who heard the case during an earlier appeal said that "top decision makers in the executive branch...have embarrassed our entire nation and each of us who is a citizen."[5]
After an intelligence agent from thePeople's Republic of China (PRC) gave U.S. agents papers which indicated that they knew the design of a particularly modern U.S.nuclear warhead (theW-88), theFederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) started an investigation codenamed "Operation Kindred Spirit" to look into how China could have obtained that design.[8][9]
In 1982, Lee was recorded on awiretap speaking with another Taiwanese-American scientist who had been accused of espionage. Lee offered to the scientist to find out who had turned him in. When confronted by the FBI about this incident, Lee said he did not know the scientist, until the FBI demonstrated proof of the conversation. Despite some evidence that could have kept the case open, the FBI closed this file on Lee in 1984.[10]
Lee did not get the attention of the FBI again for 12 years until 1998. The FBI had lost the file on Lee from the 1983 and 1984 meetings with him, and had to reconstruct the information. In 1994, a delegation of Chinese scientists visitedLos Alamos National Laboratory in an unannounced capacity for a meeting. One of the scientists visiting was Dr.Hu Side, the head of theChinese Academy of Engineering Physics. He also was credited with the design of the small,W88-like weapon. However, despite the visit being unannounced, Lee showed up to the meeting uninvited.
This alarmed LANL officials who contacted the FBI, which opened up another investigation of Lee. On December 23, 1998, Lee was given apolygraph test byWackenhut, a DOE contractor. He was not told of the reason why, other than that it involved his latest trip to China to escort his nephew. During the questioning, he admitted that he had, in fact, met with Dr. Hu Side in a hotel room in 1988 and that Hu had asked him for classified information, which he refused to discuss.
Lee admitted that he failed to report this contact and approach by individuals requesting classified information as required by security regulations. He was told that he passed the test, but was stripped of hisQ clearance to the LANL's classified X Division section. Although he questioned the action against him, Lee went along, deleting the classified information he held on his computers, and moved to the T (unclassified) clearance zone. He was later subjected to three morepolygraph tests before being told by the FBI agents that re-evaluation of the test results showed that Lee had failed all of them.[3]
In January,The Wall Street Journal ran an article on the investigation, headlined "China Got Secret Data on U.S. Warhead -- Chief Suspect Is a Scientist at Weapons Laboratory of Energy Department," without naming a suspect. On March 6,The New York Times published an article on the W-88 case, "China Stole Nuclear Secrets for Bombs, U.S. Aides Say,"[11] again without naming the suspect. Government officials had requested the newspaper delay publication, andThe New York Times held back publication for one day, saying it would consider a further delay if asked personally by the FBI director, who did not act on the request.[8][9]
The FBI interviewed Dr. Lee on March 5, and he consented to a search of his office. On March 8, 1999, Lee was fired from his job at Los Alamos National Laboratory for failure to maintain classified information securely. However, FBI investigators soon determined that the design data thePRC had obtained could not have come from the Los Alamos Lab, because it contained information that only a "downstream" contractor involved in the final warhead production process would have. This information was only created after the weapon design left the LANL.[3]
Even though this left Wen Ho Lee apparently in the clear, the FBI continued its attempt to find evidence to implicate Lee in committingespionage for the PRC. There were 60 agents and more assigned to Lee's case, working to prove that he was a spy. The FBI conducted a search of Lee's house on April 10, seizing any item related to computers or computing, as well as anything that had notations written inChinese. The FBI and the Department of Energy then decided to conduct a fullforensic examination of Lee's office computer. The examination of Lee's computer determined that he had backed up his work files, which were restricted though not classified, onto tapes, and had also transferred these files from a system used for processing classified data onto another, also secure, system designated for unclassified data.
