A Convenient Spy: Wen Ho Lee and the Politics of Nuclear Espionage

This was fascinating because it had been a headline story then suddenly just melted away. After reading this you will know why. You won't be impressed with how our U.S. government handles their affairs. Knowing from the newspapers that the judge apologized to Wen Ho Lee at his trial, I was expecting a story of false accusations and a completely exonerated Wen Ho Lee. What I got seemed to be a very objective story that showed he was certainly guilty of poor choices, to the point of stupidity. But the Federal Government seemed even dumber. A must read of an interesting case.

"Truth is stranger than fiction," goes the cliche'. If you don't start talking to yourself in amazement while reading this factual investigative triumph, you have guava juice dribbling through your veins. Poor, lovable, misunderstood Wen Ho Lee. A two-time career loser in higher mathematics who manages to secure a position writing codes for nuclear weapons development. To make sure he has eternal access to practically the largest collection of nuclear weapons secrets ever amassed, he finagles them from the secure computer system at Los Alamos and leaves them on a network that any hacker could access, then copies them on storage tapes that several nasty nations would love to play. Why did he do this? The G-persons were sure it must be a Chinese plot to steal "the Crown Jewels" of our nuclear weapons programs. His indiscretion gets Lee clapped in irons and he is reviled as the most damaging spy ever to have threatened our national security. But was he merely stupid, neurotic, malicious or just insecure? Lee endures insult after insult, loses weight on the jail menu, and steels himself for a long ordeal that could end in death. His excellent L.A. legal team blames racial profiling on his arrest, and brilliantly pulverizes the prosecution, thanks to its dependence on lying, bone-headed agents who describe their prevarications as "mistakes." He cops a plea, gets credit for time served and is set free. As a convicted felon, he can't vote, but he can still live in sunny New Mexico, garden, fish and cook for friends. He can also write his own self-serving version of this fiasco, sell movie rights and turn his misery into money. After being treated to a keyhole view of his deceptions and outright lies I wouldn't believe much of what Lee has to say about himself. This whole episode cost every U.S. taxpayer money and may really have made life a little more precarious if our enemies did obtain and apply the information Lee made so accessible. But this book also shows how we are only a few averted visions from turning into a police state, and a couple of political fiascos from nuclear war. If you want to stay clear of suspicion in sensitive government weapons jobs, not only do you have to avoid committing crimes, but you have to pro-actively try to appear from every perspective as though every action were innocent. It also helps if you happen to be white. As the book reveals, there just aren't enough white scientists and engineers to fill the empty office desks and lab counters in our nuclear weapons programs, and after Wen Ho Lee's experience, scarcely any brilliant Asian-background applicants are lining up for these jobs. The real heros in this drama are Lee's friends, neighbors, family and a few co-workers who stood up for him, put their life savings and personal reputations on the line, and kept close watch as a truly disturbed security heirarchy and fouled-up judiciary sliced and diced American justice. There ain't nobody perfect, but at

San Diego Union-TribuneJan. 22, 2002By Brian Alexander, a contributing editor at Wired magazine"Strand by strand, writers Dan Stober and Ian Hoffman, reporters from the San Jose Mercury News and the Albuquerque Journal, respectively, weave a devastating tapestry documenting just how easy it can be for representatives of the people of the United States -- you and me -- including officers sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution, to lie, intimidate and crush any semblance of justice in the name of protecting the country.""Stober and Hoffman's work is not just very good, it's also important -- now more than ever."

Of the three Robert Hanssen books, and this one, if you want to see the FBI at its worst, this is the one. Though the nuclear physics in "Convenient Spy" can be a bit tough to slog through at times, plowing all the way through to the end will leave you fully informed and a more worldly reader.

It was a difficult job to write a book which completely, and yet readably, presents the background and all aspects of the Wen Ho Lee controversy.On the one hand, Wen Ho Lee's supporters present a view of a scientist who, for no reason except his national origin, was persecuted by the government.On the other hand, the Justice Department portrayed Lee as an evil and incredibly dangerous master spy.The truth is not just in the middle, but multi-faceted.Wen Ho Lee acted suspiciously. He contacted, and gave non-classified information to, foreign governments. He repeatedly downloaded very comprehensive and secret information on the US atomic bomb program to non-secure computers and tape drives - a security lapse which could have been devastating. On the other hand, the Justice Department was operating under political pressure to find a scapegoat to prove the administration was not "soft on China." They held Lee without bail, in solitary confinement, under threat of life imprisonment, for 278 days, with no evidence that Lee gave secret information to a foreign government. (In comparison, when John Deutch, former CIA Director, was discovered to have stored very sensitive national security secrets on his internet-connected home computer, which was used by a household member to access pornographic internet sites, nothing was done to him except that he lost his security clearance.)The book gives plausible reasons that Lee may have downloaded the information, consistent with Lee's character and past actions, which do not involve spying.This is a very well-written, balanced, and thorough book; I recommend it to anyone who wishes to learn more about the Wen Ho Lee controversy.