need info re: "Clinton sold secrets to the Chinese" crap

[Skittles]

I was on a team outing at Bill Bate's ranch in McKinney, Texas yesterday afteroon and overheard one wingnut allude to the Clinton/Chinese thing. I've never known much about it except that they spent $70,000,000 on never-ending witch hunts and impeached him over a consensual sex act. I know that if there really were anything to these "secrets" allegations Clinton's head would have been on a stick. But when I google I find little information except wingnuts' accusations.

Does anyone here know the real story?

[NJCher]

1. I used to know

Can't recall now but I remember we got into a big tiff over it at Capital Grilling. If you wanted to search the archives, someone over there totally debunked this myth. It was about two years ago.


Cher

[Skittles]

2. I wonder why it's not on SNOPES

yes, I did search SNOPES

[Q]

5. This is all I could find in my archives...

...and I have no direct link. Sorry.

December 17, 1999

Chase after 'Chinagate'

Editor's Note: A federal grand jury has indicted
former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee for
mishandling classified data, although the
government could not show that Lee engaged in
espionage for China. The case, however, has
become so caught up in politics that Lee's
defenders charge that the Clinton administration
brought the charges to protect its flanks against
soft-on-China accusations. The following story
examines the political climate that has clouded
this case.

By Robert Parry

On May 25, the staff of a select House committee
began plopping an 872-page report, three
glossy-bound volumes, into the arms of waiting
Capitol Hill reporters.

The report supposedly told the sordid tale of how
the Chinese government stole top-secret nuclear
design and other sensitive data from the United
States while the Clinton administration dragged
its feet on investigating.


According to a document provided by the "walk-in"
agent in 1995, Chinese intelligence stole the
secrets of the W-88 miniaturized nuclear bomb
"sometime between 1984 and 1992." The first test
of the lighter warheads occurred in 1992, the
last year of the Bush administration.

Since the W-88 data was the top concern of the
espionage investigation and had allegedly been
compromised before Clinton took office, some
journalists might have wondered how Clinton and
Gore could have swapped the secrets for campaign
cash in 1996.

But the discrepancy was rarely -- if ever --
noted, as "Chinagate" became the newest Clinton
scandal.

The Chinese espionage scandal picked up speed as
it careened through the spring and summer, but
the wheels started coming loose as early as
April.

Then, a panel of intelligence officials reviewed
the evidence and came away with far less
certainty about the significance of Chinese
espionage than the initial Times story and the
Cox committee believed.

The Chinese advances "have been made on the basis
of classified and unclassified information
derived from espionage, contact with U.S. and
other countries' scientists, conferences and
publications, unauthorized media disclosures,
declassified U.S. weapons information, and
Chinese indigenous development," the intelligence
panel reported.


----------------

- Robert Parry did several articles on 'chinagate'...you migh try doing a search using his name.

[zbdent]

18. Wen Ho Lee - very amusing, since the Repubs were

screaming for Clinton's head for letting this guy get away with spying.

After it was determined that WHL was innocent of all the blustering claims except, get this, something that amounted to not documenting a backup of his hard drive, Republicans were again screaming for Clinton's head - this time for persecution of an "obviously innocent man for political gain".

[zbird]

3. Found this item: Leak of info really occurred in the 1980s. See link.

snip..
"Yet, when the evidence of Chinese nuclear espionage surfaced in the late 1990s, around the time of the congressional impeachment of President Clinton, the Republicans tried to pin the blame for the lost secrets on the Clinton-Gore administration.

The national news media contributed to the confusion by failing to explain clearly to the American public that the security breaches represented a Reagan-Bush scandal, not a Clinton-Gore scandal."
snip..

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/102700a.html

Still looking for more. Will update if I find anything.

[Skittles]

6. thanks zbird

this definitely helps. As I said, I already knew it was garbage - for God's sake, the repugs would have had hearings for years if there were anythihg to these allegations.

