Caught on Tape: Selling America's Secrets

(CBS)  We're used to spy novels about the Russians, but today's reality in espionage is different. China has just as good a spy network in the United States. And you are going to see a Chinese spy caught red-handed taking American military secrets from an employee of the Defense Department.

If China is the Asian dragon, then it has awakened to compete with the United States all around the world for resources, markets and strategic advantage. The Chinese are shopping for information ranging from U.S. nuclear weapons designs to the inside deliberations of the Obama White House.

Because of the nature of espionage, you never get a look at this clandestine underworld but recently the FBI recorded a Chinese agent stealing America's secrets. The video we obtained is being made public for the first time on "60 Minutes."

Full Segment: Stealing America's Secrets
Web Extra: Cyber Spies
Web Extra: Sloppy Spying
Web Extra: Stolen Secrets
Web Extra: Stopping Chinese Spying

In the video, the man driving the car is Gregg Bergersen. He's a civilian analyst at the Pentagon with one of the nation's highest security clearances. His companion is Tai Shen Kuo, a spy for the People's Republic of China.

Kuo was born in Taiwan, but he's a naturalized American citizen who owns a number of businesses in Louisiana; Bergersen worked at the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency which manages weapons sales to U.S. allies.

Bergersen knew a secret the Chinese desperately wanted to know: what kind of weapons America was planning to sell to Taiwan, the rebellious Chinese island that mainland China wants to reclaim. It was July 2007 when they were driving outside Washington, D.C. Neither man knew that what they are about to do was being recorded by two cameras the FBI has concealed in their car.

As the FBI cameras were rolling, Kuo reached over and put a roll of bills in Bergersen's shirt pocket. A hundred dollar bill was clearly visible on the outside of the bundle of money.

"I'll give you, let you have the money," Kuo told Bergersen.

"Whoa, oh, are you sure that's okay?" Bergersen asked.

"Yeah, yeah, fine," Kuo replied.

Bergersen asked, "You're sure?"


"60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley watched the tape with John Slattery, the FBI agent at headquarters who oversaw the case. He recently retired as a deputy assistant director and is now a vice president at BAE Systems, a major defense and security contractor.

Asked what's going on in the tape, Slattery explained, "Information has been passed prior and this is reward for that, or there is expectation that passage of information is forthcoming so that's what's happening here."

Slattery estimated that Kuo gave Bergersen about $2,000.

Tai Shen Kuo's money and contacts came to the FBI's attention while the bureau was investigating a different Chinese espionage case. They followed him, tapped his phone, monitored his e-mail and all of that led them to Bergersen.

In the car, the Pentagon employee and Chinese spy were plotting the handover of secret documents that listed future weapons sales to Taiwan and details of a Taiwanese military communications system called Po Sheng.

"I'm very, very, very, very reticent to let you have it because it's all classified," Bergersen told Kuo, as the cameras continued to record their conversation. "But I will let you see it."

"And you can take all the notes you want," Bergersen told Kuo. "Which I think you can do today. But I if it ever fell into the wrong hands, and I know it's not going to, but if it ever."

"Okay, that's fair, that's fair, yeah, yeah," Kuo replied.

"Then I would be fired for sure. I'd go to jail," Bergersen warned. ""Because I violated all the rules."

"He just described them as classified documents," Pelley remarked. "He knows precisely what he's doing."

"Exactly," Slattery agreed.

"He's almost going down your list of requirements for an indictment by a grand jury, Pelley pointed out.

"And we thank him for that," Slattery joked.

"When it comes to espionage against the United States, is China now the number one threat that we face?" Pelley asked Michelle Van Cleave, who was America's top counter intelligence officer.

"I would be hard pressed to say whether it's the Chinese or it's the Russians, but they're one, two, or two, one," she replied.

Working for the director of national intelligence, she was in charge of coordinating the hunt for foreign spies from 2003 to 2006. Van Cleave's position as National Counter-Intelligence Executive was created by Congress after a series of spy cases, including those of CIA agent Aldrich Ames and FBI agent Robert Hanssen, embarrassed the intelligence community. Both those men spied for the Russians, but the threat has changed, says Van Cleave.

"The Chinese are the biggest problem we have with respect to the level of effort that they're devoting against us versus the level of attention we are giving to them," Van Cleave explained.

Asked what the Chinese want from America, Van Cleave told Pelley, "Virtually every technology that is on the U.S. control technology list has been targeted at one time or another by the Chinese. Sensors, and optics, and biological and chemical processes. These are the things, information technologies across all the things that we have identified as having inherent military application."

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next Page »

[rocketjl]

When American stopped executing people for treason, things really went down hill. Put them in jail and feed them for a long time. Let them go and they do it again. Shoot traitors and terrorists.

[Funky-President]

Who stole our anthrax sercrets? where is the [silicon] "enhanced" Antharx? It was in you mail!

PUBLISHED SEPT 4, 2001.

nytimes.com/2001/09/04/international/04GERM.html ?pagewanted=all

Earlier this year, administration officials said, the Pentagon drew up plans to engineer genetically a potentially more potent variant of the bacterium that causes anthrax, a deadly disease ideal for germ warfare."

