To the editor:In an otherwise interesting review...

To the editor:

In an otherwise interesting review of two recent books concerning convicted former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee (Book Review, March 31), Michael Parks states inaccurately that “whether there was ever a leak of nuclear weapons secrets appears very uncertain, at least from what we can gather from the public record.”

To the contrary: The U.S. intelligence community twice has issued public statements that the People’s Republic of China acquired nuclear warhead secrets by espionage. What is uncertain is Lee’s connection, if any, to this theft.

In a passing reference to the report issued by the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China, which I chaired, Parks also neglects to mention two salient facts. The first is that the report nowhere mentions Wen Ho Lee, whose case was not the subject of the report. The second is that the report was bipartisan and unanimous--a rarity in Washington during the last decade.

Parks properly attributes the deep-seated defects in the Lee prosecution to a “political frenzy” that grew as the 2000 presidential campaign shaped up. The over-indictment of Lee and the highly irregular public flogging of his case by the secretary of Energy were indeed evidence of a purely political reaction by the Clinton administration and Justice Department to the very legitimate concerns that had surfaced about the lack of adequate security at the nation’s nuclear weapons laboratories.

When Energy Secretary Bill Richardson fired Lee in a very public and unusual way (and the administration simultaneously leaked Lee’s name, which no member of Congress had ever heard, to the New York Times) I immediately criticized the apparent scapegoating as “un-American.” A full year before Lee was indicted, I warned--as “60 Minutes” has accurately reported--of the risk that he could become another Richard Jewell. Such was the vast difference, as I saw it, between the problems highlighted in the Select Committee’s investigation and the subsequent Lee case.

It is right, and important, to criticize improper conduct by law enforcement and government officials. At the same time, we should not lose sight of the fact that the nuclear weapons labs are the subject of constant espionage. Just as important as protecting innocent Americans from overzealous law enforcement is protecting them from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Christopher Cox

U.S. Representative

(R-Newport Beach)