Lee set to testify he made tapes of nuclear secrets
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - Preparing
for a tell-all interview with Wen
Ho Lee, the FBI has learned from
the Los Alamos scientist that he
made a total of 20 tapes with
nuclear secrets, half of which
were duplicates, government offi
cials said Tuesday.
Only three have been recov
ered, but Lee’s lawyer said his
client will tell the FBI the remain
ing tapes were destroyed.
The FBI told congressional
investigators this week that one of
the key questions for Lee to
answer is why he made as many
as 10 duplicate tapes of informa
tion he downloaded from secure
Energy Department computers,
the officials said, speaking on
condition of anonymity.
The government learned
about the duplicates from Lee’s
attorneys as they prepared for a
plea bargain earlier this month,
the officials said. The revelation
caused a brief delay in a planned
plea bargain with the scientist, the
officials said.
FBI agents are slated to begin
interviewing Lee on Sept. 26
under a court-approved deal in
which the government dropped
58 felony charges against the sci
entist and released him from soli
tary confinement in a case that
has raised questions of excessive
prosecution.
One of Lee’s lawyers, Brian
Sun, said Tuesday his client will
tell the FBI he destroyed all miss
ing tapes with nuclear secrets but
otherwise could not comment on
any issues related to the interview.
"Our position has been and
will continue to be he destroyed
all tapes that had classified infor
mation on them, and we will
honor our commitment to the
bureau to describe the circum
stances surrounding the tapes,”
Sun said.
“All of this is supposed to be
handled confidentially in the con
text that all of this is under seal by
order of the court,” Sun said.
When Lee was charged in
December 1999, the government
alleged he had made only 10 tapes
of nuclear secrets, seven which
were missing. An FBI agent later
told the court investigators
believed he had made as many as
15 tapes.
Now the FBI has told
Congress.it believes Lee made a
total of 17 tapes that are unac
counted for - in addition to three
originals that were recovered
from his office. The 17 include
seven originals and 10 copies, the
officials said.
Next week, while agents inter
view Lee, senators will begin
exploring the government’s con
duct in the Lee case, including
whether he was singled out
because he was Asian American,
why he was imprisoned without
bail when the government had no
evidence he engaged in espi
onage and why so many charges
were brought, only to be dropped.
That Senate hearing is slated
to begin Sept. 26.
Attorney General Janet Reno
has defended the Justice
Department’s handling of the
case, even as her boss, President
Clinton, has questioned it.
Reno has said Lee’s lengthy
detention without bail was neces
sary to protect the government
until he admitted what he did
with the tapes.
“With all my heart and soul,’’
Reno said, she wished “Dr. Lee
had come forward, said, ‘This is
what I did with the information...
(and) I’ll... try to give you as much
information as possible to permit
you to confirm and corroborate
it.”
A Senate subcommittee led by
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., wants to
question prosecutors.
A key question is prosecutor’s
decision to reject a cooperation
offer from Lee’s attorney just
before the December 1999 indict
ment. The scientist offered to give
the government “credible and
verifiable” proof of what he did
with the tapes and take a lie detec
tor test to prove he was telling the
truth.
“We will immediately provide
this credible and verifiable expla
nation,” Lee’s attorneys wrote the
U.S. attorney in Albuquerque,
N.M., on Dec. 10,1999.
“Specifically, we are prepared
to make Dr. Lee immediately
available to a mutually agreeable
polygraph examiner to verify our
repeated written representations
thakat no time did he mishandle
those tapes in question and to
confirm that he did not provide
the tapes to any third party,” the
letter said.
Prosecutor George
Stamboulidis said the govern
ment pursued the offer but con
cluded it was “cosmetic, not a real
offer.” Defense attorneys would
only allow two questions - Did
Lee destroy the tapes or pass the
tapes to others? - and wouldn’t
agree to an FBI polygrapher. “How
can you test his credibility with
only two questions,” the prosecu
tor asked.
The government proceeded
with a 59-count indictment
against the scientist that carried a
penalty of life in prison and asked
the court to keep him in solitary
confinement in prison without
bail - a position it held for more
than nine months until it aban
doned the lion’s share of its case
earlier this month.
The latter action caused the
judge in the case to apologize to
Lee for his “unfair” solitary con
finement and to lambast the gov
ernment for embarrassing “our
entire nation and each of us who
is a citizen of it.”
Man killed in case of mistaken identity
■ A father was trying to find the driver of
a car his son told him tried to kidnap him.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LAKELAND, Fla. - A man whose young son
told him someone in a red car tried to lure him
away from a bus stop spent two days hunting
for the vehicle before killing his neighbor - a
father of four and the wrong man, authorities
said Tuesday.
Kenneth Stephenson, 31, died from five
gunshot wounds early Saturday after he drove
home from work in his red Chevrolet Beretta.
Held without bail Tuesday was James Price,
46, who told police he spent two days hunting
for a red car, intending to kill the driver. He has
been charged with first-degree murder.
