Tiger Trap: America's Secret Spy War With China (39 page)

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"When you need to get something done with China":
K. Connie Kang and David Rosenzweig, "Plain-Faced L.A. Consulate Is No Ordinary Installation,"
Los Angeles Times,
November 2, 1997, p. A14. The quote is attributed in the story to an unidentified "high-ranking Los Angeles city official."

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more than half, $951,000, was paid to her
after
the FBI learned in 1991 that she had passed unauthorized information to Mao Guohua:
RT, p. 26; United States v. James J. Smith, United States District Court for the Central District of California, original indictment, May 7, 2003, p. 15.

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Nortel, a major Canadian telecom company ... paid her $1.2 million:
RT, pp. 21–22.

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the Chinese government also paid her $100,000:
RT2, p. 22.

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J.J. would leave his briefcase open:
RT, pp. 14–15. The description of how Leung removed and copied documents from Smith's briefcase was provided by her in a series of videotaped interviews with the FBI in December 2002, and summarized in the FBI affidavits filed with the court.

5. DESTROY AFTER READING

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"He was the best I ever knew":
Kenneth J. Schiffer, quoted in Ian Hoffman, "Colleagues Taken Aback at FBI Agent's Indiscretion,"
San Mateo County Times,
April 13, 2003.

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"he was holier than thou, you couldn't swear around him":
Interview with former FBI special agent, October 2008.

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With a reported bankroll of $250,000:
The account of the
TIGER TRAP
case, and the tasks the FBI believed had been given to Chien Ning, is based on multiple interviews with former US counterintelligence agents.

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It clearly had the backing of the Chinese government at the highest level:
The description of
Science and Technology Review
is from Anthony Polsky, "China Science Journal Starts—Has Blessings of Chinese, US Governments,"
Washington Post,
May 29, 1980, p. D3; "Science and Technology Review Put On Sale in China," Xinhua General News Service, January 28, 1980; and "New Science and Technology Journal," BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, February 9, 1980.

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With his Q clearance, he also had access to the design of every US nuclear missile:
Interviews with former FBI special agents; Select Committee on US National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China, H.R. 105–851 (Cox Report) (1999), p. 87, which states that "the suspect" worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory "and had access to classified information including designs for a number of US thermonuclear weapons"; Dan Stober, "How FBI Wiretap Launched Spy Case China Probe: Wen Ho Lee Phoned Nuclear Espionage Suspect, Now Identified,"
San Jose Mercury News,
April 13, 2000, which names Gwo-bao Min as "the FBI's prime suspect in the alleged loss of neutron bomb secrets"; and Dan Stober and Ian Hoffman,
A Convenient Spy: Wen Ho Lee and the Politics of Nuclear Espionage
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), chap. 5. The author telephoned Gwo-bao Min at his home in California on September 14, 2008, and asked to interview him for this book. He interrupted, said, "I'm not interested," and hung up. Two further attempts to contact Min, by a telephone message that day and by letter the next day, were unsuccessful.

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His work brought official recognition:
The role of Jerry Chih-li Chen, the TV-repair- shop owner in Oakland, was described in Dan Grove interviews, November 25, 2008, December 20, 2008, and April 7, 2009, and by other FBI sources.

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Chien introduced him to Hanson Huang:
Chien Ning interview, March 26, 2009.

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He was given several questions to take back to the States with him:
Interviews with former FBI special agents.

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"there was reason to suspect me of that ... but that's not true:
Chien interview, March 26, 2009. Other Chien quotes in chapter, as well as biographical details on Chien, are from this interview.

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"I don't remember this person":
Doroteo Ng interview, April 16, 2009.

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Huang flew to San Francisco and met twice with the Livermore engineer:
Hanson Huang's role in the
TIGER TRAP
case is chronicled from multiple interviews with former FBI counterintelligence specialists. The author located Hanson Huang in Hong Kong, and exchanged e-mails with him on December 26, 2008. In his reply Huang wrote, "If you need any corroboration or confirmation on my part, please do not hesitate to contact me." But when the author responded the same day with specific questions about his relationship with Katrina Leung and Gwo-bao Min and asked to interview him, he did not reply.

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"He was always somebody with a cause":
Henry V. Huang interview, November 18, 2008.

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"This letter should be destroyed after reading":
Interviews with former FBI special agents, 2008 and 2009.

6. "HOLY SHIT, MR. GROVE!
"

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the All-China Games in Beijing:
Also known as the National Games, the sports event was inaugurated in 1959 and held at four-year intervals thereafter. The games, a sort of mini Olympics, were designed to demonstrate the prowess of Chinese athletes to invited guests and dignitaries from other countries.

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"They're going to be after you":
Dan Grove interview, October 28, 2008.

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"Holy shit, Mr. Grove! You'll never guess what I have":
Ibid.

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The measurement technique was based on "Teller light":
See W. E. Ogle,
An Account of the Return to Nuclear Weapons Testing by the United States after the Test Moratorium 1958–1961
(Las Vegas, NV: Department of Energy Nuclear Testing Archive, 1985), pp. 59, 60, 62; Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan,
The Effects of Nuclear Weapons,
3rd ed. (Washington, DC: US Department of Defense and Energy Research and Development Administration, 1977), pp. 73, 75–76, 343–45.

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"If the FBI found the wrong things in his baggage he would be arrested":
Paul Moore interview, August 19, 2008.

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A highly dedicated FBI agent reconstructed the cards:
Ibid.

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"I wish to congratulate you":
Interview with former counterintelligence agent, October 2008.

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seventy-six spies had been prosecuted, and all but one convicted:
George Lardner Jr., "Spy Nemesis Crosses Last Bridge,"
Washington Post,
July 31, 1997, p. A13.

