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In ear­ly 1999, the head­lines were filled with sto­ries of Chi­nese espi­onage and alleged theft of sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion about nuclear weapons. This pro­gram repris­es part of Mis­cel­la­neous Archives #35 and sets forth alle­ga­tions of the sup­pos­ed­ly delib­er­ate attempt to sell sen­si­tive strate­gic mate­ri­als to the Peo­ple’s Repub­lic in the ear­ly 1980s. (The espi­onage episode that was revealed in 1999 began in 1985.) This attempt was alleged­ly hatched by then Vice-Pres­i­dent George Bush (for­mer direc­tor of the CIA). These alle­ga­tions were made by a for­mer Rea­gan White House staffer named Roger Hef­fer­an. Accord­ing to Hef­fer­an, the tech­nol­o­gy sale was intend­ed to give Chi­na tech­ni­cal nuclear supe­ri­or­i­ty over the Sovi­et Union. This would have left the Sovi­ets fac­ing the choice of either accept­ing Chi­nese strate­gic supe­ri­or­i­ty or launch­ing a pre-emp­tive nuclear strike. Accord­ing to Hef­fer­an, the goal of the sale was to pre­cip­i­tate just such an out­come. Hef­fer­an worked suc­cess­ful­ly to frus­trate the sale and said that his life was in dan­ger because of it. Hef­fer­an had cor­rob­o­rat­ing doc­u­ments, which appeared gen­uine. Hef­fer­an claimed that George Bush was basi­cal­ly run­ning the Unit­ed States. In effect, he said that Rea­gan was lit­tle more than a fig­ure­head. (Record­ed on 3/14/99.)