[AWD]

4. Ask them....

...why BUSH let the Chinese keep 26 people as prisoners for days, and then APOLOGIZED to them while LETTING THEM KEEP A U.S. SPY PLANE!

[Skittles]

7. THAT

is an OUTSTANDING retort. Someting along the lines of: NOW THAT IS A *REAL* SCANDAL!!!!!!!!!!!

[AWD]

12. Go for it

...and after they mutter and stammer, KICK THEIR ASS!

[west michigan]

17. best of my knowledge...

...they did return it to us sometime later. After it was taken apart it was sent back to us via a Russian freighter .... unassembled of course.

[Fescue4u]

24. I heard it actually returned to the air about a year later.

I wonder how many missing or "extra" parts it had.

Hell, if I take apart a toaster, I always have a few extra parts ;)

[papau]

8. 1983 design of "suitcase" A bomb found in 1987 Chinese Tech publication

Reagan seems to have had a problem.

But the whore media tied this to the Loral contract to supply computers to the Chinese space program that - and here is the crime - that the Clinton Department of Commerce approved in the mid 90's.

They failed to note that the prior Reagan , and Bush Department of Commerces had made the same decision - allowing good computers to be sold to China/Russia despite the off chance that they could be used to design a new missile, or God-forbid, a Starwars missile defense.

And the only fact that was mentioned by the whore press - dare we say partial truths are always lies? - - was that some folks at Loral had made contributions to the Clinton campaign, as well as some non-Chinese folks who may have moved non-citizen money, but these non-Chinese asians Were from Asian countries - and who can tell them apart?

Halley Barbour's boat off of the coast of China collecting "contributions" to the GOP from - not evil asians or Red Commies - but from businesses in the Asian area that, occassionally, were owned by the Red Army - was a non-story - even when he did it again in the Bush campaign in 2000 (US subs of Asian compaies can and do contribute legally to the campaigns - rarely illegal unless someone forgot to run it through a US sub - but always the Dem, and not the GOP - gets the headlines).

Our Amazing press!

:-)

[papau]

21. here is copy of Wash Post on Cox Report and Reagan.Bush A bomb to China

Panel Says Chinese Arms Used U.S. Data
House Committee To Release Report On Spying's Effects

By Juliet Eilperin and Vernon Loeb, Washington Post, May 25, 1999; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-05/25/072l-052599-idx.html

A House select committee concludes in a long-awaited report that China has stolen design secrets on the United States' most advanced thermonuclear weapons and used them to help develop miniaturized warheads and a new mobile intercontinental ballistic missile that could be tested this year.

The 700-page document, adopted unanimously by a panel of five Republicans and four Democrats headed by Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.), also concludes that penetration of U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories by Chinese spies probably continues to this day as part of a massive Chinese effort to steal or purchase U.S. military technology, according to a review of the report.<snip>

But the report, in its detail, is rich with new findings. Chief among them is the fact that a secret 1988 Chinese document obtained by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1995 that triggered the Los Alamos National Laboratory espionage investigation was provided by a double agent under the direction of Chinese intelligence.

The committee cites a CIA conclusion that nonetheless the document
contained classified U.S. thermonuclear warhead design information and other technical information on U.S. nuclear weapons. The CIA, in its own review of Chinese espionage, said it was unable to determine how much of the information China stole from the United States, how much it obtained from open sources and what impact it had on Chinese warhead design advances.<snip>


The committee concludes that Hughes Electronics Corp. and Loral Space & Communications passed sensitive technical information to China as part of a 1996 investigation into the failure of a Chinese Long March rocket carrying a Loral-built commercial satellite without an export license, even though both companies knew they needed a license.<snip>

It singled out as particularly damaging the loss of design material from one of America's most sophisticated warheads in the 1980s.<snip>

From other WP articles:
Information on a total of seven U.S. warheads, including two of America's most modern, is believed to have been obtained through Chinese espionage in the 1980s, although the losses were not discovered until the mid-1990s. <snip>

