DATE=12/20/1999 TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP TITLE=THE MYSTEROUS CASE OF WEN HO LEE NUMBER=6-11602 BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE DATELINE=WASHINGTON EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS TELEPHONE=619-3335 CONTENT= INTRO: The Federal Bureau of Investigation has finally arrested an ethnic Chinese scientists, Wen Ho Lee, accusing him of removing secret data from the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The case has been widely publicized since a government report in January accused the Energy Department of lax security in guarding the nation's nuclear secrets. Mr. Lee is said to have transferred nuclear weapons information to his home computer without authorization. But the question of whether he is also a spy for China, remains to be proved. And now, Mr. Lee is fighting back, with lawsuits against the U-S government for invasion of his privacy. The case has generated a good deal of comment in the nation's editorial columns. We get a sampling now from __________ in today's U-S Opinion Roundup. TEXT: Mr. Lee has worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory for years, until earlier this year when he was fired pending the outcome of this investigation. Although the F-B-I has been investigating Mr. Lee for three-years, his case did not become public until this year. When it did, there were suggestions by the government that Mr. Lee had passed vital secrets on the miniaturization of U-S nuclear bombs to the Chinese. But the government apparently does not have any hard evidence to support those early charges, only that he took classified information home and entered it on his home computer. Now Mr. Lee and his wife are suing the F-B-I, and the Justice and Energy Departments for violating his rights under the government's privacy laws. Mr. Lee claims the agencies illegally provided personal and confidential information to the news media that portrayed him as a spy when they did not have facts to prove it. We begin our sampling with a somewhat sarcastic editorial in the [Minneapolis, Minnesota] "Star- Tribune". VOICE: O, how the China spying case has shriveled. . Six-months ago, Republicans in Congress were conjuring images of wildly successful Chinese espionage efforts against the United States on Bill Clinton's watch -- indeed with the president's money-grubbing complicity. . Exhibit One in the case against China and [Mr.] Clinton was the obviously guilty Wen Ho Lee, nuclear scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Why was [Mr.] Lee obviously guilty? Because though he is an American citizen, he was born in Taiwan and liked to associate with Chinese scientists. Probably likes Szechwan [food] too. . The entire spying issue looks very much like a tempest in a pot of green tea. . Perhaps [Mr.] Lee is a legitimate national-security risk, but right now he looks a lot more like a man tagged to serve as scapegoat. TEXT: The San Diego "Union-Tribune" is upset at the way the government has handled the case, and says that although there may be "The scent of espionage" to the affair, . "scientist Wen Ho Lee deserves a fair trial." VOICE: Wen Ho Lee rocketed to the heights of American public attention after the January release of the Cox Commission report on Chinese espionage at our nation's nuclear weapons laboratories. Since that time, [Mr.] Lee, a Taiwan-born American citizen, has been under suspicion of having passed our nation's nuclear secrets to Beijing. [Mr.] Lee, who was fired from his job . in March, has proclaimed his innocence, but .the . government [has] indicted [him] on 59 counts of violating the Atomic Energy Act by allegedly moving classified data from secured Los Alamos computers to unsecured computers. . Politicians only fueled the flames by arguing that all foreign scientists should be barred from our nuclear weapons laboratories. /// OPT /// Further fuel was supplied with thinly veiled comments sometimes linking Asian- Americans under suspicion for making or accepting illegal campaign contributions to the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign to the findings of the report. TEXT: In San Francisco, where the nation's largest ethnic Chinese population lives, "The San Francisco Chronicle" tried to put the Lee affair in wider perspective. VOICE: Mr. Lee has become a symbol of the debate over proper relations with Beijing. In broad terms, trade and political links between this country and China are too important for a single espionage case to disrupt. But this general dictum must go with a watchful attitude and tough punishment for lapses in security. It is important to find just what he did, not just to settle his own case, but also to inform the rest of the country about how secure our nuclear arsenal is. TEXT: "The New York Times" agrees with "The Chronicle". He must, the paper says, get a fair trial, but even the lesser charges brought against him, are quite serious in their own right. VOICE: In view of the case against Mr. Lee, his indictment last Friday [12/10] seems warranted. At least for now, he has not been charged with the graver crime of espionage, because evidence is lacking that he passed these stolen nuclear secrets to China or any other foreign power. Because of the publicity, political pressures and accusations of ethnic stereotyping produced by this case, it is essential that Mr. Lee's right to a fair trial be protected. The government's case must be vigorously tested, even though much of the evidence involves nuclear secrets. .. Even if Mr. Lee was not involved in giving nuclear weapons secrets to China, the systematic copying and removal of highly classified material he is charged with is a se5rious offense, carrying a potential penalty of life imprisonment. If a fair trial establishes his guilt, he should be punished. TEXT: Lastly, another highly critical assessment of the government's handling of this case, from "The Los Angeles Times". VOICE: Whatever the extent of actual espionage, the investigations conducted by the Energy Department and the F-B-I are now known to have been astonishingly inept, incomplete and -- in their premature public identification of Wen Ho Lee as the prime suspect -- grossly prejudicial. Asian-American organizations and others are asserting that [Mr.] Lee, a Taiwanese who is a naturalized American, is a victim of political animosity toward China and, ultimately, or racial prejudice. That is a disturbing allegation. But given the maladroit way this espionage investigation has been handled, it is not one that can be casually dismissed. TEXT: On that note, we conclude this sampling of comment on the controversial case of former U-S Nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, now accused of improper handling of classified material. NEB/ANG/RAE 20-Dec-1999 14:27 PM EDT (20-Dec-1999 1927 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America .