Cox Report -- Neutron Bomb

According to the Cox Report (as "redacted" by the Clinton Administration), the principal "evidence" for one of the PRC "spying" incidents involving Moles that had "penetrated" Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos Labs, is that: Peter Lee, a Taiwan-born, US naturalized citizen--while employed at Los Alamos, visited the PRC in 1985 (during the Reagan Administration) to make a presentation and freely admitted in 1995 that he described in that presentation in some detail his work on an inertial confinement fusion (ICF) project at Lawrence Livermore during the period 1973-1984.(Cox Report.p.89)

This Peter Lee admission is evidently the basis for the allegation in the Redacted Report that the PRC had stolen (a) the "secret" of the "neutron bomb" and/or (b) the "secret" of a revolutionary "miniature" hydrogen bomb. Here is what the Redacted Report (p89) has to say in support of those charges: "Specifically, Lee explained to PRC weapons scientists how deuterium and tritium can be loaded into a spherical capsule called a target and surrounded by a hohtraum and then heated by means of laser bombardment. The heat causes the compression of these elements, creating a nuclear fusion micro-explosion."

But a proper technical understanding of ICF and Peter Lee's job would lead one to suspect that Peter Lee had merely described to his PRC hosts in some detail his work as a contract employee on an inertial confinement fusion (ICF) laser project at Lawrence Livermore Lab, a predecessor of the NOVA facility.(NOVA See http//Lasers Unl.gov/lasers/target/novatour/lobby.html) These extremely large, extremely expensive facilities have usually been justified primarily as a potential inexhaustible source of "clean" fusion energy. Because they are so expensive, and because there has not since the 1970s seemed to be a pressing need for "fusion" energy, the ICF facilities have sometimes been justified to Congress as having some National Defense function. This was especially true during the Reagan defense buildup of the early 1980s.

It is possible that LLNL weapons designers could have found some of the experimental results obtained from some experiments they may have conducted at the ICF facility (even when Peter Lee worked there) useful in thermonuclear "fusion" weapon design. That would certainly be the case now that the US has foresworn any further full-scale nuclear testing.

But Peter Lee -- the TRW employee -- almost certainly had nothing to do with Lawrence Livermore weapons design, even if some National Defense experiments were conducted at the ICF facility where he was hired to work. And in the pre-O'Leary era, Petet Lee probably had a color coded security badge that would not have even allowed him access to the areas of Lawrence Livermore where such design work took place. The Cox report notes (p 89): "Lee was formally charged with one count of 'gathering, transmitting or losing defense information,' in violation of Section 793 of Title 18 of the US Code, and one count of providing false statements to a US government agency, in violation of Section 1001, Title 18. On December 8, 1997, Lee pled guilty to willfully passing classified US defense information to PRC scientists during his 1985 visit to the PRC. Lee also pled guilty to falsifying reports of contact with PRC nationals in 1997."

USC Section 793 is cited which has to do with "gathering, transmitting or losing defense information,"(US Code title 18,Section 793 - defines "defense information") [Section 798 on the other hand, has to do with "classified information" (US Code title 50,Section 4382. The term "classified information" means any information that has been determined pursuant to Executive Order No.12356 of April 2,1982 or successor orders,or the atomic Energy Act of 1954 (42 USC.2011 et seq.),to require protection against unauthorized disclosure and that is so designed.) which includes both "defense information" and "restricted data." ] In the early 1980s, during the Reagan Defense Buildup, information about high-power lasers, which Peter Lee worked on at Lawrence Livermore, may well have been "defense information," a DOD category. But information about "neutron bombs" -- specifically the W-70 (Mod 3), according to the Redacted Report--is "restricted data" as defined by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 as amended, (USC Title 42,Sec 2014 (Y) The term "Restricted Data" means all data concerning (1)design,manufacture,or utilization of atomic weapons; (2) the production of special nuclear material; or (3) the use of special nuclear material in the production of energy, but shall not include data declassified or removed from the Restricted Data category pursuant to section 2162 of this title) a DOE category of "classified" information. What Peter Lee has apparently pled guilty to, is what he freely admitted that he did -- that he told his Chinese hosts all about his work on high-power lasers.

The Cox committee (P.86) and others (http://www.enviroweb.org/enviroissues/nuketesting/new/Usa/weapons/Allbombs.html) have identified the W-70 as both "enhanced radiation warhead" and the "neutron bomb." In my lexicon, those are not the same things at all. An "enhanced radiation" warhead is just what it says, a nuclear weapon where the design has been "tweaked" so that a larger fraction of the energy release from fission/fusion comes out of the bomb case as radiation. And, although scientists at Livermore and elsewhere were hard at work at it, so far as I know we have never developed a true "neutron bomb", that is, a "zero-fission fusion" weapon. If Livermore scientists had been able to "light" a DT pellet in the Lab -- producing more explosive energy than was pumped into it by Peter Lee's Lasers -- then they would have had a very,  very low yield "zero-fission fusion" neutron "cherry-bomb." If Peter Lee had given that "cherry bomb secret" to the PRC, then the PRC bomb designer would only have had the problem of fitting the entire NOVA facility and some significant fraction of PG&E's electrical generating capacity for Northern California into a missile warhead. In other words, the entire scenario is implausible.

The Clinton Administration officials who were examining the Cox Committee "evidence" as it was being submitted to them for review in 1998 ought to have pointed out to the Committee how ridiculous those charges about the W-70 and the "miniaturized thermonuclear bomb " were. In any case, as the PRC weapons designers surely knew, the way to "light" a DT "pellet" is with a nuclear explosion, not with an ICF laser facility. And in 1985, neither the US or the PRC had signed the CTBT so there was nothing to prevent them from "banging away"  till they were able to "light" a DT "pellet" if that's what they had their hearts set on. One can perhaps be forgiven for wondering if whoever allowed the Cox Committee to include that "neutron bomb" charge in their Redacted Report and later leaked the ridiculous story about teeny-tiny hydrogen bombs, did so because the alleged spying incident happened on Reagan's, not Clinton's watch." The "secret " of the "neutron bomb," and/or the "secret " of the "miniaturized thermonuclear warhead," is what Peter Lee is supposed to have divulged to the PRC.

As in the case of Wen Ho Lee, it appears that the Security [DOE & FBI] officials have attempted to define the Crime to fit their Suspect. The LLNL scientists at the ICF facility where Peter Lee worked were surely attempting to achieve "zero-fission fusion," but not to make a weapon. [In any case, accusing Peter Lee of stealing the "secret" of the neutron bomb at the ICF facility where he worked is a bit like accusing the grounds keeper at Wimbledon of "stealing " the "secret" of Pete Sornpras' serve.