Lee Reveals Connection to Taiwan

Former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee has told the FBI that he was a paid consultant in the late 1980s and early 1990s to a Taiwanese businessman who later helped arrange for him to spend four weeks at Taiwan’s leading military research center, according to sources close to the investigation.

That same businessman also paid for Lee’s air travel to Taiwan in December 1998, when Lee made a second, shorter visit to the military research center, the Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology, the sources said.

The disclosure of the consulting arrangement and travel assistance from the unnamed businessman--a resident alien who has since returned to Taiwan--has prompted the FBI to review Lee’s links to his country of birth and, in particular, his ties to Chung Shan. The institute 25 miles southwest of Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, allegedly was involved in past efforts by Taiwan to develop nuclear weapons.

Lee has told investigators that while at Chung Shan for four weeks in April and May 1998 he gave talks and “consulted on matters related to unclassified computer codes” for which he received “a modest fee of less than $5,000,” according to a person familiar with the case.

Lee did not report the payment from Chung Shan to officials at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1998, as lab rules required, according to government sources.

Lee made the disclosures during 10 days of closed-door questioning under oath by the FBI. He cooperated in the questioning, which ended Dec. 12, as part of a plea bargain reached in September.

In return for pleading guilty to a single felony count of mishandling classified information, he was released from jail after nine months in solitary confinement. He was also given immunity from further prosecution, as long as he tells the truth.

Lee initially had been targeted in 1996 by FBI agents and Energy Department investigators looking into alleged espionage by the People’s Republic of China. The focus then was on two trips he took to Beijing and meetings he held with Chinese nuclear scientists.

Now, however, the government is exploring the possibility that Lee may have accumulated a virtual library of nuclear weapon secrets from computers at Los Alamos with the intention of assisting Taiwan, which has long feared an invasion or missile attack from the communist mainland.

Lee, a naturalized U.S. citizen who worked at Los Alamos from 1979 to 1999, has never been charged with espionage and adamantly denies passing classified information to any foreign government.

His attorney, Mark Holscher, said there was nothing improper about Lee’s trips to Taiwan, where Lee’s two sisters live and which he has visited roughly a dozen times over the last 25 years, according to recently compiled government records.

Before his visits to Chung Shan, Holscher said, “Dr. Lee received laboratory approval and clearance to go to Taiwan for unclassified speech and consulting.”

Holscher also expressed frustration with what he views as unscrupulous leaks aimed at tarring his client. He noted that the FBI questioning is supposed to be confidential.

“It is perplexing and deeply concerning to us that anonymous government sources are inaccurately describing approved, unclassified visits,” he said.

Senior Clinton administration officials, including FBI Director Louis J. Freeh and Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, have said the goal of the questioning is to determine why Lee downloaded the equivalent of 400,000 pages of nuclear data from computers at Los Alamos to pocket-sized tapes and to find out exactly what became of those tapes.

Sources previously disclosed that Lee told the FBI he threw the tapes into a trash bin at the national laboratory in New Mexico in January 1999. FBI agents then dug through tons of garbage in the Los Alamos County Landfill. They failed to turn up any of the Lee tapes, although they did find others from the lab.

Officials said last week they may renew the search of the landfill. Up to now, they said, the government has no physical evidence to prove or disprove Lee’s account.

Lee celebrated his 61st birthday at a party this weekend paid for by 500 friends and supporters. His supporters contend that he was unfairly singled out for investigation by the FBI and Energy Department because of his ethnicity. Although nuclear secrets allegedly obtained by China could have come from any of hundreds of defense plants or government offices, they say, overzealous investigators focused exclusively on Los Alamos and Lee.

While acknowledging serious mistakes in the investigation and prosecution of Lee, government officials still do not believe they have gotten to the bottom of the matter.