Page "Wen Ho Lee" Paragraph 9

Lee did not get the attention of the FBI again for 12 years until 1998.

The FBI had lost the file on Lee from the 1983 and 1984 meetings with him, and had to reconstruct the information.

In 1994, a delegation of Chinese scientists visited LANL in an unannounced capacity for a meeting.

One of the scientists visiting was Dr. Hu Side, the head of the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics, essentially the head of China ’ s nuclear program.

He also was credited with the design of the small, W88-like weapon.

Yet, despite the visit being unannounced, Lee showed up to the meeting uninvited.

Side and Lee clearly knew each other and were friendly.

This alarmed LANL officials, which contacted the FBI, who opened up another investigation of Lee.

On December 23, 1998, Lee was given a polygraph test by Wackenhut, a DOE contractor.

He was not told of the reason why, other than that it involved his latest trip to China to escort his nephew.

During the questioning, he admitted that he had, in fact, met with Dr. Hu Side in a hotel room in 1988, and that Side had asked him for classified information, which he refused to discuss.

Lee admitted that he failed to report this contact and approach by individuals requesting classified information as required by security regulations.

He was told that he passed the test, but was stripped of his Q ( classified ) clearance to the LANL's classified X Division section.

Although he questioned the action against him, Lee followed along, deleting the classified information he held on his computers and moved to the T ( unclassified ) clearance zone.

He was later subjected to three more polygraph tests before being told by the FBI agents that re-evaluation of the test results showed that Lee had failed all of them.