May 18, 1998
ESSAY
/
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
U.S. Security for Sale
ASHINGTON
-- A President hungry for money to
finance his re-election overruled the
Pentagon; he sold to a Chinese Military Intelligence front the technology
that defense experts argued would
give Beijing the capacity to blind our
spy satellites and launch a sneak attack. How soon we have forgotten
Pearl Harbor.
October 1996 must have been some
tense month for Democratic fund-raisers. The New York Times, Wall Street
Journal and Los Angeles Times had
begun to expose "the Asian connection" of John Huang and Indonesia's
Riady family to the Clinton campaign.
The fix was already in to sell the
satellite technology to China. Clinton
had switched the licensing over to Ron
Brown's anything-goes Commerce
Department. Johnny Chung had paid
up. Commerce's Huang had delivered
money big time (though one of his
illegal foreign sources had already
been spotted). The boss of the satellite's builder had come through as
Clinton's largest contributor.
But public outrage was absent. The
F.B.I. didn't read the papers and Reno
Justice did not want to embarrass the
President. And television news found
no pictorial values in the Asian connection.
Stealthily, the Clinton Administration held back the implementation of the corrupt policy until Nov. 5
-- the day the campaign ended.
Now the reporting of Jeff Gerth and
The Times's investigative team is
putting the spotlight of pitiless publicity on the sellout of American security.
We begin to see how the daughter of
China's top military commander
steered at least $300,000 through the
Chung channel to the D.N.C. (Apparently Mr. Chung skimmed off a chunk
and may be spilling his guts lest he
have to face his Beijing friends.)
We begin to learn more of the Feb.
8, 1996, visit of the arms dealer Wang
Jun to the Commerce office of Ron
Brown, and Wang's "coffee" meeting
that day with the President, the very
day that Clinton approved four Chinese launches -- even as China was
terrorizing Taiwan with missile tests.
Clinton's explanation, which used to
slyly suggest that China policy was
not changed "solely" by contributors,
has now switched to total ignorance:
shucks, we didn't know the source of
the money. But this President's D.N.C.
did not know because it wanted not to
know; procedures long in place to
prevent the unlawful inflow of foreign
funds were uprooted by the money-hungry Clintonites.
Today, two years after this sale of
our security, comes the unforeseen
chain reaction: as China strengthens
its satellite and missile technology, a
new Indian Government reacts to the
growing threat from its longtime
Asian rival and joins the nuclear club.
In turn, China feels pressed to supply
its threatened ally, Pakistan, with
weaponry Beijing promised us not to
transfer.
This makes Clinton the Proliferation President.
Who has helped keep this sellout of
security under wraps? In the Senate,
John Glenn was rewarded with a
space flight by Clinton for derogating
the leads to China of the Thompson
committee. Fred Thompson's warnings about China's plan to penetrate
this White House were then scorned
by Democratic partisans; his Government Operations Committee should
now swarm all over this.
The House's aggressive agent of the
Clinton cover-up, Henry Waxman of
California, is finally "troubled" by the
prospect of damning evidence he prevented the Burton committee from
finding. At least three Democratic
partisans who foolishly followed Waxman in blocking the testimony of
Asian witnesses may have difficulty
explaining their cover-up vote to even
more troubled voters in their districts.
The Gerth revelations lead to more
questions: Where were the chiefs of
the C.I.A. and the National Security
Agency, their intelligence so dependent on satellites, on the satellite technology sale to China?
Is anybody at Reno Justice re-examining testimony taken by independent counsel investigating corruption at
Commerce before Ron Brown's
death? Does Brown's former lawyer
claim "dead man's privilege" on
notes? Did N.S.A. tape overseas calls
of suspect Commerce officials? Who
induced Commerce to lobby Clinton
for control of satellite technology?
And the most immediate: Will
homesick prosecutor Charles LaBella,
beholden to Janet Reno for his political appointment in San Diego, dare to
offend his patron by calling for independent counsel?