Two U.S. satellite manufacturers, Loral Corp. and Hughes Electronics,
provided China with valuable information to improve the reliability of missiles used to launch communications satellites. However, the report said, the same know-how passed on by the U.S. companies could be used to make China's nuclear missiles more reliable.``Loral and Hughes showed the PRC how to improve the design and reliability
of the guidance system used in the PRC's newest Long March rocket,'' thereport said. It said these activities went beyond the license authority given the companies.<snip>

In the winter of 1995, a Chinese spy walked into the CIA's arms in Taiwan, carrying a suitcase crammed with secret documents. But the CIA eventually decided that the man was under the control of Chinese intelligence, sent to deliver a message whose meaning no one has been able to translate. The only valuable paper in his suitcase contained evidence that China had obtained secret information on American nuclear weapons. Earlier that year,three scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, analyzing three years'
worth of data from Chinese nuclear tests, voiced similar suspicions. Theirfears and the Chinese documents are the seeds from which the new report grew. The report's conclusions are blunt, say those who have read them: China hasstolen data on every significant American nuclear warhead, the stolen secrets helped China design and test modern nuclear weapons, and Chineseespionage at the biggest government weapons labs is long-standing and continuing.<snip>


The report says the crucial document in the Chinese briefcase contained stolen information on six nuclear weapons -- the crown jewels of the American nuclear arsenal, officials said. The theft of information is believed to have occurred in 1988. Yet a decade later, long after the investigation was under way, key intelligence and law enforcement officials focused only on one weapon
system, the W-88, not all six, the report said.

[papau]

22. And still more on the Reagan/Bush transfer of Atomic secrets

May/June 1999
Vol. 55, No. 4
A very convenient scandal
By Stephen I. Schwartz

What a difference eight years make. On November 22, 1990, the New York Times published an article headlined, "Chinese Atom-Arms Spying in U.S. Reported." It began, "Chinese intelligence agents succeeded in stealing nuclear-weapons secrets from the government's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the 1980s, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation later conducted a long espionage inquiry into the theft, American intelligence experts said today."

The story had in fact been reported a day earlier by the San Jose Mercury News. Five paragraphs down, the Times noted the Mercury News had reported "that data stolen from Livermore had been used by the Chinese to construct a nuclear device, identified in some published accounts as an experimental neutron bomb, which the Chinese detonated in September 1988."

What was the fallout from this article? Publicly, there was none. The story was not picked up by other major media outlets, there were no calls for congressional investigations or the firing of high-level officials, and it faded away. It was resurrected this March in the wake of the latest scandal du jour, the alleged theft by China of the design of the W88 warhead carried aboard U.S. Trident II D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

Why didn't the 1990 story generate the same sort of media firestorm, charges of cover-ups, calls for resignations, and angst about the China threat? Was it because the story ran on Thanksgiving (and on page five rather than page one)? Was it because the ultra-competitive, ratings-conscious news media we have today was not yet fully developed? Was it because George Bush, unlike Bill Clinton, was considered credible and did not face a sustained movement determined to drive him from office? Or was it because the massive military buildup in the Persian Gulf, which began three months earlier in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, preoccupied the minds of journalists and elected officials alike? Interestingly, Brent Scowcroft, President Bush's national security adviser at the time, told the Washington Post's Walter Pincus in mid-March that security at the labs "was not an issue" during his tenure, and that "he was surprised to hear that stories were published about the alleged Chinese stealing of secrets about the neutron warhead." (Pincus confirmed that Scowcroft was surprised both by the allegations and the fact they were reported in 1990.)

