[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 8791-8793]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 CHINA'S THEFTS OF U.S. NUCLEAR SECRETS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, last week I came to the floor to 
point out some of the misleading statements coming out of the White 
House with respect to China's thefts of U.S. nuclear secrets. I said 
that the White House had misled the public when it was said by the 
President that no one had reported to him about Chinese spying, when in 
reality National Security Advisor Sandy Berger had made such a report 
to him in July of 1997.
  The President said on March 19, when asked by a reporter, and the 
reporter asked this question, ``Can you assure the American people that 
under your watch no valuable secrets were lost?'' And the President 
responded, ``Can I tell you there has been no espionage at the labs 
since I have been President? I can tell you that no one has reported to 
me that they suspect such a thing has occurred.''
  Well, Sandy Berger, the head of the National Security Council, in the 
fall of 1996 and early 1997 was told by the Department of Energy, their 
intelligence people, their security people, that there had been 
espionage taking place at the nuclear laboratories, at Los Alamos and 
others.
  Now, he is the head of the National Security Council. He is appointed 
by the President to inform him about national security matters. He is 
the chief national security fellow. And yet the President said he had 
no knowledge of any espionage taking place; and he said this in March 
of 1999 this year, just last month or so.
  And then again on NBC's ``Meet the Press,'' Sandy Berger, the head of 
the NSC, said his first Energy Department briefing with Chinese spying 
was very general and very preliminary, said he did not really know 
about it. He went on to say at that interview, at that stage Mr. Berger 
said to Mr. Tim Russert of NBC, ``We did not really know how and we did 
not really know what was taking place.''

                              {time}  2015

  These facts are not facts. These assertions do not square with the 
facts.
  In April of 1996, Notra Trulock, the Energy Department's Chief of 
Intelligence, briefed Sandy Berger about the full extent of Chinese 
spying. Berger was told that China had stolen W-88 nuclear warhead 
designs and the neutron bomb data. He was told that a spy might still 
be passing secrets to China at Los Alamos. He was even told that the 
theft of neutron bomb data occurred in 1995 under President Clinton's 
administration. So if he was told all that, why did he not go right 
into the Oval Office and tell the President? Well, I believe he did, 
and the President stated, later on, that he did know about these 
things.
  At the end of the briefing, Trulock referred to a recent intelligence 
report. In the report a Chinese source said that officials inside 
China's intelligence service were boasting about how they had just 
stolen U.S. secrets and how those secrets allowed them to improve their 
neutron bomb. The neutron bomb is a weapon that could be launched at an 
American city, kill everybody in it but leave the infrastructure, the 
buildings and bridges and the roads intact. The source said that the 
Chinese agents solved the 1988 design problem by coming back to the 
United States in 1995 to steal more secrets.
  According to one official, the intelligence about the neutron bomb 
was hot off the press, and it was included in the briefing to warn the 
White House of the possibility of continued Chinese espionage at Los 
Alamos and Livermore. It was a pretty specific briefing, one official 
said who was present.
  When Paul Redmund, the CIA's chief spy hunter, was given a similar 
briefing from Mr. Trulock a few months earlier, he said that China's 
spying was far more damaging to the United States security than Aldrich 
Ames, who is now in prison, and would turn out to be as bad or worse 
than the Rosenbergs, who were executed for giving top nuclear 
information to the Soviets back in the 1940s.
  Mr. Speaker, contrary to his claims on Meet the Press, the fact is 
that Sandy Berger knew who, knew how and really knew what with respect 
to the Chinese spying right then in his April 19, 1996, Energy 
Department briefing. So why does the head of the NSC, Sandy Berger, 
claim that this briefing was so general? Why does he claim that he did 
not brief the President until July of 1997 only after receiving a 
second and supposedly more detailed briefing from Trulock?
  Now, he admits to briefing the President in 1997, but remember what 
the President said in March of this year: ``Can I tell you there has 
been no espionage at the lab since I have been President? I can tell 
you that no one has reported to me they suspect such a thing has 
occurred.'' And yet Mr. Berger does admit that he briefed the President 
in 1997.
  So why was the President misleading the American people? I do not 
know,

