China: Suspected Acquisition of U.S. Nuclear Weapon Secrets

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answer and was not interested in discussing the subject. Lee acknowledged during
the polygraph that he was giving a full account at that time and had not reported the
incident in his earlier trip report, because of fear of getting into trouble. After the
test, the examiners told Lee that he passed the polygraph.
Nevertheless, DOE suspended Lee’s access to the X Division and transferred
him to the Theoretical Division (T Division) that was responsible for unclassified
research. Lee wrote in his book that he still tried to access his office in the X
Division to continue work on a scientific paper for publication, including an attempt
on Christmas eve. Then, on January 10, 1999, the FBI interrogated Lee at his home.
As was later reported, the FBI’s field office in Albuquerque, New Mexico,
wrote a memo, dated November 19, 1998, to headquarters, recommending that
investigators look into 10 other people who had been named as potential suspects
in DOE’s administrative probe. The field office wrote another memo to headquarters
on January 22, 1999, questioning whether Lee was the prime suspect in the W88
case, in part because he passed the December 1998 polygraph test. 82 Lee wrote in his
book that the local office recommended that the FBI close the investigation on him
and the acting director of the T Division, Dan Butler, informed Lee on February 4,
1999, that he could go back to the X Division.
But on February 8, 1999, an FBI agent, Carol Covert, asked to question Lee.
Then, the FBI gave Lee another polygraph test on February 10, 1999, and told him
he failed the test, according to Lee’s account.
In his book, Lee wrote that the FBI searched his office in the T Division on
March 5 and found that he had copied some files from the X Division onto a
directory on the green, open computer system. Lee noted that he protected his files
under three levels of passwords and that the files were not classified, but were
categorized as “Protected As Restricted Data” (PARD). According to Lee, he
downloaded the files as backup files to protect them in case the lab changed the
computer operating system again or the system crashed again. He did not hide the
files, gave them obvious filenames, and recorded the files in a notebook he clearly
labeled “How to Download Files.” Lee acknowledged that “it was a security
violation for me to make classified tapes outside the fence and to leave the PARD
files on the green, open system.” But he added that he left the files there “as another
backup, for my convenience, not for any espionage purpose.” 83 Lee maintained that
after he was fired, the files were classified Secret or Confidential, and he did not steal
them.
Some Administration officials reportedly said that none of the legacy codes that
Lee had transferred to an unclassified computer appeared to have been accessed by
82 Loeb, Vernon, “Spy Probe Raised Doubts,” Washington Post, March 7, 2000.
83 Lee, p. 122.