Fast-forward to late 1998. On December 31, the Times ran another article, this time on page one, by Jeff Gerth and Eric Schmitt. Headlined "House Panel Says Chinese Obtained U.S. Arms Secrets," the article described the results of a seven-month-long investigation by a select House committee chaired by California Republican Christopher Cox. The subcommittee investigated charges that China had bolstered its satellite-launching capabilities through the acquisition of sensitive U.S. technologies, charges first reported by the Times last May.<snip>

Although the Journal article propelled the story forward a notch, the looming impeachment trial of President Clinton continued to dominate the news. On February 17, a few days after the trial concluded, Walter Pincus of the Washington Post weighed in. Pincus revealed that the trigger for the investigation into the W88 diversion was a top-secret Chinese nuclear weapons program document showing warhead designs "uncomfortably similar" to the W88. (The 1988 document was handed over to the CIA by a defector in June 1995, according to a subsequent Post report.) An FBI investigation, code-named "Kindred Spirit," was begun, focusing on persons with access to W88 information in the 1980s and, in particular, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where the W88 was designed.


A new chapter in the mushrooming story began April 21, with the release of an intelligence assessment--based largely on the still-secret Cox report--that the Chinese had stolen design data for the W88 warhead. But even if true, it won't alter the balance of power any time soon. There is no evidence that China has manufactured, flight-tested, or deployed MIRVs. At present all it may have is the capability to miniaturize a nuclear warhead, the first step toward MIRVing. But getting from there to deploying large numbers of accurate and reliable ballistic missiles is a lengthy and very expensive process. Moreover, the W88 data, by themselves, cannot be used to produce other warheads of different designs. As Republican Pete Domenici of New Mexico cautioned in a March 24 speech on the Senate floor, "In many ways, China's nuclear weapons program is not capable of utilizing the W88 design."<snip>

... former Vice President Dan Quayle, in a speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, accused the administration of "appeasement" and complained, "How dare Al Gore blame Presidents Reagan and Bush for negligence that clearly happened on his and President Clinton's watch?" Never mind that the W88 incident did occur well before Clinton took office, that the Bush administration also sought closer relations with China, or that the General Accounting Office has been issuing highly critical reports of lax security at Energy Department laboratories and weapons facilities since the mid-1980s (see "Security?," page 39). The Clinton administration at least deserves credit for identifying the problem and working to resolve it, including increasing Energy's counterintelligence budget from a paltry $2 million in 1995 to more than $39 million for fiscal 2000.

And never mind, as columnist Jim Mann pointed out in the Los Angeles Times on March 17, that until this story broke, the pro-business Republican Congress had renewed China's most-favored-nation trading status four times, approved plans for American companies to provide civilian nuclear power technology to China, and--under the Senate leadership of Trent Lott--watered down a ban on sales of American satellites to China.<snip>

Stephen I. Schwartz is the publisher of the Bulletin and executive director of the Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science. He is the editor of Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 (1998).

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

9. IIRC:

Another aspect of the aforementioned non-scandal was the fact that Hughes, McDonnell and others passed design secrets to the Chinese without the chop of anyone in the administration. Simply for cash.

[papau]

13. Correct - Hughes(?) - as part of the computer sale - signed a set-up and

maintain contract. (this morning the mind is slow and I do not recall if it was Hughes or Loral that had the maintanence contract for the deal that Henry Kissinger and friends had lobbied the Clinton folks to approve).

That meant install software for the computers to use in the space program, so as to to be able to launch and follow spacecraft. And this meant that the same software could be easily modified to give the Chinese an extra 2 minutes notice of the US firing missiles at the Chinese, and even a better handle on what cities we were trying to destroy. - and with a very large strech and spin on the truth - it was used to say the Chinese now had programs that would improve their ability to send missiles to the US

The sale of the software did not specifically have a separate "Chop".

[Nlighten1]

10. The way I understand this is.

it started under Bush 41, involved Richard Perle and I don't remember how Clinton was involved. But the facts don't matter as long as Clinton is around to blame.

[Nlighten1]

11. I love DU bookmarks, I knew this was discussed before...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=48913

[jobycom]

14. That was "Blame Clinton for what happened BEFORE he was elected"

As opposed to "Blame Clinton for everything that happened AFTER he left office."