[[Page 8792]]

but we need to know why. There are only two explanations. Either Mr. 
Berger was grossly incompetent and did not want to tell the President 
when he should have back in 1996 and is now covering for himself, or he 
wants to protect the President and make it appear that the President 
only found out about the spying in July of 1997.
  But, again, the President said he did not really know anything about 
it, even in March of this year. Is it really likely that Sandy Berger 
after hearing such a detailed and alarming picture of Chinese spying, 
that he would keep this information to himself instead of immediately 
informing the President? And if he did so, if he did not tell the 
President when he found out about it, he should be fired.
  The New York Times reported that in 1998, in a sworn reply to the 
House committee chaired by Christopher Cox, the Cox report which we 
have read so much about, Berger first said that the White House was not 
told about the espionage until 1998. So Berger apparently has changed 
his story as more and more of the facts have come out.
  When David Leavy, the National Security Council spokesman, was asked 
to explain the discrepancy about when Berger informed the President, he 
said that after the Cox committee process, we started to remember more. 
They started to remember more about Chinese espionage on our nuclear 
facilities at our nuclear laboratories? They just did not tell the 
truth.
  Are we supposed to believe that Sandy Berger forgot about the 
briefing of the President on Chinese spying in July of 1997? That is 
just crazy. How could we believe anything that the Clinton 
administration says about this when the President says he was not told, 
did not know anything about it in 1999 in March? Berger says he told 
him in 1997 and said he did not tell him anything before that when he 
knew about it in the fall of 1996.
  Worse than that is the man that they knew or believed was giving 
these secrets to the Communist Chinese about our nuclear weaponry that 
makes them on a par with us in many cases, this man was left in the job 
at these laboratories, this man who was supposed to be a spy, for 3 
years. Why was he kept at the laboratory in his top secret position for 
3 years after they knew espionage was taking place from our sources in 
China? Why did they not fire the guy?
  And the FBI went to the Justice Department, not once, not twice, not 
three times, but four times the FBI went to the Justice Department with 
probable cause and said they wanted to put a wiretap on this guy and 
they wanted to have a warrant to investigate his computer to see if he 
was giving information to the Chinese Communists. And the Justice 
Department denied all four of the requests, saying there was not enough 
evidence. Yet that was the only wiretap in 1997 and 1998 that was 
turned down, and it was turned down four times.
  Now, the Justice Department has said they are going to investigate 
this whole thing. But they are the ones who turned down the wiretaps on 
the man that was performing the espionage, according to the FBI, Mr. 
Lee, Wen Ho Lee.
  This whole thing stinks to high heaven. And at the same time this 
espionage was taking place and the Chinese Communists were being able 
to target not one American city but 10 American cities with one missile 
with 10 warheads, with pinpoint accuracy, at the time all this 
technology was being transferred and we were leaving this guy in place 
at the nuclear laboratory, the White House and the Democrat National 
Committee was getting campaign contributions from sources in Communist 
China.
  Mr. Johnny Chung will be appearing before my committee next week and 
will be questioned about these conduit contributions into the Democrat 
National Committee and into the Clinton-Gore Reelection Committee.
  What I cannot understand is how the White House could have all these 
Chinese Communist businesspeople coming in and out of the White House 
with Johnny Chung. He was in there 49 times. He said, the only way you 
get in and out of the White House is by putting money in because it is 
like a turnstile at a subway station.
  While all this money was changing hands and going into the coffers of 
the President's Reelection Committee, this espionage was taking place 
at our nuclear laboratories and the man was left in place even though 
the Justice Department was asked four times by the FBI for electronic 
surveillance.
  These questions must be answered for the American people, because the 
security of every man, woman and child has been jeopardized by this 
espionage that has taken place.
  Now, the thing that bothers me even in addition to all this is that 
when the President went to China last year, he stood beside President 
Jiang; and President Jiang said that nobody in his government was 
involved in giving illegal campaign contributions to the President's 
Reelection Committee or to the Democrat National Committee.
  Johnny Chung has said that the head of the Chinese People's 
Liberation Army Military Intelligence Agency, the head man, the head 
spy for that country, met with him along with the head of their 
aerospace industry; and this lady, who is the head of their aerospace 
industry, is the daughter of the fellow who used to be the head of the 
People's Liberation Army and a member of the Communist Chinese 
hierarchy, the Politburo. They met with Johnny Chung and they gave him 
$300,000 to give to the President's Reelection Committee and to the 
Democrat National Committee. Part of that was delivered; part of it Mr. 
Chung kept.
  How could the President stand beside President Jiang in 1998 and say 
this? When President Jiang said that they were not giving any money, he 
says, I do believe him, President Jiang, that he had not ordered or 
authorized or approved any such thing and that he could find no 
evidence that anybody in governmental authority had done that.
  The President said that at the same time that he knew espionage had 
taken place at Livermore and at Los Alamos, because he had been briefed 
by Sandy Berger. He knew that illegal campaign contributions had come 
into the United States from Communist China, and he said he believed 
President Jiang. Why was that said?
  Again, in April of this year, how could the President listen to 
Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji deny any Chinese involvement in 
spying and espionage? President Clinton said, ``China is a big country 
with a big government, and I can only say that America is a big country 
with a big government and occasionally things happen in this government 
that I don't know anything about.''
  Talk about a disingenuous statement. In China, in Communist China, if 
you are involved in this kind of activity and the government does not 
know about it, they put you in prison or they kill you. Especially 
nuclear espionage. Yet the President said, ``Well, that's a big country 
and maybe they didn't know about it.'' Espionage at our laboratories, 
giving them nuclear technology that could kill 50 to 60 million 
Americans? Mr. Speaker, our leadership cannot continue to blindly 
accept each and every denial that comes out of China.
  Newsweek recently reported that a team of U.S. nuclear experts 
practically fainted, these are our top scientists, they practically 
fainted when the CIA showed them the data that was obtained from its 
sources in China.
  What did this data show, Mr. Speaker? It showed Chinese scientists 
routinely using phrases, descriptions and concepts that came straight 
out of our weapons laboratories.
  One of the officials close to the investigation said, the Chinese 
penetration is total. They are deep, deep into the lab's black 
programs. That means the nuclear technology that we have spent decades 
developing, that have cost the American taxpayer billions of dollars, 
that ensured our national security against a first strike by a 
Communist country or an adversary, Saddam Hussein or whoever it might 
be, has been compromised and jeopardized; and the Chinese Communists 
are deep into every one of our top nuclear missile programs.

