Study Finds China Pilfered U.S. Nuclear Secrets

China covertly obtained nuclear weapons secrets from the United States, including design data on America’s most modern warhead and special features of the neutron bomb, in an aggressive spying effort that dates back to the late 1970s, the U.S. intelligence community has concluded.

In an official damage assessment released Wednesday, seven U.S. intelligence agencies and an outside panel of national security and nuclear weapons experts agreed that Beijing has successfully mounted an espionage campaign, including efforts to penetrate top-secret nuclear weapons laboratories.

But the unusual intelligence review, which was convened in the wake of recent accusations that U.S. security has been indelibly harmed by Chinese spying, suggests that Beijing either has not realized the potential value of the pilfered secrets or has been unable to effectively use the information.

The espionage “probably accelerated” China’s attempts to develop future nuclear weapons, the report noted. But so far, it “has not resulted in any apparent modernization of their deployed strategic force or any new nuclear weapons deployment,” the report said.

Amount of Data Stolen Is Unknown

Overall, the assessment raised as many troubling questions as it answered. A senior intelligence official said after giving a classified briefing to members of Congress that U.S. experts couldn’t determine how much data was stolen, or even in what form.

He said the experts don’t know if China acquired secret documents or blueprints, for example, or obtained classified information in inadvertent leaks from U.S. scientists at conferences or other gatherings. He said Beijing also got valuable information from the media, declassified U.S. weapons reports and China’s own scientific efforts.

“We can’t determine how much they got” from espionage, the official said. “And we can’t determine the relative importance of what they got.”

Among the key findings of what was officially labeled the Intelligence Community Damage Assessment on the Implications of China’s Acquisition of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Information on the Development of Future Chinese Weapons:

* China obtained at least basic design information on several modern nuclear reentry vehicles, including the state-of-the-art W-88 warhead that is launched from U.S. Trident II submarines. Officials declined to identify the other designs.

* China also obtained information on a variety of weapon design concepts and features, including those of the neutron bomb, which kills through enhanced radiation but does not cause heavy damage to buildings.

* U.S. officials believe it likely that China has adapted U.S. data for its weapons program “rather than to replicate U.S. weapons designs.”

Need to Bolster Lab Security Underlined

After a briefing at the White House, President Clinton said in a statement that the findings underscore the need to strengthen security at U.S. weapons laboratories. He also asked the National Counterintelligence Policy Board to “assess potential vulnerabilities at other institutions associated with nuclear weapons” and to propose steps to prevent spying.

“Our job is to protect nuclear secrets,” said David Leavy, spokesman for the National Security Council. “We take it very seriously. We’re under no illusions. We know that China, like other countries, tries to obtain our most sensitive technology. We have to protect them as much as we can.”

Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the report “confirmed my worst fears” about Chinese espionage.

“We still don’t know how deep and how wide the problem is, but we know it’s bad,” Shelby said in a telephone interview after he was briefed. His committee is one of nine investigating Chinese espionage or security at U.S. weapons facilities.

“They have been very successful in penetrating our most sensitive weapons systems,” Shelby added. “And I think it took too long for us to find out it was going on.”

But Robert Suettinger, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former national intelligence officer for East Asia, said the report offered few real surprises.

“We’ve known for a long time that China had an aggressive program both to recruit Chinese Americans and to obtain nuclear weapons information,” he said. “And we’ve known they’ve had some successes with both.”

The multi-agency review was ordered by a House Select Committee on March 15 and was headed by Robert Walpole, national intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs. Their assessment was then reviewed by an independent panel led by retired Adm. David Jeremiah, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

China never joined the nuclear arms race with the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, and its nuclear effort has focused on developing and deploying a relatively small second-strike missile force as a deterrent against attack.

U.S. experts estimate that Beijing has about 20 nuclear-tipped missiles, for example, compared to 5,400 in Russia and more than 6,000 in the United States. China has only one submarine, and its current land-based missiles carry single warheads. Overall, the report said, China’s nuclear program remains plagued by “significant deficiencies.”

The report also said it was unclear if China had passed along any of the classified U.S. data to other countries. “The bottom line is, we don’t know,” the official said.