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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zoltan! who wrote (37582)	3/10/1999 10:25:00 AM
From: JBL	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

Congressman Says Los Alamos Leaks Part of Larger Pattern _________________________________________________________________________________________________ 7.56 a.m. ET (1256 GMT) March 10, 1999 By Tabassum Zakaria WASHINGTON — China's reported theft of secrets from a major U.S. nuclear weapons facility is part of a wide pattern of spying by Beijing in the past two decades, the head of a special congressional investigation said Tuesday. Rep. Chris Cox, who chaired a special committee that conducted a six-month inquiry last year, said disclosure of a leak from Los Alamos nuclear research laboratory in New Mexico was "the latest in public, it is not the latest in private." Following newspaper reports and criticism by Republicans, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announced Monday that a Chinese-American scientist at the laboratory, who allegedly passed secrets to China, had been fired. Cox, a California Republican, told Reuters in an interview: "The topic the energy secretary dealt with publicly yesterday ... it is a part of a much larger pattern that our report addresses." The committee's report, completed in December, is expected to be made public by the end of this month. Congress and the White House are privately negotiating how much of the report can be made public and what parts should be deemed classified. "There has been a multi-decade effort that continues today targeting America's most sensitive military technology by the People's Republic of China," Cox said. "There is a much broader context of the events of the last 24 hours," he said. "Our report focused in substantial part on PRC (People's Republic of China) espionage across a wide variety of fronts," Cox said. The panel, the House Select Committee on U.S. National Security/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China, was set up after allegations that Hughes Electronics Corp. and Loral Space & Communications Ltd. had transferred technology to China after satellites belonging to Hughes and Loral were destroyed in Chinese rocket explosions. The two companies had been using Chinese missiles to launch commercial satellites into space. The committee's five Republicans and four Democrats unanimously approved the report in December. The espionage from the Los Alamos laboratory allegedly occurred during the 1980s, when Republicans Ronald Reagan and George Bush were president. China has dismissed the allegations as "irresponsible" and unfounded. The report's findings led to 38 specific recommendations, "many of which are directed at establishing serious counter- intelligence programs throughout the (U.S.) government," Cox said. "Additional recommendations were directed at the sharing of information within the executive branch about (Chinese) collection efforts," Cox said. For example, the Commerce Department and State Department "have often been left out of the loop when it comes to our own intelligence information about PRC espionage," Cox said. Asked what may happen if the White House decides not to release as much of the report as Congress wants to make public, Cox said: "The Intelligence Committee under our rules would recommend to the full House that a report that has already been scrubbed be released." But the reactions might be different from those made by the White House, he added. "We're trying to work this out," Cox said. "That is only a contingency plan."