Richardson Acknowledges Anger from Asian Americans, Pledges Fight for Their Rights
April 30, 1999

By Jonathan S. Landreth (New York) - Drawing a comparison to the plight of hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans during WWII, Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson pledged to fight the 'rush to judgment' in the case of an American scientist of Taiwanese heritage who Richardson recommended be fired from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in March.

"The alleged actions of any one individual are not, and never will be, a reflection on any other American citizen," said Richardson, reading from prepared remarks at the 10th annual meeting of the Committee of 100 at the Waldorf Astoria hotel.

Richardson said he understood the anger surrounding the case of Wen Ho Lee, the scientist who is under investigation for espionage for The People's Republic of China, but has not yet been charged with a crime.

Lee was fired, Richardson said, for failure to properly inform the laboratory about meetings he had with Chinese scientists in the mid-1990s. Richardson insisted Lee's firing was based on a standard applied to all lab employees to uphold the protection of classified materials relating to national security.

"A legal case and any indictments or charges are separate and a different matter," Richardson said. "It is not something that we at the Energy Department should or can control."

Richardson warned that espionage cases were the business of the FBI and the CIA and often take a long time to settle. He vowed to fight to address concerns that Lee's dismissal would impact the careers of all Asian Americans.

"What I'm truly concerned about is the hiring of Chinese," said Matt Fong, a Los Angeles lawyer who ran for the Senate as a Republican in 1998. "Will companies wonder if hiring a person of Chinese ancestry will lead to any investigations?"

Scientists Joel Wong of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Ray Ng of the Sandia Laboratory, and T. K. Chu of the Princeton Physics Laboratory, called for a Department of Energy directive asking current management to address the issue of sensitivity and equity in the workplace.

"I will do that," said Richardson.

The scientists in the audience said that they all suffered by association because top management does not reflect their large number in the labs. Without leaders to reflect the views, they said, they fear the current atmosphere of antagonism in U.S.-China relations will result in a kind of professional racial profiling.

More than 50 percent of graduate students in the sciences in America are foreign born, according to Secretary Richardson. "Xenophobia undermines open science," he said. Saying the nation's tight national security resulted from its excellent national laboratory program, Richardson appeared to understand the grave implications for the future when he said he didn't want future Asian scientists to avoid America's labs for fear of being harassed.

Jonathan S. Landreth, reported for The South China Morning Post in Beijing and plans to head back to China as soon as he graduates from the Columbia School of Journalism in May, 1999.