The Cox Charge

A principal--certainly the most heralded--charge in the Cox Committee Report is that "The People's Republic of China's penetration of our national weapon laboratories spans at least the past several decades, and almost certainly continues today."

That charge is, as of this writing, now widely accepted as being True. The Clinton Administration and most of the technically ill-equipped media have repeated it over and over so many times that it is conceivable that they now believe it themselves. And yet, it is almost certainly not true. Certainly the evidence cited in the Redacted Report does not support such a serious and sweeping charge.

The Redacted Report purported to document several specific instances of PRC "theft" of Secrets from Lawrence Livermore National Lab and Los Alamos National  Lab. The Redacted Report charges that the PRC had "penetrated" those US weapons Labs several decades ago. It asserts that the "secrets" obtained many years ago [by what would have been called "Moles" in the Cold War] have now already been incorporated into existing PRC weapon designs. It alleges that more recent thefts would soon be incorporated in the next generation of PRC nuclear weapons, threatening our National Security. If the Committee uncovered any evidence of PRC penetration by Moles of the Labs in previous Administrations, it was not presented in the Redacted Report. In fact, the specific Evidence that is presented in the Redacted Report is actually exculpatory for the suspected Spies and/or Moles.

We don't know what evidence of Mole activity--in this and previous Administrations--the Clinton Administration "redacted" or kept "secret." But, thanks to Chairman Cox, all the evidence, including that present in the original Top Secret Cox Committee Report, plus a lot more, has been examined by an interagency panel of Experts, and on the basis of their Key Findings'--presented and discussed below--we can now assert that there is no convincing evidence available to the US experts that:

(a) the PRC ever "penetrated" any US weapons Lab;
(b) the PRC ever "stole" anything from the Labs;
(c) any US Lab scientist ever "gave" the PRC any "Classified" information;
(d) that the PRC has incorporated any "secrets" or Classified information they may have obtained by "hook or crook" from the US labs into their weapon designs or into their weapons in stockpile.

The limited amount of Evidence presented in the Redacted Report has not been properly presented to, or understood by either Members of Congress or the public. And although there are allegations in the Redacted Report that Classified information may have been obtained by the PRC during previous Administrations, the evidence that is presented with respect to those allegations is actually exculpatory.