It remains unresolved how China got the W-88 secrets in the first place, but a consensus is emerging that the search for the leak narrowed too quickly to Los Alamos.
Studies by the Senate as well as the president's foreign?intelligence board this year raised serious questions about whether?the FBI and Energy Department had too quickly focused on the?weapons lab. No evidence has pinpointed it as the leak's source. Lee, fired this year from Los Alamos for security violations, has?not been charged with a crime and has denied spying.? However Beijing made its miniaturization advance -- on its own,?by theft or a combination of the two -- it is apparently proud enough to boast about it publicly, at least among its friends in the mountains of New Mexico. Henson said a Chinese arms scientist, Sun Cheng Wei, bragged of the breakthrough a few years ago at Los Alamos, telling an open seminar that China had forged significantly?ahead in nuclear arms.
"What he said," recalled Henson, who attended the talk, "was?that for a long time they were dealing only with round designs, and?then only watermelons."
RSS