Come Together For Wen Ho Lee
By Frank Wu

The espionage controversy involving possible loss of nuclear secrets to mainland China has finally resulted in charges being brought against Wen Ho Lee, a former physicist with the Los Alamos research laboratories. The real scandal, though, may turn out to be the racial stereotyping that resulted in the Taiwan-born naturalized citizen being targeted.

Despite Congressional hearings resulting in spectacular claims of national security being compromised -- conclusions which have since been subjected to criticism by a group of Stanford scholars for inflammatory exaggeration -- it is the case against Lee which is compromised. The Cox Report released by the House of Representatives suggested that everyone of Chinese heritage residing in the United States could be potential spies. Whatever the ultimate outcome of the case, it is already apparent that Lee was singled out for suspicion because of ancestry rather than actions.

At least three individuals intimately familiar with the assertions about Lee have described the racial profiling involved in the inquiry. The former counterintelligence chiefs of the Los Alamos lab and the Energy Department, along with a specialist who helped with the investigation itself, Michael S. Soukup, have said that there is no proof against Lee and that he became a suspect because of ethnicity.

While Lee faces allegations which could result in life imprisonment, law enforcement agencies have shifted their attention elsewhere in an attempt to determine whether China acquired warhead plans. The FBI has admitted that nobody at Lee’s complex even had the plans that may have been acquired by China -- some of the details of the crucial document have been publicly available for more than a decade anyway.

Even if Lee turns out to have committed minor violations of official policies, his wrongdoing will have been no worse than that of top bureaucrats. The former director of the CIA, John M. Deutch, has acknowledged he too downloaded data to his home computer. That is the same type of breach of the rules, presenting the same risks, which has ruined Lee’s life.

Indeed, Lee has been indicted for negligent handling of secret data. The prosecution of a scientist for this violation is without precedent.

What Lee has not been accused of is as significant as what he has been accused of: None of the more than fifty counts against him mentions a deliberate transfer of information to the Chinese government. There is not even circumstantial evidence to support an inference of cloak and dagger intrigues.

As egregious as the racial stereotyping and the double standard applied against Lee is the casual dismissal of concerns about these problems. Asian Americans who have challenged the treatment of Lee, which is not the manner of proceeding with most defendants, have been accused of self-interest or special pleading. Their claims are denigrated as playing the race card or defending the guilty. The former is an ironic rebuttal when it has been the investigators who have relied on race all along; the latter is a revealing admission of the assumptions which have been made before the evidence has been presented.

Asian Americans, many of whom have served with honor in the U.S. military and have devoted their professional careers to the federal government, have just endured another experience with being blamed as if they are the Yellow Peril. The year-long campaign finance fiasco treated the ten million Americans of Asian background as if they were all responsible for the transgressions of a handful of political fund raisers.

The hysteria over theft of nuclear secrets comes within the context of a resurgence in anxieties over Asia more generally. A spate of books have proclaimed that China is an economic rival and a military threat. Our country is experiencing a demographic transition generated in part by Asian immigration that will make whites a minority group at the start of the next millennium. The upcoming elections may exacerbate these tensions because of partisan advantages that can be gained by appearing tough toward a scapegoat.

For Asian Americans, the Lee case has become a catalyst to action. We would do well to learn lessons from other minority groups. At a very minimum, we ought to understand how important it is to be engaged with the many issues of public life. Trying to avoid controversy is not a successful strategy in a diverse democracy.

We must work in coalitions. It is too bad that more Asian Americans have not been involved in the campaign to stop police profiling of African Americans. Few Chinese Americans spoke up about the recent espionage case involving a Korean American.

We should begin work early and make constant efforts. It would be unfortunate if Asian Americans who stood up for Lee did so only for him or merely when they themselves felt threatened. All Asian Americans should recognize that activists have an important role to play in protecting the community and they need support before a crisis develops.

And if Lee is convicted (while it seems highly unlikely given the facts that have been established to date, it would be premature to assume that the result will be favorable) we can remember that our cause is not lost. As African Americans and American Jews have demonstrated, truly believing in civil rights means arguing for them even on behalf of the parties who may not have a perfect record.

Much of what has happened to Lee has been the result of overreaction. Yet the world may not be ready for Asian Americans, especially Asian immigrants, who embrace a naïve nationalism in which they can be overseas Chinese or a diaspora.

As the prosecution proceeds, it is important to emphasize the principles at stake. It is all of us, not Asian Americans alone, who ought to remember the values that have made this nation great. People deserve to be presumed innocent. They are entitled to due process no matter what allegations are bought against them. Individuals do not represent groups on a racial basis.

The treatment of Lee has been shameful. Together, we can do better.

Frank H. Wu, Associate Professor, Howard University Law School