After the FBI discovered Lee's transfer, they revoked his badge access and clearance, including his ability to access the data from the unclassified but secure network. Lee then requested from a colleague in another part of Los Alamos to be allowed to use his computer, at which time he transferred the data to a third unclassified computer network. The government then retroactively redesignated the data Lee had copied, changing it from its former designation of "PARD" (Protect As Restricted Data), which was just above the "Unclassified" designation and contained 99 percent unclassified data, to a new designation of "Secret" (which was treated on a higher security level than PARD), giving them the crime that the government needed for a formal charge.[3]
The Department of Justice constructed its case around the only real evidence of malfeasance, the downloading of the restricted information.[11] It ultimately employed an unusual strategy of trying to prove that in addition to illegally handling information, Dr. Lee had an "intent to injure" the United States by denying it the exclusivity of the nuclear information. Lee was indicted on 59 counts, 39 of which were for mishandling information under theAtomic Energy Act of 1954, and 20 of which were for lesser violations of theEspionage Act.[12] (The original Atomic Energy Act, also known as theMcMahon Act, was passed in response to the case ofCambridge physicistAlan Nunn May[13] after he confessed to givingManhattan Project secrets to theUSSR.)Janet Reno confirmed withCIA DirectorGeorge Tenet andFBI DirectorLouis Freeh that if the presiding judge rules that the government must reveal in open court what specifically was on the tapes, the prosecution would have to plea out the case or risk jeopardizing state secrets.[12]
Dr. Lee spent nine months incarcerated insolitary confinement with limited access to family. His treatment, which included constantshackling, was inconsistent with treatment of other prisoners at theSanta Fe County detention facility, and became a source of great controversy for the DOJ.[14] In September 2000,Judge Parker ruled that the government was required to disclose the information on the tapes. According to Louis Freeh and Janet Reno, they were left with no option but to plea out Dr. Lee in order to find out where the missing tapes were, and not risk sensitive government information by bringing it to trial. Dr. Lee was freed, and at plea admitted to having made copies of the tapes which he later destroyed, according to his bookMy Country Versus Me, and other sources.[3][15][16][17][18]
Lee pleaded guilty to one felony count of illegal "retention" of "national defense information". In return, the government released him from jail and dropped the other 58 counts against him. JudgeParker apologized to Dr. Lee for the unfair manner in which he was treated. The judge also regretted being misled by the executive branch into ordering Dr. Lee's detention, stating that he was led astray by the Department of Justice, by its FBI, and by its United States attorney. He formally denounced the government for abuse of power in its prosecution of the case.[19][20][21] Later, President Bill Clinton remarked that he had been "troubled" by the way Dr. Lee was treated.[22][23][24][9]
Lee is now retired and lives inAlbuquerque, New Mexico with his wife. He also has two adult children – a son, and a daughter, Alberta, who at one time was an intern at Los Alamos Laboratory. In 2000, Alberta expressed her intention to become a civil rights lawyer to defend others as she had been a spokeswoman for her father.[25] In 2003, he wrote a memoir,My Country Versus Me, in which he describes his love of classical music, literature, poetry, fishing in the mountains of New Mexico, and his dedication to organic gardening.[3] He also charges that hisAsian ethnicity was a primary factor behind his prosecution by the government. As evidence of suchracial profiling, he cited cases of several scientists of non-Han Chinese ancestry who were responsible for similar security transgressions but were able to continue their careers. Former FBI DirectorLouis Freeh categorically denied these charges.
Lee was compensated with a $1.6 million settlement from the U.S. federal government and five news organizations for privacy violations. A condition of the United States portion of the settlement, $895,000, is that it is to be applied only to lawyer's fees and the taxes on the media's payments, since the government insisted that they would not pay anything that would be perceived as damages to Lee.[2]
He has published anapplied physics textbook[26] that he started writing while still in prison.[27]
The 2001 playThe Legacy Codes, by American playwrightCherylene Lee, deals with the Wen Ho Lee case.[28]
The short story "Amnesty" in the 2005 edition ofOctavia Butler's collectionBloodchild and Other Stories was inspired by the government's treatment of Lee.[29]
The 2007 playYellow Face by Asian-American playwrightDavid Henry Hwang places this incident in the context of a greater number of cases dealing withracial profiling against Asian Americans, particularly the Chinese during the 1990s.
The 2010 short filmThe Profile and its animated remake (the 2017 short filmDisk 44), both by American film makerRay Arthur Wang, are inspired by the Lee case.[30][31]
Energy Secretary Richardson.
destroyed.
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