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Robert McFarlane, who held that post under President Ronald Reagan:
McFarlane pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress about the Iran-Contra affair, and was later pardoned by President George H.W. Bush.

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"Put it in a ball and throw it on the floor and it will go off":
George Keyworth interview, November 10, 2009.

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"he was made aware of certain gaps in US intelligence":
Kenneth J. Schiffer interview, May 26, 2009.

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"how it was possible to circumvent their question":
Keyworth interview, November 10, 2009. Nineteen years after his 1980 trip to China, a congressional committee investigating the transfer of nuclear weapons technology to China (the Cox Committee), without naming Keyworth, excoriated him for "the inadvertent, bordering on negligent, disclosure of classified technical information" to the Chinese. Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China, H.R. 105–851 (Cox Report) (1999), p. 91. Keyworth told the author, however, that the Cox Committee "never interviewed me." See also James Risen, "In China, Physicist Learns, He Tripped Between Useful Exchange and Security Breach,"
New York Times,
August 1, 1999, p. 10. The story quotes Keyworth as saying that the simple physics analogy he provided the Chinese was "absolutely unclassified."

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He offered to find out who had "squealed" on Gwo-bao Min:
Arlen Specter, US Senate,
Report on the Investigation of Espionage Allegations Against Dr. Wen Ho Lee
(Specter Report), March 8, 2000, p. 6,
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2000_rpt/specter.html
.

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"Lee thought [Min] was in trouble for doing the same sort of thing that Lee had been doing for Taiwan":
US Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Redacted Transcript of Closed Hearing with Attorney General Janet Reno Regarding the FISA Process in the Wen Ho Lee Case, June 8, 1999, p. 15.

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the FBI was worried that "Lee might be acting on behalf of a Taiwan intelligence service":
US Department of Justice,
Final Report of the Attorney General's Review Team on the Handling of the Los Alamos National Laboratory Investigation
(Bellows Report) (May 2000), declassified version released December 12, 2001, p. 23.

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Lee lied to the FBI and although asked several times, said that he "had never attempted to contact" Min:
Redacted Transcript of Closed Hearing with Attorney General Janet Reno, p. 15.

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Lee ..."provided truthful answers only when confronted with irrefutable evidence":
Bellows Report, p. 41.

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the FBI had enlisted Lee's help:
Bellows Report, p. 37.

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"She was a very kind of mysterious person":
Federico C. Sayre interview, March 2, 2009.

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"The Chinese Ministry of Materials asked my help to get scrap metals":
Chien Ning interview, March 26, 2009.

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"According to Cleveland, Leung initiated their relationship":
OIG DOJ, p. 8.

7. RIDING THE TIGER: CHINA AND THE NEUTRON BOMB

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The committee issued an unclassified version of its ... report:
Final Report, unclassified version, of the Select Committee on US National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China, H.R. Rep. 105–851 (Cox Report) (1999).

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"has stolen classified design information" ... enabling the PRC to develop and test strategic nuclear weapons "sooner than would otherwise have been possible":
Cox Report, Overview, p. 2.

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"the PRC stole design information on the U.S. W-70 warhead from Lawrence Livermore Laboratory":
Cox Report, p. 87.

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"further information about these thefts cannot be publicly disclosed":
Ibid.

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a thirty-six-page angry rebuttal to the Cox Report:
Information Office of the State Council, China, "Facts Speak Louder Than Words and Lies Will Collapse on Themselves," July 15, 1999,
http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/zmgx/zmgx/Political%20Relationship/t35103.htm
.

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"China Masters Neutron Bomb Technology":
Seth Faison, "China Proclaims It Designed Its Own Neutron Bomb,"
New York Times,
July 15, 1999.

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China "had successfully stolen" more secret information about the neutron bomb:
Cox Report, p. 87.

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because the Chinese test in 1988 was not successful:
Shirley A. Kan,
China: Suspected Acquisition of US Nuclear Weapon Secrets
, CRS Report for Congress, February 1, 2006, p. 4.

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"including ... the neutron bomb":
Central Intelligence Agency, "Key Findings: The Intelligence Community Damage Assessment on the Implications of China's Acquisition of US Nuclear Weapons Information on the Development of Future Chinese Weapons," April 21, 1999,
https://www.cia.gov/news-information/press-releases-statements/press-release-archive-1999/key-findings.html
.

8. THE WALK-IN

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He threw the duffle bag out of a second-story window:
Interview with US counterintelligence officer, 2009.

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CIA headquarters officials then gave provisional operational approval to enroll the walk-in:
Interview with CIA Directorate of Operations officer, 1999.

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the Chinese secret document ... gave the exact diameter of the W-88's primary, 115mm, or about four and a half inches.... the W-88's primary was "two-point aspherical" ... the radius of the round secondary [w]as 172mm, or just under 7 inches, and ... the primary of the W-88 was at the tapered tip of the warhead, forward of the secondary.... the overall length of the warhead [w]as 1522mm, or 5 feet:
Ibid.

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"its most survivable and enduring nuclear strike capability":
Website of the US Navy, Fact File, "Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarines,"
http://www.navy.mil/navy data/fact_display.asp?cid=4100&tid=200&ct=4
.

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"A single broadside from such a submarine—all 24 missiles fired at the same time—can destroy any nation on the face of the earth":
Captain Edward L. Beach, USN (ret), "The Submarine Mission Today,"
Undersea Warfare
2, no. 3 (spring 2000).

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"his answer went off the charts":
Interview with CIA Directorate of Operations officer, 1999.

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"We didn't like the way this whole thing looked":
Interview with former US intelligence official, September 2008.

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"She must have a big 'No' stamp":
Interview with former FBI special agent, 2009.

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"There is a high possibility of failure unless you understand these weapons":
Interview with CIA Directorate of Operations officer, 1999.