China "Doubles" COX

   Cox's committee announced Chinese spies had stolen secrets on seven 
of our most advanced thermonuclear weapons, giving them nuclear design 
info "on a par with our own." But the committee's report on Chinese 
espionage rested largely upon a document deliberately fed to us
by a "walk-in" (double) Chinese agent, a spy secretly acting on
the orders of China's intelligence agency. Numerous explanations
by Cox and others trying to explain why China would do this, evoked 
much skepticism. (Washington Post 5/28/99 A3.)

   In shades of the recent past the Soviets ran any number of similar 
operations using double agents to dupe the United States via the CIA 
to spend billions of dollars on weapons systems to counter claimed 
USSR development of weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. 

   The consequences of Cox's duping apparently will restrict the
flow of scientific data between U.S. government institutions and
individuals and impose possibly unnecessary restrictions on trade 
with other countries.

Ralph McGehee
http://come.to/CIABASE

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                COX vs China & Internet

   Below is a brief quote from an item in the Los Angeles
Times and Denver Post 16/17 May 1999 re Chinese Espionage.
(The full Times report contains the observation that Internet 
demands a complete re-evaluation of intelligence procedures -- 
an observation probably lost on our intelligence services.)

Ralph McGehee
http://come.to/CIABASE
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Earlier Post:

"China doesn't need to use spies anymore to obtain precise details and 
sketches of America's most modern thermonuclear weapons, ballistic 
missiles and reentry vehicles. Anyone armed with an Internet account or 
a library card can get some of the same military secrets that China 
is accused of stealing from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 
New Mexico."

That might explain why the Chinese have tried to access a Maryland-based 
online service, called USNI Military Database, that offers estimates 
of such classified data as the explosive yield of U.S. nuclear warheads, 
the accuracy of the missiles that carry them and the names of the 
Navy warships and the locations of U.S. Air Force strategic wings 
responsible for the weapons. China has failed to (pay the $2,500 for 
a year's USNI subscription) while asking for free samples. USNI info 
comes from combing military journals, conference reports, arms control 
treaties, congressional testimony and other open sources.