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Upcoming book by Lee Wen-ho poses security questions

Lee Wen-ho (李文和), the former Taiwan-born Los Alamos scientist who was charged with security violations and jailed for nine months, may be on a collision course with the government over whether he has violated security rules in the handling of his forthcoming autobiography.

The dispute puts the federal government in an awkward position. Critics said that the government imprisoned Lee because of his ethnic background, and federal officials are wary of tangling with him again since they could face new accusations of racism. But other would-be authors who fall under the same security rules as Lee, as well as some federal officials, say fairness demands that the government deal with Lee no differently than anyone else if he has broken the rules.

Individuals like Lee who receive security clearances, especially high-level ones that give access to nuclear secrets, pledge to submit any manuscripts to federal censors before letting other people see them. The aim is to prevent the inadvertent release of government secrets.

Lee submitted his manuscript to federal censors in July, three months before its intended publication, in October. Federal and private security experts said the submission for security review was belated and raised the question of whether people other than the author -- like his co-author and his editor, among others -- had seen the manuscript. If so, he could have violated federal rules and in theory could find himself facing new charges and penalties.

One person who admitted reading the manuscript, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that at least five people had seen it and that it contained nothing that would get Lee in trouble. "This is not national secrets he's revealing," the person said. "It's a nice little story."

Joseph Davis, a spokesman for the Department of Energy, which runs Los Alamos and is reviewing Lee's manuscript, said the agency would make no exception to its rules for the scientist. "We're not going to shortcut that process or cut any corners for anybody," he said.

Normally, Davis added, if the government finds that a manuscript under review has been distributed to other people and contains secrets, "then it becomes a question of whether the US Justice Department would pursue that" to see if laws were broken.

Mark Holscher, one of Lee's lawyers, said the scientist would have no comment. "From our perspective," he said, "Lee is following the procedures that we believe are required by law for the publication of his book."

Lee's book, My Country Versus Me: The First-Hand Account by the Los Alamos Scientist Who Was Falsely Accused of Being a Spy, is described as an autobiography and was written with Helen Zia, a journalist. It will be published by Hyperion Books. While the book is scheduled for publication in October the dispute over the security rules and over whether his manuscript contains federal secrets could delay its publication, the security experts say.

Will Schwalbe, the book's editor and the editor in chief of Hyperion Books, which is based in New York, defended Lee's actions and denounced any attempt to slow the book's publication.

"The way he was treated was a disgrace," Schwalbe said, referring to how the government handled Lee's case. "If there were attempts made to stop this book's publication or hinder it, that would add to the disgrace." He said he believed that Lee is a "patriotic American who has no intention whatsoever of revealing any classified information."

A Lee family friend said that Zia was deferring all questions to the book's editor. Schwalbe declined to say whether he had read the manuscript. Usually, any book this close to publication would have been thoroughly edited, with publicists working hard to win favorable reviews for it.

Hyperion's publicity describes the book as a "compelling narrative that takes readers inside Los Alamos," the New Mexico birthplace of the atomic bomb and today a sprawling federal laboratory complex. It says the book's disclosures include why Lee downloaded nuclear weapons codes to insecure computers, what he really did at Los Alamos for two decades and how the Federal Bureau of Investigation was "hell-bent on proving Lee Wen-ho was a spy, even if they had to resort to deception and fabrication to do so."

In December 1999, prosecutors charged Lee with 59 counts of mishandling classified information. But in September 2000, after Lee had spent nine months in jail awaiting trial, a judge freed him after he pleaded guilty to one felony count of mishandling secrets. His jailing, the judged declared, had "embarrassed our entire nation."

Lee's plea agreement put no restrictions on his writing about his experiences. A publisher's advertisement says the book tells the story of Lee, his legal battle and "how violations of nuclear security were rampant throughout the weapons laboratory."

In the past, people have gotten into serious legal trouble for ignoring the censors. Frank Snepp, a former CIA employee, was accused of violating his security oath after he skipped the security review to publish Decent Interval, about the fall of Saigon. He was forced by the Supreme Court to give the government US$140,000.

A senior federal official familiar with government security reviews, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the Lee case was so politically charged that Washington might pull its punches. "They're scared to death of the guy," he said, most especially of new "charges of racism."

Some experts have suggested that the rush to publication and the security dispute is simply a way for Lee to thumb his nose at the government or for the publisher to win publicity. Others say it reflects simple bumbling.

A private expert familiar with Lee's case, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the government was unlikely to go after Lee even if he did share the manuscript with other people. The reason, he said, is that "you can't write a book in the modern age without violating security rules." For instance, he said, individuals are likely to use home computers to write books rather than going to a secure federal site, as the letter of the law requires. "You're not going to prosecute people for that," the private expert said.
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