Espionage Activities of Chinese, Soviets Increase in California

As a professional journalist and a naturalized U.S. citizen, I am quite disappointed in your story on Chinese espionage activities (Part I, Nov. 20).

Being unable to prosecute Chinese espionage cases, as admitted by Harry J. Godfrey III, head of FBI counterintelligence in Los Angeles, the FBI apparently intends to use the media, say the Los Angeles Times, to cover its fruitless operations and fictitiously distort the patriotism of the majority of Chinese-Americans, who are loyal to the U.S. like I am, by making statements like, “The Chinese would send 1,000 bathers to the beach in broad daylight and have each bathers bring back one grain of sand.”

Anyone with knowledge, or common sense, understands that the basic rule of espionage operations is to have as few persons as possible involved.

The FBI alleged that contrary to the Chinese style of “human-waves” strategy, “the Soviets would surface a submarine in the dead of night and send a small party to the beach to bring back several pails of sand,” a strategy that is more detectable by the FBI. After reading Godfrey’s paradoxical allegation, we are sure that the Soviets will laugh at it; we also now understand why our counterintelligence operations are far inferior to those of the Soviets and other countries.

Godfrey made two serious mistakes:

1. He made up nonexistent circumstances on Chinese-Americans by hinting that the Chinese government takes advantage of the increasing Chinese population in California for its espionage operations. Wasn’t it the same kind of speculation that resulted in thousands of Japanese-Americans being put in camps during World War II?

2. Godfrey and other FBI officials further tarnished the loyalty of the majority Chinese-Americans who work for our government agencies by saying that “China primarily targets Chinese-Americans in its efforts to infiltrate U.S. defense and intelligence agencies.” It may be true, but that kind of statement from government officials without any solid evidence to support it will inevitably lead to racial tensions in our society, and will tarnish the credibility of those Chinese-Americans who work in sensitive government agencies.

In our judicial system we believe a person is innocent until we have evidence to prove that he is guilty. If there is not sufficient evidence to prove that many Chinese-Americans work for Chinese espionage operations, why don’t FBI officials like Godfrey keep their mouths shut, and refrain from making any statements which could hurt the feelings of the majority Chinese-Americans who are no less loyal to our country than anybody else?

ANTHONY YUEN

Monterey Park