[[Page 8793]]

  Now, they say that we are the only superpower in the world. I can 
tell you that the Chinese Communist government is advancing their 
nuclear technology with this espionage that has taken place to such a 
degree that, if they are not on a par with us yet, they are getting 
very, very close; and we are going to be in jeopardy if we ever have a 
conflict with them. They have 1.2 or 1.3 billion people. We have 225 or 
230 million people. In a nuclear exchange, they could sacrifice 200 
million people. But we could not sacrifice 50 million. Yet they now 
have the technology with this espionage to really cause our economy and 
our country severe problems, and I am talking about 50 to 60 million 
people killed with a first strike and our economy to be in a complete 
shambles.
  We need to have the answers to this. We need to make sure that this 
kind of espionage never takes place again. And we need to make 
absolutely sure that those who were responsible, either through neglect 
or intentionally allowing this to happen, be brought to justice and be 
held accountable.
  I intend to come to this floor every week until we get through this 
mess for 5 minutes or for an hour to bring this information to the 
attention of the American people.
  Right now, we are all paying attention to Kosovo, halfway around the 
world, an area where we do not have any vital national interest. And 
while we are talking about Kosovo and our heart goes out to those 
people over there who are suffering, while we are talking about that, 
espionage has taken place in the United States that endangers every 
man, woman and child, and nobody is even paying any attention to it. It 
is a darn shame. It shall not continue if I have anything to do with 
it.

                          ____________________