Spy Story

The current issue of The American Spectator has a good article on the possible Chinese triple-agent who may have compromised twenty-years of work by US intelligence and law enforcement. (Unfortunately, there is no online article at Spectator.org. A much less in-depth treatment can be found here)

If half of the allegations are true, then Katrina Leung is as important an espionage figure as Kim Philby and far more significant than Aldrich Ames. As i've noted before, i can't understand why the press is so uninterested in this matter.

Brief recap: Leung was an LA business woman who was paid $2 million by the FBI to spy on China. In the course of this work she had simultaneous affairs with two FBI agents working on counter-intelligence matters on the west coast. The government now alleges that Leung used her relationship with the agents to procure classified information which she gave to China.

Implications

1. Obviously, if Leung passed documents to China, she compromised many on-going operations aimed at the PRC.

2. Since the FBI thought she was a source of intelligence on the PRC, if she is a triple agent then she provided disinformation. Therefore, assessments of China based on that information is suspect.

3. One of her FBI handler/lovers went on to become head of security at Lawrence Livermore Labs. So she may have had access to classified information from there as well.

4. The California offices of the FBI handled much of the investigations into Chinese espionage at our nuclear installations, including Wen Ho Lee. Leung could have influenced those investigations by warning her Chinese controllers, providing disinformation, or by compromising her agent/lovers who were doing the investigating.

5. One of her FBI pigeons was a key investigator in China-gate-- the fundraising scandals from the 1996 campaign. At the same time Leung was a public supporter of Ted Sioeng who steered $400,000 in illegal contributions to the Clinton-Gore campaign.

This story deserves more press attention. It is surely at least 1/10 as important as Laci Peterson's murder. Just imagine what the public might learn if Fox et. al. devoted 1/10 the effort to it as they have that murder case.