UPDATE - NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY SHOCK: CLINTON OVERRIDES POLICY ADVISERS, GIVES MISSILE TECH TO CHINA
DRUDGE REPORT
By Matt Drudge
SAT MAY 16 1998 18:57:49 EDT
President Clinton took the unusual step of reversing his very own Secretary of State, the Defense Department and intelligence agencies when he approved the launching of American-made satellites aboard Chinese rockets, the NEW YORK TIMES will report in Sunday editions.
In a classified order, obtained by the NEW YORK TIMES, Secretary of State Warren Christopher warned that embedded in commercial satellites were tech secrets that could jeopardize "significant military and intelligence interests."
Reporter Jeff Gerth rolls with the latest of what is being described as a series of NEW YORK TIMES exclusives based on evidence coming directly from deep military sources, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
Evidence that is already being comparing to the "Pentagon papers" in some Washington circles.
Building on his Friday report, that revealed witness testimony of Chinese military money finding its way into the Democratic Party during the Summer of '96, Gerth now unloads specific details of how China won rights to launch America satellites.
After one of Washington's "nastiest turf wars," the paper reports, the control of export licensing for communications satellites was taken away from the State Department and was given to the Commerce Department, then run by Ron Brown.
[Commerce over security?]
One curious chain of events surrounds Clinton signing several waivers allowing U.S. satellite launches in China on the very same day that Wang Jun, the man who was often referred to during the campaign finance investigations as a "Chinese arms dealer," visited Washington!
Gerth writes: "That same day, Wang met with Brown, at his expansive office in the Commerce Department. And that evening, Wang attended a coffee at the White House."
The report is riveting.
"In 1992, a number of senators -- including Al Gore, then still a senator from Tennessee -- wrote to the Bush administration warning that China was using launches to 'gain foreign aerospace technology that would be otherwise unavailable to it.'"
Space launch technology is identical to that used by strategic missiles.
Wonder might have changed Gore's mind?
Gerth reported last month that a Federal grand jury is currently investigating whether two American companies illegally gave "China space expertise that significantly advanced Beijing's
ballistic missile program."
But the criminal inquiry was "dealt a serious blow" when President Clinton quietly approved the export to China of similar technology by one of the companies under investigation!
[The Pentagon has produced a classified report that concluded the transfer probably damaged US national security.]
Under investigation is LORAL SPACE AND COMMUNICATIONS. LORAL's chairman and chief executive Bernard Schwartz was the largest personal contributor to the Democratic National Committee last year.
"And Gerth is not done yet," one well-placed newspaper source tells the DRUDGE REPORT.
FOOTNOTE: TIME, NEWSWEEK and the WASHINGTON POST are now chasing the story, albeit running a few miles back.
DD (Drudge Double) |
