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

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in the investigation, Charles Washington and Michael Soukup, also said that Lee was
singled out as a suspect because of his ethnicity, not because of evidence. 199
As published in Lee’s 2001 book, Vrooman earlier had written a letter to
Senator Conrad Burns on May 11, 1999. Vrooman wrote that “the single
distinguishing feature of the [administration inquiry done by Mr. Trulock’s staff at
DOE] that identified Lee was the complete lack of evidence that he committed
espionage. ... Ethnicity was a crucial component in identifying Lee as a suspect.
Caucasians with the same background as Lee were ignored.” 200
A news report said that Notra Trulock, who wrote the administrative inquiry and
led the investigation until the summer of 1996, had compiled a list of 70 people at
Los Alamos who visited China and then narrowed the list to 12 people. He said he
give the list to the FBI, which then eliminated the other 11 suspects, leaving Wen Ho
Lee as the prime suspect. The initial list of 70 people included those with no access
to classified or weapons information and who traveled to China on non-work related
trips. One Caucasian scientist, however, who was a specialist in the same field as
Lee (hydrodynamics), worked on classified information, and went to China on a
professional trip, was not among the 12. Further, Robert Vrooman said that there
were 15 people who conducted nuclear weapons research and visited China, but were
not on the list of 12 suspects. 201
Notra Trulock, who headed the counterintelligence investigation at DOE,
insisted that “race was never a factor.” 202 The DOE investigator who focused on Lee,
Daniel Bruno, said on November 1, 2000, that Lee was the prime suspect because of
his behavior, not because of his ethnicity. 203
Senators Thompson and Lieberman, whose Governmental Affairs Committee
reviewed the investigation, wrote on August 26, 1999, that “the evidence we have
seen and heard provides no basis for the claim that the initial DOE-FBI inquiry
focused upon the Lees because of their race. Only much later in the process, once
Mr. Lee had already been identified as the chief suspect, did the investigation
consider the Lees’ ethnicity — and then only because, according to FBI
counterintelligence experts, Beijing’s intelligence actively tries to recruit Chinese
American scientists working in sensitive U.S. facilities.” 204 One of these experts,
Paul Moore, who headed the FBI’s counterintelligence efforts against China from
199 Loeb, Vernon and Walter Pincus, “Espionage Whistleblower Resigns,” Washington Post,
August 24, 1999.
200 Lee, p. 158.
201 James Sterngold, “U.S. to Reduce Case Against Scientist to a Single Charge,” New York
Times, September 11, 2000.
202 Broad, William J., “Official Denies Spy Suspect Was Victim of Bias,” New York Times,
August 19, 1999.
203 Loeb, Vernon, “Prober: Lee’s Ethnicity Wasn’t Factor,” Washington Post, November 2,
2000.
204 Thompson, Fred and Joseph Lieberman, “On the Chinese Espionage Investigation,”
(letter to the editor), Washington Post, August 26, 1999.