"A published account of the experiment, which appeared in a scientific journal in late 1997, alarmed the Pentagon, which had just decided to require that American soldiers be vaccinated against anthrax. American officials tried to obtain a sample from Russia through a scientific exchange program to see whether the Russians had really created such a hybrid. The Americans also wanted to test whether the microbe could defeat the American vaccine, which is different from that used by Russia.

Despite repeated promises, the bacteria were never provided.

Eventually the C.I.A. drew up plans to replicate the strain, but intelligence officials said the agency hesitated because there was no specific report that an adversary was attempting to turn the superbug into a weapon.

This year, officials said, the project was taken over by the Pentagon's intelligence arm, the Defense Intelligence Agency. Pentagon lawyers reviewed the proposal and said it complied with the treaty. Officials said the research would be part of Project Jefferson, yet another government effort to track the dangers posed by germ weapons.

A spokesman for Defense Intelligence, Lt. Cmdr. James Brooks, declined comment. Asked about the precautions at Battelle, which is to create the enhanced anthrax, Commander Brooks said security was "entirely suitable for all work already conducted and planned for Project Jefferson."

[betterusa]

Espionage is punishable by execution. If our government would act swiftly with this I believe the Bergersens and Kuos of the world would lessen. Ask Ethel and Julius Rosenberg!

[gordonsmithr]

Whatever happened to objective 60 Minutes reporting? From the opening lines this story had an obvious anti China bias. China isn't stealing anything. We all saw the tape. It was a red blooded American citizen who sold those secrets. Odd how the word traitor wasn't even mentioned.

What's next? Accuse China of stealing U.S. jobs? Ha! Our companies and our government shipped the jobs there. Clearly, China did not steal them either.

If the CIA is going to ghostwrite the stories at least try a little harder to conceal the spin. For a good twenty minutes we thought we were watching Fox.

Is Katie Couric being replaced by Anderson Cooper? Heard this today.

[G-mannnn]

Watch the segment again. Kuo was working for the Chinese government as a spy in exchange for a allowing Kuo to expand his legitimate business into China. And yes, they were BOTH U.S. citizens and both are traitors. However, neither would have been involved in the spy business if not for the Chinese government's request for the data, so I can't see how you can justify your statement that "China isn't stealing anything."

[ibsteve2u]

Hey, CBS - I think you better not publish these stories anymore; you risk the ire of the American multinationals who are selling us out to China - and that is big money in advertising.

And "big money" doesn't even come close to describing what is on the horizon, once the political advertising starts rolling out.

[cride1]

I doubt that any of the CBS producers read any of the comments here. I would be surprised if they even knew that readers/viewers could comment on their Web site!

[ibsteve2u]

"Whoa, oh, are you sure that's okay?" Bergersen asked.

What an idiot. He should have incorporated, and then handed the secrets over. Then he could have claimed that the profit motive and his right to practice capitalism shielded him.

Or, if that failed, then that his corporation was just indulging its right to free speech.

[msay3]

by rharrin1 March 1, 2010 9:36 AM EST
They should have gotten the same punishment that bush and cheney got for outing a cia agent and it's front company which is treason.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~....and exactly what was the "same punishment"???? raharrini1, why don't you crawl back under your rock before you say something really stupid!!!!

[borg99]

Five years for the sale of classified information? No wonder government employees risk selling U.S. secrets -- the punishment is incredibly light, given the gravity of the offense. I've seen people get nearly that much jail time for shoplifting.

[brianbwb2011]

To newyorkerinasia

?????????????????? (One should not lie when there are present those who know the truth.)

You wouldn't know where Xianghai is if you were in the town square.

I do business in China, and at least once every two months or so, I travel to Xianghai, Shenzen, Beijing, Guangdou, and Xiamen.

Your imagination seems to be fuelled with ASPD, Sterno, and pure bigotry. Nothing near what you describe happened, and someone who doesn't even know the correct spelling of the town's name, certainly has never been there.

[newyorkerinasia]

First of all, I was writing in US English. Shanghai is the recognized spelling in my country and most people on this site use American English. And by the way, Xianghai is not even correct pinyin. Ni jen de shi tai ben, ni yi wei ni shenma dou zhi dao. Cao ni niang... And who cares if you go there every few months, I lived there for 12 years non-stop working in security and investigations. And I'm sure for your high level business, you probably stay in nice hotels and get good treatment when you play the visiting businessman. How much time have you spent walking the streets of Dongguan, Huizhou or Shantou?

[pugster]

I don't see what's the big deal about this. Heck we spy on them since 1949 so I wouldn't be surprised that someone spies on us. Recently there's a big stink over China being removed as a top priority for spies.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/20/china-removed-top-priority-spies/

Besides, the way how this guy was caught was very sloppy. The American who got caught is not the Robert Hanssen type. I figure that the Chinese 'agent' who got caught with the information could've e-mailed the information to someone in China instead of writing down the information on paper and hand deliver it instead.