AMY GOODMAN: Spurred by another security breach at the Los Alamos weapons lab, the Senate swiftly confirmed the number two man at the CIA to head a new nuclear weapons agency within the Energy Department, the National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA. Air Force General John A. Gordon won unanimous confirmation yesterday, after his nomination had been held up for months. The vote was 97 to nothing. The disappearance of nuclear secrets from a vault at the Los Alamos weapons lab in New Mexico has prompted a criminal investigation and unleashed another torrent of criticism about security at the Energy Department, leaving the Clinton administration scrambling to contain the political fallout. Some are saying that it was led by the Republicans, the whole effort to press forward with the confirmation of Air Force General John A. Gordon, to undermine Bill Richardson, the head of the Department of Energy, who some saw as a possible number two man for Al Gore, vice-presidential contender.

Well, we’re going to turn right now to a related issue. The disappearance of nuclear secrets from the vault at the Los Alamos weapons lab has prompted a criminal investigation and unleashed another torrent of criticism about security at the Energy Department. This comes as Asian American groups are stepping up their protests over the treatment of Wen Ho Lee, the former government scientist accused of mishandling nuclear secrets at Los Alamos. Lee has been held without bail in a New Mexico jail since December 10th, where his family says he’s isolated from human contact for most of the day and night. Though he has not been charged with espionage, news accounts initially alleged Lee was a Chinese spy, when he was fired in March of 1999. After months of investigations, Lee was charged not with spying, but with mishandling classified information. Two scholarly organizations, the Association for Asian American Studies, as well as the Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education, have called for a boycott of the national laboratories, the federal laboratories, urging Asian American scientists not to work there. The organizations say they’re objecting to what they see as a common thread of racial discrimination in the treatment of Dr. Wen Ho Lee.

We’re joined right now by two people to discuss this issue, one a scientist at a national lab and one a historian, who has written a multicultural history of the United States. Ronald Takaki, professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley, joins us. He’s a third-generation American of Japanese heritage and author of a number of books. Also, Dr. Manuel García, physicist at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories in California and a member of Lab Employees for Freeing Wen Ho Lee.

Dr. Manuel García, you were out at a protest — when was it? Last week?

MANUEL GARCÍA: Yes. There was a protest in June 8th in San Francisco in front of the Federal Building, which was sponsored by CARES, an organization working out of the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco. And they had a rally to try to gain attention to the cause of Wen Ho Lee. And I and another fellow employee, Sue Byars, who formed the group you mentioned, Lab Employees for Freeing Wen Ho Lee, made a point of being there and showing our support.

AMY GOODMAN: And what exactly are you saying about your fellow scientist’s treatment?

MANUEL GARCÍA: Well, I suppose if I were going to abstract it as simply as possible, the objection that all of these groups have is that it seems that downloading while Asian is a crime, but downloading while Deutch is nicht verboten. And, you know, that seems to be the core issue that has riled up people, that the disparity in the treatment is very stark. And, you know, many people, including Mr. Vrooman, the counterintelligence expert from Los Alamos and, prior to that, the CIA, who is on speaking tour now, has stated that Wen Ho Lee was singled out because of race.

And the other aspect is just the sheer magnitude of the punishment prior to any trial being visited upon Wen Ho Lee. Certainly, there have been people in the past that have run afoul of the regulations and procedures for handling classified, but the magnitude of the punishment being visited on Wen Ho Lee is out of all proportion to historical precedent and, we’re seeing, out of proportion with what’s happening to another individual, who seems to be better connected.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, it’s very interesting. I mean, let’s talk about that for a minute. Clarence Page raised it yesterday in a Chicago Tribune column that he did, the comparison of the treatment of Wen Ho Lee, who supposedly took down a large amount of information, classified information, into a — what? — unclassified computer —

MANUEL GARCÍA: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: — and John Deutch, the former director of central intelligence, who, it was found, had downloaded thousands of top-secret files into his own not classified computer. There have some people who have been disciplined at the CIA for covering up the investigation, but it doesn’t seem that at this point anything has happened to John Deutch, and he continues to do a number of things, including be a pundit on television.