In vague format, since I never bothered to memorize the details once I figured the story was nonsense, the US had a technology swap going with the Chinese concerning their space program. It was started under Reagan and Bush as a way to help American businesses launch satelites without tyin up NASA. The Chinese had the will to start a space program, but were lacking on certain fundamental technologies, such as guidance.

Under Reagan, Bush and Clinton, this program helped the Chinese to develop the technology to launch rockets, and about the same time they developed the technology to better guide missiles to military targets.

Enter Clinton. Clinton, after the bing Congressional defeat in 1994, began a program of continuous polling and focus group testing of his messages to see just how far he could push an item before having to compromise on it. He ran a constant PR battle against Gingrich, GOPAC, RM Scaife-- in short, the VRWC. To do this, he and Gore were constantly begging for contributions.

At some point they began taking contributions from a front man for the Chinese government, as well as one for the Indochinese government. The Republicans began claiming that Clinton had loosened the intelligence safeguards on the technology swap in favor of larger donations from China. A Congressional investigation occurred, led largely by Fred Thompson, who in my opinion had honest intentions but a clear bias. They heard from a number of scientists who said the none of the info Clinton released gave the Chinese anything they didn't already have, and the guidance technology that the Republicans were so worried about had been developed by the Chinese before Clinton took office using the technology Bush and Reagan had given them.

The Repubs naturally didn't like this evidence much, so the Congressional investigation sort of fizzled, concluding only that Clinton was too eager to get money and may have in some vague way compromised security. They did not point out that Bush and Reagan had been the ones to literally sell the secrets to China, even though that's what the scientists said.

The Wen Ho Lee thing was a corolary to this investigation, involving outright spying, not technology swaps, although the final word on Wen Ho Lee seems to be that he did nothing wrong and it was all a witch hunt.

Republicans, as always, preferred the allegations to the facts, and continue to repeat them.

BTW, the president who was most cozy with China was Bush Daddy. He was sent by Nixon to negotiate renewed relations with China in the early 70s (something they later blamed on Carter). While there, Bush Daddy's wife Barbara returned to the states in tears, wanting a divorce because hubby was having an open affair with Gennifer Fitzgerald. The saved the "marriage" somehow, and when Bush became president he appointed Gennifer Fitzgerald to a White House staff position making a lot of money (as W has done with April Gillespie). Several White House staffers wereupset by this obvious employment of a concubine. One of them leaked it to the press when Bush was running for reelection. Bush and company called her a liar. Rumor was that it was Linda Trip, btw-- outing concubines for two administrations.

That's a sidebar. After Tienneman square, Congress wanted to pass tough economic sanctions against China, but Bush Daddy stepped in and made an impassioned and logical plea to not punish the Chinese people for the evils of their government, and to try to encourage China to take its first baby steps towards democracy and capitalism, rather than beating them down. Interesting for two reasons-- one, it is exactly the opposite approach the Repubs advocated with the Soviet Union. But even more interesting because it saved the Bush family Millions, since unknown to Congress, Prescott Bush (brother of Poppy) was set to open a multi-million dollar resort in China soon after Tienneman Square, and the sanctions would have meant he lost all that money.

So in short (yeah right), the Bush's have been compromising foreign policy for personal gain for a long time.

[DoYouEverWonder]

15. While you're at it

you can also ask them why did we just sell Global Crossings to a company based in Singapore with ties to the Chinese government? And why did Richard Perle broker the deal with Bu$h's approval, making a pretty penny in the process?

[kodi]

16. the clinton-china technology transfers with links

facts and truth, for starters, the Chinese technology transfer…

“The Clinton administration decided to reject the sale of a US$450 million satellite to a business group with close ties to the Chinese government after criticism that such aerospace deals with China could harm national security. “The decision reversed the government' approval of the deal two-and-a-half years ago and casts doubt on the future of US satellite sales to China, The deal involved the Hughes Space and Communications satellite designed to set up a mobile telephone network over a vast area of Asia from China to Indonesia and Pakistan. The Commerce Department formally notified Hughes Electronics Corp. of the government's "intent to deny" approval for the deal.“The Commerce Department favored the sale but was overruled by the Defense and State Departments, which believed that the technology needed to put the satellite in orbit would help China's military make its intercontinental ballistic missile fleet more accurate. Some experts feared the Chinese military would derive both commercial and technological benefits once the satellite was in orbit. The Pentagon and other US agencies were worried about the Chinese military's involvement in the deal. The official buyer of the satellite was a Singapore-based business group whose top officials include senior Chinese military officers. Hughes Electronics is a separately traded unit of General Motors Corp.”

