Lis­ten:
MP3 One Seg­ment
RealAu­dio

1. This broad­cast high­lights aspects of the Wen Ho Lee case that have escaped the atten­tion of most media voices. A Tai­wanese Amer­i­can cit­i­zen who had been employed as a nuclear sci­en­tist at the Los Alamos National Lab­o­ra­tory, Lee was falsely charged with espi­onage in 1999, trig­ger­ing a Republican-led con­gres­sional inves­ti­ga­tion. That inves­ti­ga­tion hinted that Lee’s alleged espi­onage on behalf of the People’s Repub­lic of China was linked to “Chi­nese” cam­paign dona­tions to the Clin­ton admin­is­tra­tion. The case gar­nered much jour­nal­is­tic atten­tion, and cast a pall of sus­pi­cion on Asian Amer­i­cans employed in sen­si­tive national security-related jobs. Most impor­tantly, it fig­ured in the crit­i­cism that the Repub­li­cans directed toward the Democ­rats dur­ing the 2000 campaign.

2. Much of this pro­gram sets forth the details of a very impor­tant arti­cle by vet­eran inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist Robert Parry. (ConsortiumNews.com; 9/18/2000.)

3. In this story, Parry details one of the arms deals that Oliver North’s Iran-Contra oper­a­tives arranged — a mis­sile sale from the People’s Repub­lic of China to the Con­tras. The American-supplied Con­tra gueril­las were look­ing for weapons with which to effec­tively com­bat the San­din­istas’ Soviet-supplied attack heli­copters. North arranged for a ship­ment of SA-7 surface-to-air mis­siles to be sent to the Con­tras. (Idem.)

4. Parry sug­gests that the doc­u­mented shar­ing of nuclear weapons infor­ma­tion with the PRC dur­ing the Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tion was char­ac­ter­is­tic of the type of quid pro quo arrange­ment that Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor Lawrence Walsh found to be com­mon­place dur­ing the course of the Iran-Contra oper­a­tions. (Idem.)

5. Like other nations that sup­plied weapons to the Con­tras for the Rea­gan Admin­is­tra­tion, the Chi­nese expected favors in return for their efforts. Since the alleged theft of nuclear secrets took place dur­ing the Rea­gan and Bush years, they can­not be blamed on Clin­ton. The “theft” may well have been an out­growth of the SA-7 deal. (Idem.)

6. Nonethe­less, the Repub­li­cans have attempted to pin the blame on the Clin­ton admin­is­tra­tion, cam­paign­ing on the false­hood that the Democ­rats com­pro­mised Amer­i­can nuclear secu­rity in exchange for cam­paign con­tri­bu­tions. (ConsortiumNews.com; (Idem.)

7. Among the most vocal of those pin­ning the blame for the Lee affair on the Clin­ton admin­is­tra­tion was Judge James Parker, a Rea­gan appointee. (The New York Times; 9/14/2000; p. A1.)

8. The pro­gram high­lights the fact that Lee and his wife had coop­er­ated with the CIA in con­nec­tion with his Chi­nese con­tacts. (San Jose Mer­cury News; 8/11/2000; p. 10A.)

9. The pro­gram also notes that Energy Sec­re­tary Bill Richard­son was sav­aged by Judge Parker and the Repub­li­cans and spec­u­lates about the pos­si­ble use of the Lee/PRC con­tacts as a cam­paign dirty trick. (The New York Times; 9/14/2000; p. A1.) Richard­son at one time was con­sid­ered a pos­si­ble Vice Pres­i­den­tial run­ning mate for Al Gore.)

10. The broad­cast con­cludes with an exam­i­na­tion of the Lee case and its effect on help­ing to real­ize a Republican-sponsored bill to cre­ate a sep­a­rate agency to over­see secu­rity of nuclear weapons tech­nol­ogy. (The San Jose Mer­cury News; 6/15/2000; p.11A.)

11. A for­mer Deputy Direc­tor of the CIA became head of the newly cre­ated agency. (Idem.)