MANUEL GARCÍA: Right. Well, I’ve recommended that Wen Ho Lee get the Deutch treatment. I don’t particularly want to see Deutch get the Wen Ho Lee treatment. I don’t really want to see anyone get that. But yes, that’s the fundamental objection. And, well, I’m not sure where your question was leading, but, clearly, the fundamental objection is just the magnitude of the — I mean, he’s shackled. He is in solitary confinement. When he sees his family one hour a week, you know, it’s glass. They can’t have any contact. For a while, they were forbidding him speaking in Mandarin.

You know, it’s just a — one gets the impression that Bill Richardson and the administration are in a fit of pique, and they basically are angry at a scapegoat for having gotten them into hot water with, you know, the Republicans, whom, I guess, you know, are just another attempt at a failed putsch, which is what this is. It’s just a struggle for power. And regular, ordinary Americans — as we like to say, people — are just aghast and disgusted that, you know, Wen Ho Lee is like a little bug who’s been flicked off a table with a finger. You know, he’s just been squashed because he’s inconvenient in a political struggle.

And what gets me upset is that I would prefer to have politicians who remember from where they came and who they should be serving, and that the treatment of this individual betrays their true motives, which is just a power struggle. Certainly, Wen Ho Lee probably, you know, violated policies and procedures, but what’s happening to him is out of all proportion to what has happened to others who have violated policies and procedures.

AMY GOODMAN: I think people will be shocked to know that he wasn’t charged with espionage, that he’s just been charged with illegally downloading nuclear secrets onto unsecure computers and that he’s being kept in an isolated cell. He was recently allowed to travel in shackles to review evidence with his lawyers. Professor Ronald Takaki, what is your take on what’s happened to Wen Ho Lee, and this comparison with John Deutch?

RONALD TAKAKI: Well, I don’t know if I want to compare Wen Ho Lee to John Deutch, because I think Dr. García has already done that. The question that I think is important for us to ask is: Why Wen Ho Lee, and why now? I think, as your earlier guest pointed out, the Cold War is over. But still, I think this country needs an evil empire. And I think China now is being represented as that evil empire. And this is not only something that is done politically, but it’s being done intellectually. Think about this important book entitled The Clash of Civilizations, written by a very preeminent Harvard scholar, Samuel P. Huntington, where he divides the world into civilizations, monolithic civilizations, and the West civilizations of the West, civilization of the West, the Chinese civilization, the Muslim civilization. And his book is a warning to America that it should be prepared for the coming military clashes of these civilizations. And he has identified China as a formidable threat, a military threat, in the 21st century. And so, I think, “Why Wen Ho Lee?” But why now? I think this country, or certain forces in this country, need an evil empire. And China is emerging as the evil empire.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Ronald Takaki, we have to break for stations to identify themselves. Professor Takaki has most recently published the book Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II. Dr. Manuel García, also with us, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories. You are listening to Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now! We’ll be back in a minute.

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AMY GOODMAN: You are listening to Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue on the discussion of the treatment of Wen Ho Lee and the protests that are arising from it. Again, Dr. Wen Ho Lee, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory who’s been charged with illegally downloading nuclear secrets onto unsecure computers and portable tapes. While the controversy swirled around him, he remained out of jail for many months, no charges first brought, and then, now that he has been arrested, has been largely kept in an isolated cell awaiting trial, shackled and occasionally allowed to see his family. Our guests are Dr. Ronald Takaki, professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley, who is a third-generation American of Japanese heritage, and Dr. Manuel García, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, who participated in a protest just about a week ago around the treatment of Wen Ho Lee. What is the response in the laboratory, Dr. García? Are people afraid to speak out? Are people joining this group that you’ve set up, Lab Employees for Freeing Wen Ho Lee?

