Associated Press ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- The FBI scheduled its first debriefing Tuesday for former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee.
October 17, 2000
FBI to Begin Debriefing Scientist
The FBI wants to know the reasons that Lee, who was fired from his job at the federal weapons laboratory in March 1999, downloaded what the government has characterized as the crown jewels of nuclear weapons science to portable tapes.
"What he did with those tapes has been, from the moment of discovery, of paramount concern to the government and explains the government's decision to enter into plea negotiations with Dr. Lee," FBI Director Louis Freeh told a Senate panel three weeks ago.
Freeh and Attorney General Janet Reno have said the opportunity to talk to Lee was the overwhelming reason behind the government's decision to let him plea guilty last month to only one of 59 felony charges against him.
However, a secrecy expert for the Federation of American Scientists questioned why the government waited so long to talk to Lee if his answers were so valuable prosecutors were willing to drop most of the case.
"The deferral of the starting date seems to belie the government's declared urgency about finding out what happened to the tapes," said Steven Aftergood, who has followed the case closely. "If that really was their top priority, why has over a month passed since Wen Ho Lee was set free?"
Lee, freed Sept. 13 after nine months in solitary confinement, has been preparing for debriefings to explain how, when and where he destroyed 17 computer tapes and why he downloaded them from Los Alamos computers.
"He's prepared," his daughter, Alberta Lee, said. "He's been waiting for this and he's ready to get on with his life. We all are."
Before he was fired, Lee worked on codes to mathematically predict the effects of nuclear explosions without actual weapons testing.
The interviews, in a secure federal courthouse room designed to protect any national secrets, mark the first time Lee, 60, has faced FBI questioning since March 1999. At that interrogation, agents suggested if he didn't cooperate he could be executed like Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of espionage in the 1950s.
Freeh and Reno have said agents used an "inappropriate level of aggressiveness" during that interrogation.
This time, one of Lee's attorneys will be present. Lee will be under oath and under the threat of prosecution if government attorneys can prove he is not being truthful.
Reno and Freeh told Congress that Lee deleted some files he downloaded from lab computers after FBI questioning began in 1999 and tried repeatedly to access secure areas after losing his security clearance. Freeh has said convicting Lee likely would have required revealing secrets in court to prove their importance, "crossing an exposure threshold we had already determined at the highest level of government posed an unacceptable risk."
Copyright 2000 Associated Press