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of China, 1999), which was headed by Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., and investigated a series of allegations about Chinese spying that largely targeted high-end technology, including U.S. nuclear weapons designs. Given the issues involved, the Department of Energy (DOE) and the national laboratories were likely places to look. (A series of nasty arguments also played out in public between current and former DOE intelligence and counterintelligence officers, as well as between some of them and the FBI, over the issue of responsibility.) Lee, who was born in Taiwan, had been under investigation since 1994, but the investigation was fitful and inconclusive. He had downloaded some 400,000 pages of classified nuclear data unrelated to his work at Los Alamos. In 2000, Lee was arrested, charged with fifty-nine counts, and held in jail for more than nine months, mostly in solitary confinement. However, the government was unable to discover evidence of espionage, that is, passing the material to a foreign power. A Justice Department report castigated the FBI’s handling of the investigation, concluding that if Lee was a spy, the FBI let him get away, and if he was not a spy, the bureau failed to consider other lines of investigation. Lee was eventually released and agreed to plead guilty to one felony count of illegally downloading sensitive nuclear data. The case remains, at best, inconclusive. This calls to mind Scottish law, which gives a jury the option to return a verdict of “not proven,” instead of either guilty or not guilty.

In intermediate cases, officers come under suspicion for reasons other than espionage but still pose risks. A good example is Edward Howard, a CIA Directorate of Operations (DO) officer who was slated to be posted to Moscow in the 1980s. Howard was revealed to have ongoing drug and criminal problems that made the posting impossible. He was suspected of being a counterintelligence problem, but handling the situation was difficult. If sending him to Moscow was not an option, he would have to be reassigned or fired. If he were reassigned, he would still be in a position to see classified material even though he remained a security risk because of his personal behavior. Moreover, he would most likely feel aggrieved because of the cancellation of his overseas posting, making him an ever bigger risk. Alternatively, to fire him was risky, as he had thorough knowledge of DO tradecraft plus information about operations in Moscow. Once fired, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to keep watch on him. Ultimately, Howard was fired, but he was kept under FBI surveillance. He eluded surveillance (using techniques he learned as a DO officer) and fled to Moscow, claiming that he had not been a spy but had been driven away by the CIA. David Wise, a veteran intelligence author and sometimes critic of U.S. intelligence, interviewed Howard in Moscow and came away convinced that Howard’s disloyalty predated his flight.

Some who deal with counterintelligence make a distinction between big CI and little CI. If a spy is revealed in one’s organization it is important to determine the reasons why he or she went after specific information. Was this tied to some specific need or tasking or was it simply opportunistic? If one is able to answer this question it will reveal the nature of the penetration and the goals of the nation running the spy. All of this comes under “big CI.” Beyond this, there are still the specific issues surrounding the penetration: how it happened, how long it has been going on, who on the other side has been responsible for tasking and for running the penetration, what information may have been compromised, issues of tradecraft. All of these are “little Cl” issues. It is like the distinction made in military operations between strategy and tactics.

Once a spy has been identified and arrested, the intelligence community conducts a damage assessment, to determine what intelligence has been compromised. Having the cooperation of the captured spy would be useful. In the United States, this cooperation