MANUEL GARCÍA: The response is disappointing. Let me say that the response is disappointing because people convince themselves that they’re afraid. There is, I think, a growing — a growing momentum towards becoming a little bit more vocal about it. The group was formed, as I mentioned, by Sue Byars, an employee at the laboratory, and I joined it. And, you know, it was maybe initially 10 people who put some money into it to help co-sponsor — we helped co-sponsor the demonstration on the 31st of May in San Jose by the WenHoLee.org organization, which is run by Cecilia Chang. And I went down to that, as did Sue. And then we went to San Francisco on the 8th. We were just participants there, and we were invited to speak, with many others. And we were doing it because we felt there should be a stronger response from lab employees. After all, this is a colleague. I mean, he’s a man like me who has the same kind of — he could be the office next door to me. And he reminds me so much of the Chinese students that I went to school with and the Chinese professors, for goodness’ sake.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, again, he is from Taiwan.

MANUEL GARCÍA: Yes, he’s from Taiwan. But he’s an American citizen, OK?

AMY GOODMAN: Right.

MANUEL GARCÍA: My father is from Cuba and is an American citizen. I mean, I met a fourth-generation Japanese American woman — I think she was Japanese, maybe Chinese Ancan — at the demonstration. Fourth-generation. She was at this, you know, because she’s worried about this. And I’m thinking, “My god, this person’s more American than I am, and my wife, who’s German American. Her grandparents were immigrants.” So, I mean, the fact that you’re that deep into the — you know, here in America, and yet you’re still worried about being a minority who’s discriminated against is extremely disappointing.

But back to your question of lab employees, lab employees are, in my opinion, far too passive. And part of what Sue and I and a few others, now more, are — three of us, at least, four maybe — are doing is we’re trying to say, “Look, you know, they’re not shooting us. You are allowed to work at the labs and remain an American citizen and use the First Amendment, you know, and to speak out. And if we don’t, then we undercut the whole rationale for having nuclear weapons. They’re, after all, meant to preserve our way of life, right? We’re ready to bomb the world in order to preserve the way of life.” Well, damn it, we better use this way of life, you know, in order to justify the great cost we’re putting on the world to keep it.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you — the Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education, also Asian American — the Association for Asian American Studies have called for a boycott of federal laboratories by Asian American scientists, urging them not to apply for jobs with the federal labs. Now, Asians and Asian Americans account for more than a quarter of all Ph.D.s awarded in science and technology by American universities each year. The impact on the laboratories could be very serious if young scientists decided to heed this call. Is there discussion of this inside the lab, Dr. García?

MANUEL GARCÍA: Well, there is discussion — not enough discussion, but yes. What I observe — and I think the numbers bear this out — is that there’s been — the labs at the moment are not seeing Asians apply, period. The Asians, even before the boycott, decided that these places were the plague for them, and they stopped applying. And we’re having — at Livermore, I know that there’s an attrition rate double the usual at the moment. And this was one aspect of it. Certainly, I think that there’s also a tremendous boom in Silicon Valley, which doesn’t have polygraphs and, you know, doesn’t have guards with guns at the gate, and so it tends to be a little more attractive. And so, yes, that is occurring.

On the other hand, the other aspect is that Bill Richardson, the energy secretary, who, except for the blunders of Wen Ho Lee, I felt, was doing a reasonably good job, by the way, but Bill Richardson has appointed a Chinese American as his ombudsman, a man called Dr. Jeremy Woo, who was brought in to oversee, and directly report to Richardson, issues having to do with eliminating discrimination and racial profiling from all operations of the Department of Energy. So, that would have seemed to have been a very good sign of, you know, an attempt to correct some errors in the — of historic errors in the Department of Energy.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Ronald Takaki, we just went back 50 years in our first segment as we looked at the history of what took place in Korea and the historic summit that took place yesterday in North Korea. Let’s go back in this country 50 years to what happened to Asian Americans. And do you see parallels? Can you describe what happened?