The Chinese launch American satellites on a regular basis. These are commercial, telecommunication satellites. The technologies sold to the Singapore company on guidance are trivial compared to that which the Chinese received from the Soviet Union. The differences between ICBMs and satellite launchers was pointed out even by the CIA, and withheld from public examination.

The Federal Aviation Administration expects to have more than 30 satellite launches this year from the United States, nearly double the 17 that went up in 1997.

But that is a small percentage of world launches, and the need for more satellites is expected to climb exponentially as people depend more on satellites for phone, television, pager, and Internet services.

Dependence on satellite technology came into sharp focus in May 1998 when the Galaxy IV orbiter turned away from Earth, silencing pagers, some television feeds, and other devices. Without contingency satellites, the outages would have lasted for days.
The United States makes about two-thirds of the world's commercial satellites, but simply cannot launch them all, says the Satellite Industry Association.

"US satellite firms are in sync with the Clinton administration -- and the Bush and Reagan administrations before it -- for encouraging launches of commercial satellites in places with known or suspected nuclear weapons capability. So far, that has included Russia, Ukraine, and China.”

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,12488,00.html
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,12953,00.html
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,12465,00.html

[Some Moran]

19. Clinton's China policy sucked badly...

Name one way in which China is more progressive than Taiwan.

I doubt he sold stuff to the Chinese though, even though Paul Shanklin's songs are about it are pretty funny.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Festivito]

23. Uncle Prescott Bush went to China with .... SATELLITE info...

Couldn't find any established sources on this. But, it sounds to me as though the accusations of Clinton may have come because of Quayle's stupidity noted above. Prescott is *'s grandaddy from the Nazi bank. Prescott (Jr.) *'s uncle went to China. *'s daddy, prior to being president was ambassador to China if I remember correctly. A let us not forget Ms. Yeung (sp?), southern CA's fundraiser with dubious funds.

Blaming Democrats for what Republicans do or did is a Republican staple.

google
Prescott Bush China satellite
Three times when he was president, he granted waivers for satellite exports to U.S. aerospace companies under investigation. These companies gave at least $782,000 to the GOP during the Bush years, and possibly much more. In fact, Bush issued a waiver for a satellite being exported to China by a company for which his brother, Prescott, was a $250,000-a-year consultant. As the newspapers reported in 1992, Prescott Bush traveled to China three months after the TiananmenTK Square massacre. Three months later, his brother okayed the waiver.

"There's no conflict of interest," Prescott Bush told The Wall Street Journal at the time. But he added, "It doesn't hurt that my brother is president of the United States." Not at all. Wink, wink.

[Peace_Place]

25. Clinton "Sold" Secrets

Several Chinese Generals contributed millions of dollars to the Clinton campaign. This money was sent through Malaysian and Thai business men then through the owner of a Chinese resturant in Little Rock. (Sorry have forgotten his name, maybe Charlie Tre, sic) In return for that money he lifted the embargo on high tech defense systems to China. China has nuc missles but was unable to deliver them to the US. The "dual use" tech that Clinton authorized allows them to deliver those nucs to us now.

So the problem was, it is a violation of federal law to accept campaign contributions from non-citizens and it was "unamerican" for Clinton to aid the Communists.

More Republican Clinton bashing is what it boils down to. They couldn't beat him so they try to pin stuff like this on him. The ends does justify the means when you have good intentions.

[kodi]

26. go back and read my post. yours is nonsense

.