UC Scientist Connected to China Leaks Is Fired

WASHINGTON —  A University of California contract scientist was fired Monday from his job at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory after he failed to cooperate with an FBI investigation into allegations of Chinese espionage of U.S. nuclear weapons secrets.

The computer scientist has been the focus of a four-year FBI inquiry into still-unproven suspicions that Beijing covertly obtained top-secret data on nuclear warhead structure and design from U.S. weapons laboratories in the 1980s.

The FBI gave a polygraph test to the Taiwan-born scientist in December and again last month but did not release the results. The FBI interviewed him Friday and again on Sunday, according to a U.S. official familiar with the case.

He said that the scientist had been allowed to retain his job at Los Alamos during the long counterespionage investigation in the hope that he would assist with the inquiry but the FBI “didn’t get much cooperation.”

“As a result, our reason for keeping him on board no longer made sense,” the official said. The scientist was not arrested and the Department of Energy did not release his name.

FBI spokesman Bill Carter declined comment on the case. “We can’t really talk about it,” he said.

Still Trying to Assess Extent of Damage

The University of California manages and operates the Los Alamos and Sandia National laboratories in New Mexico and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Berkeley. Los Alamos is about 35 miles from Sante Fe.

Stuart Nagurka, Department of Energy spokesman, said that the scientist was fired for failing to properly inform the Los Alamos Laboratory and the Energy Department about contact with people from a sensitive country, for failing to properly safeguard classified material and for apparently attempting to deceive the laboratory about security related issues.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson recommended the dismissal after he received an FBI briefing early Monday, Nagurka said. The scientist was handed a letter of termination by his supervisor later in the day. There were no indications that anyone else would be fired.

Appearing on Cable News Network, Richardson pledged the administration’s full cooperation with a Senate committee’s investigation of the alleged spying. “We will not tolerate the theft of our secrets,” he said.

Richardson said that the administration still is trying to assess the extent of the damage. But, he added, “the message is clear. We have to tighten security at all of these installations. That has happened.”

Nagurka said the scientist was transferred from a classified workplace to a nonclassified job several months ago and that his security clearance was later suspended. He said that the dates for the changes were not available.

The counterespionage investigation began in 1995 when experts at Los Alamos alerted the FBI and CIA to suspicions that a string of nine Chinese underground nuclear weapons tests between 1990 and 1995 suggested that Beijing had unexpectedly leaped ahead in its technical skills.

They warned that the Chinese appeared to be using designs similar to those developed in the early 1980s at Los Alamos to miniaturize the shape of nuclear materials in the W-88 warhead, which sits atop the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile. The W-88 is the smallest and most modern warhead in the U.S. arsenal.

Suspicions were also raised when U.S. intelligence agencies obtained what appeared to be a top-secret Chinese nuclear weapons document from 1988 that specifically mentioned the W-88 and several of its key features. The experts concluded that China had not obtained blueprints or other crucial design documents from the United States but apparently had learned highly secret information about the warhead’s weight, size, configuration and explosive power.

The W-88 design allows five to eight nuclear warheads to be carried up to 4,000 miles by a Trident missile and detonate with more than 20 times the power of the U.S. bomb dropped at Hiroshima. China does not currently have missiles with multiple warheads.

Partly as a result, the Clinton administration ordered stepped up counterintelligence efforts in February last year at Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia laboratories. The measures included hiring CIA and FBI counterintelligence veterans to direct security at the labs and limiting access by foreign visitors as well as overseas trips by lab employees.

The case, aspects of which were reported in several newspapers in recent weeks, has added to mounting tensions between Washington and Beijing over several recent high-level cases of alleged Chinese spying or misuse of American technology.

The Los Alamos case is potentially the most serious, however, and gives further ammunition to administration plans to research and develop a regional missile defense system to protect the 100,000 U.S. troops in Asia, as well as such allies as South Korea, Japan, and possibly Taiwan.

In addition, the Los Alamos case undoubtedly will darken the atmosphere when Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji visits the White House next month. On Sunday, the Beijing government denied allegations of spying at Los Alamos, calling U.S. media reports “irresponsible and unfounded.”

Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said that he would call hearings into the Los Alamos case. The panel already is looking into commercial technology transfers that critics say could help China upgrade its ballistic missile force.

House Report Expected to Increase Concern

In December, a House select committee led by Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) delivered to the White House a 700-page classified report that concluded U.S. transfers of satellite and other sensitive technology to China had harmed American national security. An unclassified version of the report will be released in coming weeks and is likely to further fuel public concerns over Chinese espionage.

The administration also rejected a license application from the Hughes Electronics Corp. to sell China a $400-million satellite telephone system, citing ties between the Chinese purchasing consortium and senior members of the Chinese military.

China’s nuclear force is still far smaller and technically far less advanced than that of the United States. A recent report by the U.S.-based Natural Resources Defense Council said that China conducted 45 nuclear tests between 1964 and 1996, when Beijing signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. U.S. experts estimate that China has about 400 nuclear weapons, and a small ballistic missile force capable of reaching the United States.

By comparison, the United States has conducted 1,030 nuclear tests, not including the two atomic bombs it dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.