Stephenson had just gotten off work at
RyderTYuck Rental where he was a tire techni
cian when he was gunned down a half block
from his driveway-midway between his house
and Price’s house. The two men were acquain
tances.
“Nothing was said. He just shot him,”
Stephenson’s widow, Misty, said Tuesday,
standing alongside a simple wooden cross on
the roadside. Printed on it were the words:
“God Bless You.” The names of Stephenson’s
wife and children were listed on the side.
Price “freely and voluntarily admitted tak
ing his Ruger .357 handgun from his truck tool
box and going in search of the person who
allegedly tried to pick up his son,” according to
an arrest affidavit.
On Monday, 19-year-old Matthew Wiley
told investigators he was the one in the red car
but claimed he never tried to pick up Price’s 9
year-old son, said Polk County Sheriff’s Capt.
W.J. Martin.
“He came to us. He told us a group of kids at
the bus stop were making obscene and rude
gestures at him,” sheriff’s spokeswoman
Michal Shanley said. “He stuck his head out the
window and yelled that he was going to tell
their daddy.”
Price’s son was at the bus stop with three
other youngsters, Shanley said. The children
said a man and a woman were in the red car,
and the man told the children to get into the
vehicle, but they refused, according to a police
report.
Shanley said authorities don’t know how
the story told to Price got twisted, whether the
children perceived events differently or embel
lished on what happened.
Stephenson’s children, ranging in age from
4 to 15, were not at the house Tliesday.
Their mother wanted them to stay busy
with friends to keep their minds occupied.
The morning after Stephenson died, 4
year-old Amber came to her mother.
“She told me daddy came to her and told
her he had to go away, and she had to look after
mommy,” Misty Stephenson said.
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5 Blocks South of UNL Campus
Clinton uraes world to resist Milosevic
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - If Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic
uses fraud to win Sunday’s pres
idential election, the world
must strip him of whatever
stature he retains so his oppo
nents can topple his regime,
President Clinton said Tuesday
night.
"Democratic opposition is
stronger than ever heading into
critical elections this weekend.
Mr. Milosevic has stepped up
his repression. Surely, he is
capable of stealing the election,”
Clinton said at the John F.
Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts before the
debut of a play about human
rights activists.
“But if he does, we must
make sure - all of us, not just the
Americans and certainly not
just the American government -
that he loses what legitimacy he
has left in the world, and the
forces of change will grow even
stronger.”
Milosevic, who has been
indicted for war crimes by the
international tribunal in The
Hague, Netherlands, is being
challenged by three candidates,
including Vojislav Kostunica,
who is backed by an alliance of
18 opposition parties and is
leading Milosevic in public
opinion polls.
Clinton also said defenders
of human rights also need sup
port in Myanmar, also known as
Burma, where the ruling mili
tary regime is being confronted
by Aung San Suu Kyi and^fer
National League for Democracy
party. Her party won national
elections in 1990 but the regime
in the Southeast Asian country
never recognized the victory.
“Their only weapons are
words, reason and the brave
example of Aung San Suu Kyi,
but these are fearful weapons to
the ruling regime,” Clinton said.
Clinton spoke before the
play “Speak Truth to Power:
Voices from Beyond the Dark.”
Written by novelist and
Broadway playwright Ariel
Dorfman, the play is based on
writings and interviews with 51
human rights activists in Kerry
Kennedy Cuomo's book, “Truth
to Power: Human Rights
Defenders Who Are Changing
Our World.”
Cuomo is the daughter of
the late Robert F. Kennedy and
the wife of Housing Secretary
Andrew Cuomo. Her book, with
photographs by Pulitzer Prize
winner Eddie Adams, profiles
human rights activists to prove
that there are still American
heroes.
The audience, including a
row of the author’s relatives,
including Sen. Edward Kennedy,
D-Mass., and Rep. Patrick
Kennedy, D-R.I., listened to
singer Jackson Browne and a
South African jazz trumpeter.
Nobel Laureate Oscar Arias of
Costa Rica opened the program.
The cast of the one-night
Kennedy Center performance
included Alec Baldwin, Julia
Louis-Dreyfus, Hector Elizondo,
Giancarlo Esposito, Kevin Kline,
John Malkovich, Rita Moreno,
Sigourney Weaver and Alfre
Woodard. The production will
air on PBS on Sunday, Oct. 8.
Later, Clinton went to a book
signing party for former adviser
Paul Begala at James Carville
and Mary Matalin’s new restau
rant, West 24th.
He then made a surprise
appearance at a fund-raiser for
the National Hispanic
Foundation for the Arts, where
he couldn’t resist kidding actor
Jimmy Smits, one of the event’s
organizers.
“I’m here in spite of the fact
"Democratic
opposition is stronger
than ever heading
into critical elections
this weekend. Mr.
Milosevic has stepped
up his repression.
Surely, he is capable
of stealing the
election. ”
President Clinton
that Jimmy Smits called me and
asked me to come,” he said. "If I
have to hear Hillary say one
more time, 'That is the best
looking man I’ve ever seen ...,’ "
he said, as the audience of 450
dissolved into laughter.
Thursday, Sept 21
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