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U.S. Officials Censor Embarrassing Book

Dan Stillman, who spent the last decade studying China’s nuclear programs, is fighting federal interference in his efforts to publish a book on his interviews with Chinese scientists and visits to their secret facilities. Photo by Associated Press.

Scientist’s book on China’s nuclear weapons program meets obstacles to publication

By Richard Benke/AP

A retired Los Alamos scientist who spent the past decade gathering first-hand 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.”

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and the press among other basic rights.

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

Stillman, 67, retired from Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1993, and 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 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 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.”