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Wen Ho Lee (Chinese: 李文和; Pinyin: Lǐ Wénhé; born December 21, 1939) is a Taiwanese American scientist who worked for the University of California operated Los Alamos National Laboratory and was accused of stealing secrets about the U.S.'s nuclear arsenal for China. After investigators dropped these original accusations, the government conducted a new investigation and charged Lee with improper handling of restricted data, one count of which he pleaded guilty to as part of a plea bargain. Lee's case has been compared to the Dreyfus Affair, and some consider it to be a textbook example of the harm that can be done to an individual when the power of government and the power of media unite against one person. Others, however, note that Lee improperly and illegally copied national secrets, and suspect that even if he did not sell these secrets on the black market he kept them as "insurance" to be sold if he were ever fired (he was threatened with termination in 1996). Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: 汉è¯æ‹¼éŸ³; Traditional Chinese: 漢語拼音; Pinyin: Hà nyÇ” PÄ«nyÄ«n), also known as scheme of the Chinese phonetic alphabet (Simplified Chinese: 汉è¯æ‹¼éŸ³æ–¹æ¡ˆ; Traditional Chinese: 漢語拼音方案; Pinyin: Hà nyÇ” PÄ«nyÄ«n fÄngà n), while pin means spell(ing) and yin means sound(s)), is a system of romanization (phonemic notation...
December 21 is the 355th day of the year (356th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ...
A Taiwanese American is an American of Taiwanese ancestry. ...
The University of California (UC) is a public university system in the state of California. ...
Los Alamos National Laboratory, aerial view from 1995. ...
Motto: E pluribus unum (1789 to 1956) (Latin: Out of Many, One) In God We Trust (1956 to present) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington, D.C. Largest city New York City Official language(s) None at federal level; English de facto Government • President • Vice President Federal Republic George...
The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 km (11 mi) above the hypocenter. ...
A plea bargain is an agreement in a criminal case in which a prosecutor and a defendant arrange to settle the case against the defendant. ...
The Dreyfus Affair was a political scandal which divided France during the 1890s and early 1900s. ...
Born in Nantou, Taiwan, Lee got his B.S. in mechanical engineering from National Cheng Kung University. He received a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in 1969. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in the 1970s. Nantou is the name of several places: Nantou County (南投縣) of Taiwan Nantou City (南投市) a city in Nantou County Nantou, Guangdong (南头镇) a town in the Guangdong province This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...
A Bachelor of Science (B.S., B.Sc. ...
The W16 engine from a Bugatti Veyron Mechanical engineering is a very broad field of engineering that involves the application of physical principles for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. ...
National Cheng Kung University (Traditional Chinese: 國立æˆåŠŸå¤§å¸; Simplified Chinese: 国立æˆåŠŸå¤§å¦; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Kuó-lì Chéng-kÅ«ng Tà -hsüéh; Tongyong Pinyin: GuóLì ChéngGong Dà Syué), abbreviated as NCKU (æˆå¤§, Chéng Dà ), is located in Tainan City, Taiwan. ...
Doctor of Philosophy, or Ph. ...
Texas A&M University, often Texas A&M, A&M or TAMU for short, is the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System. ...
Naturalization is the process whereby a person becomes a national of a nation, or a citizen of a country, other than the one of his birth. ...
Investigation After an intelligence agent from the People's Republic of China (PRC) gave U.S. agents papers which indicated that they knew the design of a particularly modern U.S. warhead, the W88, the FBI started an investigation codenamed Operation Kindred Spirit to look into how China could have obtained that design. The investigation eventually fixated on Wen Ho Lee to a degree that was later widely criticized. The W88 is a United States nuclear warhead, with an estimated yield of 475kt. ...
Official FBI Seal The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a Federal criminal investigative and intelligence agency which is the principal investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ...
Under pressure from the U.S Department of Energy, which funded the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the University of California fired Lee from his job at the laboratory on March 8, 1999. On the same day, Lee's name was leaked to the media, with the New York Times publishing a story about his case. However, FBI investigators soon determined that the design data the PRC had obtained could not have come from the Los Alamos Lab, because it related to information that would only have been available to someone like a so-called "downstream" contractor, meaning one involved in the final warhead production process, and this information was only created after the weapon design left the Lab. March 8 is the 67th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (68th in Leap years). ...
1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...
The New York Times is a newspaper published in New York City by Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. ...
Even though this left Wen Ho Lee apparently in the clear, the FBI and the Department of Energy decided at this point to conduct a full forensic examination of Lee's office computer.