RONALD TAKAKI: What is and has been happening to Wen Ho Lee reminds me of what happened to Japanese Americans during World War II. Japanese Americans, as you know, were incarcerated in internment camps without due process, and they were judged guilty by reason of ethnicity. They were identified with the enemy, with Japan. And yet, two-thirds of them who were interned were American citizens by birth. They had no loyalties to Japan, and even their parents had no loyalties to Japan. And yet they were put in internment camps.

And so, why Wen Ho Lee? Well, here again, you have ethnic profiling. He’s judged guilty by reason of his ethnic identity. He’s not even Chinese, but, nevertheless, he got — he became Chinese, and he then became identified as the enemy within. So, there’s a parallel between what is happening to Wen Ho Lee and what happened in history to Japanese Americans during World War II.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Dr. Ronald Takaki, professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as Dr. Manuel García, physicist at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories in California. As we talk about the treatment of Dr. Wen Ho Lee, we’re also going to get an update on what has been exactly happening in Washington, D.C., with these hearings that have been taking place, to get an update on what’s happening in Los Alamos, from the fires to the missing disk. By the way, Dr. Manuel García, you deal with the same kind of information. You have access to top-secret information. Are you concerned about in some way being charged with mishandling it?

MANUEL GARCÍA: Well, no, I’m not concerned. At the moment, I don’t have any. I did spend 15 years intimately involved in testing. I was involved in a test program, and I had safes in my office with blueprints of bombs and worked with computer files, having to do this until pretty recently, about '92. And I don't have that at the moment. I’m not concerned personally, but I’m concerned — my main concern is that there is great hazard for an employee.

I mean, Wen Ho Lee — Professor Takaki is asking, “Why Wen Ho Lee?” It’s not just that he’s Chinese. It’s that he’s just an employee. He’s just an expendable, OK? What you have to understand is that there is a tremendous arrogance of power in these agencies and in the government and in the University of California. And mere employees are expendable. They do not have unions. I’m involved in a union group, which is how I got involved in this. And this lack of power makes it very easy for them to get flicked off. They have whistleblowers. We have many whistleblowers who were retaliated against. If you want to get some background about this, there’s a wonderful article in The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, recent edition, written by Robert Alvarez, in which he — it’s called “Energy in Decay.” Read that article, and you will have a great understanding of sort of the backdrop of the attitude and the arrogance and the magnitude of the problems in the DOE in particular. But that — you know, Wen Ho Lee is a mere employee.

So, you get these power struggles, and you get a difficulty with missing tapes. I’m worried about, with these missing disks you’re talking about from Los Alamos, well, we now have — you know, how many people are they going to put in shackles? Are we going to have a nuclear secrets chain gang in Albuquerque? Or, as perhaps the professor is concerned about, are they only going to pick the Asians and do it? Maybe there are no Asians, so that’s why there’s nobody in jail. But these are the kinds of issues that concern what you would call a regular employee, a person who works for a living, deals with this thing, who, by and large, follow the rules. I’m not personally concerned. I don’t think most people are. But I do believe that the whole incident makes many people very fearful, and it makes people, like me, for instance, choose to work outside, as much as possible, of areas that deal with classified things. So, as your earlier question said, are Asians going to avoid it? Yes, they’re going to avoid it? Is it going to be less brain power to classify things? Absolutely.

And the other point I wanted to make earlier is that, yes, the DOE has appointed an ombudsman, but he’s spending all his time lobbying these groups that you’re mentioning on the outside to hush up their protests, rather than actually answering the letters and requests and suggestions of employees on the inside on how to remove racial profiling.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Dr. Manuel García, I want to thank you very much for being with us, again, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories in California and a member of Lab Employees for Freeing Wen Ho Lee. Also, Professor Ron Takaki, professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley. His latest book is called Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II.