FBI Plans Arrest of Scientist in China Spy Case

The FBI plans to arrest suspected spy Wen Ho Lee on charges related to the transfer to China of top-secret nuclear weapon computer programs and data into an insecure computer over a 12-year period, a senior Clinton administration official said Wednesday.

The official said the FBI is “reasonably close” to making a case and expects to arrest Lee within 10 days on charges of unauthorized disclosure of highly classified material.

Lee, a former Los Alamos National Laboratory computer scientist, improperly moved nuclear weapon testing and design “codes,” or programs, from the lab’s classified computer system into his office computer at several points between 1983 and 1995, officials said. Lee’s office computer was linked to an internal lab network that required a password to gain access but was not otherwise protected. Lee, 59, was fired from Los Alamos on March 8 for other security violations after nearly two decades at the New Mexico facility.

The FBI only discovered the transfer of the massive computer files in late March, and officials said it appeared to be the most solid evidence yet linking Lee to possible espionage.

In an interview, Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson called the transfer of classified data “an egregious breach of security” and “unconscionable.”

But Richardson said investigators have found “no evidence” yet that China or anyone else was given access to the nuclear weapon material. He denied suggestions, contained in a New York Times report Wednesday, that Lee had harmed virtually every nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal.

“This is serious, but it does not constitute a compromise of any strong magnitude,” Richardson said. “The extent of the damage is very uncertain. In my judgment, it does not approximate the damage assessments that are being given.”

Richardson is expected to discipline several Los Alamos and Energy Department officials in the next few days as a result of an internal probe into the Lee case. The probe has attempted to determine why Lee was allowed to work in classified areas at Los Alamos until last year, and why he kept his classified security clearance until shortly before he was dismissed.

The FBI first identified Lee, who was born in Taiwan but is a naturalized American, as a possible Chinese agent in 1996. Agents did not interview him, however, until late last year, and were unable to obtain a search warrant for his home and other property until earlier this month.

The case arose in 1995 when a Chinese agent passed a document to U.S. diplomats showing that China had obtained design secrets on America’s most sophisticated nuclear warhead, the submarine-launched W-88, in the late 1980s.

FBI investigators soon focused on Lee because he had worked on development of the top-secret warhead at Los Alamos, and had twice visited Beijing for scientific conferences.

By the end of this week, the labs also will have in place automated monitoring programs for the first time to scan unclassified files and outgoing e-mail for classified material.

Lee, who has yet to speak to the press, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. His lawyer, Mark Holsher of Los Angeles, did not return several calls, but has previously said that Lee is innocent of wrongdoing.

A Justice Department spokesman declined comment, citing the ongoing criminal investigation. The FBI did not return repeated calls.

The potential value of the nuclear weapon codes was a matter of some debate Wednesday. Although some officials suggested the codes could be used as virtual blueprints to “reverse-engineer” construction of a nuclear weapon, a senior Energy Department scientist said the codes would require an experienced user and they could not, in themselves, be used to build reliable nuclear weapons.

“It would not represent a capability to build new weapons,” he said. “It represents an insight into how we build our weapons. That’s the value.”

The computer programs are known as legacy codes because they contain changing design formulas and historic data from underground nuclear weapon tests that the United States conducted in the Nevada desert before September 1992, when the tests were halted to adhere to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. China continued underground testing until 1995 but has also pledged to forgo further testing.

“Given a legacy code, can you design and build and have confidence in a weapon you’ve never tested yourself? We would say no,” the scientist said.