Of Nukes & Spooks

March 15, 1999 - ESSAY / By WILLIAM SAFIRE - The New York Times

WASHINGTON -- "Absolutely no truth to it -- it's an outrageous statement," fumed Samuel Berger, the first national security adviser to regularly attend political campaign meetings in the White House. "It's wrong . . . not based on any facts whatsoever."

He was responding to Tim Russert's quotation on NBC's "Meet the Press" of my assertion of connections among: (a) the Clinton-Gore fund-raising from admittedly illegal Asian sources, followed by our stunning turnabout in trade policy; (b) the uncleared access to the White House by a high Chinese military intelligence official; (c) the Clinton decision, accompanied by huge campaign contributions by a satellite manufacturer, to switch regulation of technology transfer to his anything-goes Commerce Department, and (d) the years of foot-dragging by the Clinton National Security Council when confronted by evidence that China had stolen nuclear secrets from Los Alamos.

Mr. Berger would have us believe that these are not facts, and if they are, they are wholly unrelated.

It would be outrageous indeed to suggest that American officials were consciously betraying our national interest. But the confluence of these facts in election year 1996 -- combined with the urge to disregard or derogate any intelligence that would stop the political blessings of a "strategic partnership" with China -- led to Clinton's denial of a dangerous penetration.

A few questions to the committees holding closed hearings this week:

The White House line is that Congress was adequately briefed on this 17 times. If true, were the intelligence "Big Four" properly forewarned and did they then fail in their oversight responsibilities? Representative Chris Cox tells me no: "Our committee expressly found the Administration failed to comply with National Security Act requirements for keeping Congress informed. To claim otherwise is outrageous."

Spooks wonder if the F.B.I. office in New Mexico that bungled the Edward Howard capture fumbled again in 1995 by taking a full year to react to evidence of heavy theft. Others suggest that Beijing, eager to intimidate us in the Taiwan Strait, wanted us to know it had our W-88 nuclear-warhead technology. Who's right?

Why did the Justice Department's intelligence surveillance policy staff, which reports directly to Janet Reno, deny the F.B.I. authority to tap the telephone of its suspect, Wen Ho Lee, at Los Alamos in 1995? This was no mere Mafia drug bust; a Chinese document showed our most vital national-security secrets were threatened. Over three years, did F.B.I. Director Louis Freeh protest to Reno about this leave-him-alone decision?

Why has Berger & Co. repeatedly stressed that "other countries, including friendly countries," spied on us? Is this the spin machine's not-so-sly way to get supporters of Israel in the Congress and the media to shut up and back off?

The former chief of Department of Energy intelligence, Notra Trulock, says he was ordered not to inform Congress of his suspicions, but his boss, Elizabeth Moler, disputes this. Whose story will change under oath?

Why, if Secretary Bill Richardson were so "seized of" this secret issue last August when he was named, did he demote the expert, Trulock, and put in charge a C.I.A. man from his U.N. embassy staff -- Larry Sanchez -- who knew nothing about the agency's worst problem?

Does Lieut. Col. Liu Chaoying, daughter of a top Chinese general, provide a link between the stealing of secrets at our national laboratories in the 80's and the purchase of secrets from our American satellite and computer manufacturers in the 90's? Did a U.S. company help China widen the acquisition envelope of its SA-12 anti-aircraft missile by 20 degrees, and are Air National Guard F-16 pilots now being briefed on their new danger?

Is it true that even now, tens of thousands of E-mail messages every month flow out of our national laboratories at Sandia and Los Alamos -- but our National Security Agency's Big Ear fails to monitor them?

Is Berger telling the public the same story he told the Cox committee under oath?

If so, why was President Clinton denied knowledge from 1995 to 1997 about this most damaging atomic spy coup since the Rosenbergs?

Isn't a President entitled to such information before proposing a "strategic partnership"? Or did Clinton really know?

But to pose these questions is outrageous.


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