Indictment, Imprisonment and Release The examination of Lee's computer determined that he had backed up his work files, much of which was classified as secret restricted data, onto tapes, and had also transferred these files from a system used for processing classified data onto another, unsecure, system designated for unclassified data. Lee was arrested in December 1999 and held without bail in solitary confinement for 278 days until September 13, 2000, when he accepted a plea bargain from the federal government. 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...
Solitary confinement, colloquially referred to as the hole (or in British English the block), is a punishment in which a prisoner is denied contact with any other persons, excluding guards, chaplains and doctors. ...
September 13 is the 256th day of the year (257th in leap years). ...
This article is about the year 2000. ...
A plea bargain is an agreement in a criminal case in which a prosecutor and a defendant arrange to settle the case against the defendant. ...
Wen Ho Lee pleaded guilty to one felony count of improperly downloading Restricted Data. In return, the government released him from jail and dropped the other 58 counts of illegally downloading classified data from the computers at the Los Alamos weapons lab. Judge James A. Parker offered an apology to Lee for what he called "abuse of power" by the federal government in its prosecution of their case, while reiterating that Lee did plead guilty to a "serious crime." Later, President Bill Clinton remarked that he had been "troubled" by the way Lee was treated. A felony, in many common law legal systems, is the term for a very serious crime, whereas misdemeanors are considered to be less serious offenses. ...
The presidential seal was used by President Hayes in 1880 and last modified in 1959 by adding the 50th star for Hawaii. ...
William Jefferson Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946) was the 42nd President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001. ...
Post-release In his memoir, My Country Versus Me, Lee charged that his Chinese ethnicity was a primary factor behind his prosecution by the government. As evidence of such racial profiling, he cited cases of several scientists of non-Chinese ancestry who were responsible for similar security transgressions but were able to continue their career. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh categorically denied these charges. After Mr. Lee’s sentencing, investigators at LANL were able to fully examine the evidence against Mr. Lee. This was never done by the FBI and access by LANL personnel was not allowed until the FBI investigation was complete. Race in the profile of a persons considered likely to commit a particular crime or type of crime (see Offender Profiling). ...
Louis Joseph Freeh (born January 6, 1950 in Jersey City, New Jersey of German and Italian extraction) was nominated by President Clinton to be the Director of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). ...
Former Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson, who had oversight of Los Alamos National Laboratory at the time and effectively ordered Lee's firing, is considered, by some, likely to have been the mysterious source who leaked Lee's name to reporters. Lee has sued the Energy Department, the FBI, and unnamed individuals to recover damages for harm to his reputation caused by leaks of confidential information from the espionage investigation. The success of his case hinges on knowing the identity of the leaker, and several reporters privy to this information have become embroiled in legal battles as they defy court orders to reveal their sources. The ultimate closure of the Wen Ho Lee saga has yet to be achieved, with the outcome now depending on whether a reporter's first amendment right to protect a source extends even to cases where the sources are possibly committing libel against another citizen. The United States Secretary of Energy is the head of the United States Department of Energy, concerned as the name suggests, with The Secretary is a member of the Presidents Cabinet. ...
William Blaine Bill Richardson (born November 15, 1947) is an American politician and a member of the Democratic Party. ...
On June 2, 2006, it was announced that the government and five news orginizations settled the privacy lawsuit with Dr. Lee. The government agreed to pay $900,000 in legal fees and associated taxes, while the news outlets will pay $750,000. Lee quoted "We are hopeful that the agreements reached today will send the strong message that government officials and journalists must and should act responsibly in discharging their duties and be sensitive to the privacy interests afforded to every citizen of this country."
See also The Timeline of the Chinagate controversy consists of documented information relating both to the 1996 U.S. campaign finance scandal and the Peoples Republic of Chinas alleged nuclear espionage against the United States detailed in the Congressional report known as the Cox Report. ...
External links
Further reading - Wen Ho Lee and Helen Zia, My Country Versus Me: The First-Hand Account by the Los Alamos Scientist Who Was Falsely Accused of Being a Spy (Hyperion, 2003) ISBN 0786886870.
- Dan Stober and Ian Hoffman, A Convenient Spy: Wen Ho Lee and the Politics of Nuclear Espionage (Simon & Schuster, 2002) ISBN 0743223780.
- Notra Trulock, Code Name Kindred Spirit: Inside the Chinese Nuclear Espionage Scandal (Encounter Books, 2002) ISBN 1893554511.
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