GOP Attacks Clinton On Spying

With Congress set to begin hearings next week into the Clinton Administration's response to Chinese spying at the nation's top secret weapons labs, the President's top intelligence advisors will be grilled on why it took years to take action after the spying was uncovered, reports CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson.

The Clinton administration conceded Sunday the Chinese gained from technology allegedly stolen from a federal nuclear weapons lab but insisted the government has responded decisively. Republicans, though, pressed for a comprehensive review of U.S. policy toward China.

"This is a very dangerous situation involving international espionage that directly threatens the security of all Americans," said Sen. John McCain, a GOP presidential hopeful. McCain, R-Ariz., said President Clinton should appoint a panel to investigate charges that China stole nuclear warhead technology.

Another senior GOP senator, Dick Lugar of Indiana, recommended a "very serious review" of the country's China policy. Lugar also said in NBC's ``Meet the Press'' that the United States should make clear to China that it will defend Taiwan from a Chinese missile attack.

The administration, represented by Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and the president's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, said the Chinese did benefit from the information leaks, which occurred in the 1980s from the Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico. Sources say that China may have gathered information on the design of America's most modern warhead, the W-88.

But, Berger said "I think we moved swiftly and I think we continue to impose on China the strictest controls."

The Chinese call the whole spy story a "fabrication" designed to derail relations, reports Attkisson. With China's premier planning an official visit here next month, relations between the two countries are very icy right now.

Richardson said the administration had doubled the security budget for the national labs, instigated strong background checks for scientists visiting the labs from sensitive countries, and subjecting employees to polygraphs.

The suspected spy, Taiwanese-born American scientist Wen Ho Lee, has been questioned by the FBI and fired from his job. He has not been charged with any crime.

Republicans, seizing on the Los Alamos case, contend anew that Clinton's policy seriously has been tainted by alleged illegal campaign contributions and the transfer of satellite technology that may have been used by the Chinese military.

A special congressional commission headed by Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., has put together a still-classified report said to take strong issue with the administration's technology transfer policies to China.

The report is scheduled to be released in several weeks. But the committee, which wants to make almost all of it public, and the administration are negotiating over what should be declassified.

Cox said the commitee "believes that not only now but for the indefinite future we have serious counterintelligence problems at our national laboratories and elsewhere throughout the government."

"I disagree," Richardson said on ABC. "I believe we have taken some dramatic steps to deal with this problem."

The latest edition of Time magazine reports that Lee, who worked at Los Alamos for more than two decades, attended a 1988 seminar in Hong Kong and, with Chinese officials present, allegedly divulged sensitive information on the design of the W-88.

The Los Angeles Times, in a report Sunday, quoted law enforcement officials as saying the investigation had ``hit a wall'' because of lack of hard evidence and Lee's refusal to cooperate.

The administration first became aware of possible espionage at Los Alamos in 1996. Republicans have asked why it took so long to investigate the case and remove Lee from his job.