Is US Suppressing a Book to Hide Racism & Embarrassment?

Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit


May 29, 2001

Gov't Holds Back Scientist's Book

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 2:52 a.m. ET

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- A retired Los Alamos scientist who spent the past
decade gathering firsthand information on China's
nuclear weapons programs is fighting U.S. efforts to block publication of
his book.

Dan Stillman's book, based on meetings with Chinese scientists and visits to
their secret facilities, has been under review for 1 1/2
years at the Energy Department, Defense Department and CIA, said his
attorney, Mark Zaid. Pentagon and Energy Department
spokeswomen confirmed that the review continues.

Zaid and fellow scientists say the government's opposition amounts to an
abuse of Stillman's First Amendment rights. Zaid expects
to file a lawsuit by mid-June.

"The government's attempt to suppress an entire 500-page manuscript is
intolerable to anyone who cares about the First
Amendment," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American
Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy. "He has
every right to tell his story."

Air Force Lt. Col. Willette Carter said the Pentagon declines to comment
since a lawsuit hasn't been filed.

Stillman, 67, retired at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1993, but has
made 10 visits to China since 1990. He said he is among
only five Americans allowed to visit both the Chinese nuclear test site and
nuclear weapons lab.

"I simply asked questions, and they seemed happy to answer," Stillman said
in an interview last week.

"Everything I brought back in my notes was unclassified," he said,
suggesting the U.S. intelligence community later imposed "a
very high classification level in order to control the information."

Asked why the government was blocking publication of "Inside China's Nuclear
Weapons Program," former Los Alamos National
Laboratory director Harold Agnew said: "It may well be they're just
embarrassed."

The government has been the focus of criticism over the Wen Ho Lee spy case.
The Taiwan-born Los Alamos scientist was
indicted on 59 counts of mishandling nuclear weapons secrets and spent nine
months in solitary confinement, but was released
after the government dropped all but one of the charges.

The FBI had said one reason for keeping Lee jailed without bail was his
acquaintance with Hu Side, a former head of China's
nuclear weapons program who during one of Stillman's visits tried to convey
a message to Americans who accused China of
espionage.

"I wish I could testify before your U.S. Congress to tell them how much
damage has been done," Hu said in a 1999 speech
attended by Stillman. "I could tell them the truth, that we never found it
necessary to steal any U.S. nuclear weapon secrets."

He added that Lee "is a scapegoat."

Stillman said it is possible China never stole U.S. secrets.

"Out of 1.3 billion people, it's certainly possible to find some really
brilliant scientists that can develop their own nuclear weapons
program without having to steal it from the U.S," he said. "I've never
understood why some people in the U.S. think that we are the
only intelligent people in the world."

 
=================================================================
  NY Transfer News Collective   *   A Service of Blythe Systems 
           Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us          
              339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012             
  http://www.blythe.org                  e-mail: nyt@blythe.org 
=================================================================
 
nytas-05.29.01-17:06:51-20421