Timeline of the Cox Report controversy

June • Sometime in June, a walk-in agent for People's Republic of China intelligence services approached the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) office in Taiwan and provided them with an official PRC document classified "Secret" that contained design information of all seven of America's nuclear warheads. President Bill Clinton's Director of Central Intelligence, John Deutch, was informed the following month. July • Clinton's former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary, Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, and deputy director of Central Intelligence George Tenet learned of the PRC's theft of America's nuclear warhead designs sometime in July 1995, but did not inform the President at that time. October • On or about October 31, the FBI first learned of the PRC's possible theft of advanced U.S. nuclear weapons designs. November • CIA Director Deutch informed Clinton's National Security Adviser Anthony Lake about the PRC's theft of America's nuclear weapon designs sometime in November 1995. The president was not briefed at that time. • In late 1995 and early 1996, United States Department of Energy (DOE) intelligence official Notra Trulock took his findings on the PRC's theft of advanced U.S. nuclear warhead designs to the FBI. Trulock made the discovery independently from the CIA while analyzing data from the PRC's recent underground nuclear test. A team of FBI and DOE officials then traveled to three weapons labs (Livermore, Sandia and Los Alamos) and pored over travel and work records of lab scientists who had access to the relevant technology. By February, they narrowed its focus to five possible suspects. == 1996 ==

• In early 1996, Notra Trulock told CIA officials about his discoveries on the PRC's theft of America's nuclear warhead designs. Loral and Hughes Electronics' engineers were accused of giving missile secrets to China in the ensuing investigation of the launch failure. March • On March 27, Energy Department officials were notified by an American agent that it appeared the PRC recently stole U.S. neutron bomb secrets. April • Sometime in April 1996, intelligence analyst Ronald Pandolfi wrote a report for the CIA warning about military implications of Hughes Electronics' sharing of missile expertise with the PRC. The CIA decided not to distribute the classified report to select government officials, as is routinely done with intelligence estimates, saying it was insufficiently rigorous. The report would be kept from Congress until late 1998. • On April 13, the Energy Department briefed the White House about the PRC's espionage at Los Alamos weapons lab. A group of senior officials including Notra Trulock met with Deputy National Security Advisor Sandy Berger and told him that the PRC appeared to have acquired both W-88 nuclear and neutron bomb secrets and that a spy for the PRC might still be at Los Alamos. Berger later stated he did not inform the president of the espionage until July 1997, • Sometime in April, Vice President Al Gore's national security advisor Leon Fuerth was informed about the PRC's nuclear espionage at America's weapons laboratories. Some documents showed he may have been informed as early as 1995, though Fuerth did not recall a briefing then. Fuerth did not mention the espionage to Gore until March 1999. May • On May 30, the FBI formally opened a criminal investigation into the theft of the W-88 nuclear design. Originally only 1 or 2 agents were assigned to the case and the inquiry made little progress over the rest of the year. June • In late June or early July, the CIA issued an internal government statement that declared they may have misread their original analysis of the documents delivered by the double agent to their Taiwan offices and that China may not have America's weapons designs after all. The FBI, in turn, suspended their investigation of the matter (which had just started) for about six weeks. == 1997 ==

• Sometime in early 1997, Energy Department intelligence analyst Notra Trulock learned of new nuclear espionage evidence. He attempted to contact newly appointed Energy Secretary Federico Peña about the information but was not given an appointment to see him until July. The judge in the case would later apologize to Lee. Lee took a plea bargain on September 13, 2000, to a single count under the Espionage Act 18 USC 793(e), withholding national defense information, in order to avoid the 'vagaries' of a jury trial, and all other counts were dropped. Many considered Lee to have been seriously mistreated, and the President later apologized to him. Lee would go on to win a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the government and the media for invasion of privacy. • Former Sandia and Los Alamos laboratory employee Peter Lee (no relation to Wen Ho Lee) gave top secret information on antisubmarine radar technology away to Chinese nuclear-weapons experts during a May 11 lecture at the Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics in Beijing, China. Lee pleaded guilty to filing a false statement about his 1997 trip to China and to giving classified laser data to Chinese scientists during an earlier trip to China in 1985. July • Sometime in July, Secretary Peña met with Notra Trulock who had new information about China's ongoing espionage at America's nuclear weapons laboratories. After the meeting, Peña sent him to see National Security Advisor Sandy Berger. Before he left, he assigned his NSC aide in charge of proliferation to assess the nuclear espionage situation. The aide later stated that, while the espionage had taken place, Trulock's briefing was only a worst-case scenario. • Attorney General Reno opened a criminal investigation into Loral Space & Communications and Hughes Electronics' illegal transfer of ballistic missile technology to China. October • On October 29, President Clinton certified that China was not engaging in the export of nuclear technology to non-nuclear nations, which allowed a 1985 Sino-U.S. nuclear cooperation agreement to go into effect in 1998. The agreement allowed for the shipping of nuclear power plant technology to China. "This agreement is a win-win," Clinton said. "It serves America's national security, environmental and economic interests… It is the right thing to do for America." November • General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Jiang Zemin completed his tour of the United States with a November 2–3 visit to Los Angeles. While there, he toured Hughes Electronics' main headquarters and manufacturing plant. Hughes Electronics was fined $32 million in 2003 for illegally transferring missile technology to China in 1995. • On November 7, 1997, Energy Secretary Federico Peña announced the department had taken actions to strengthen the safeguards and security at the department's defense nuclear facilities. In announcing the actions, Peña released two reports he said he had ordered earlier in the year on safeguards and security. "Several months ago when security concerns were first brought to my attention, I ordered these reports. Today, I am publicly releasing them because I think we have a responsibility to the American people to address these challenges as openly and directly as possible. More importantly, we are taking actions to further secure our facilities," Peña said. == 1998 ==

February • President Clinton authorized the sale to China of a Loral-made satellite sometime in February 1998. Justice Department prosecutors who were investigating the company for possible violations of export law regarding the February 1996 failed rocket launch in China opposed this. Loral was eventually fined $14 million in 2002 for its involvement in illegally transferring missile technology to China. June • On June 18, the House of Representatives voted 409–10 to allow the creation of a special committee to investigate whether technology or information was transferred to the People's Republic of China that may have contributed to the enhancement of their nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles. The committee was named the ''Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China''. October • On October 17, President Clinton signed into law recently passed legislation by Congress that reversed his 1996 Executive Order that shifted control over commercial satellite exports permits from the State Department to the Commerce Department. After signing the bill, President Clinton stated the change was: "...not necessary... and could hamper the U.S. satellite industry." The legislation would not go into effect until five months later. December • On December 5, The New York Times reported the Justice Department was investigating the Central Intelligence Agency for possibly obstructing justice by giving Hughes Electronics information about the House Select Committee's investigation of the company. == 1999 ==

January • On January 3, the House Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China released their classified report on their findings regarding China's espionage campaign against the United States to government officials in Congress and the White House. March • Sometime in March, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Vice President Al Gore learned of China's thefts of America's weapons designs for the first time. • Excerpt from an interview with National Security Advisor Sandy Berger by Jim Lehrer of PBS May 27, 1999: December In December 1999, four Stanford University professors release a report rebutting the Cox Commission, noting "The language of the report, particularly its Overview, was inflammatory and some allegations did not seem to be well supported....Some important and relevant facts are wrong and a number of conclusions are, in our view, unwarranted." A number of other reports, including one from the National Academy of Sciences, reach similar conclusions. == Notes and references ==