- NEW YORK (Reuters) - Amid allegations China stole secrets from U.S. nuclear
weapons research laboratories, an intelligence report suggests a second
security leak, The New York Times reported Thursday.
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- The United States learned in 1996 from
one of its Chinese spies that China's intelligence service were bragging
that they had stolen secrets from the United States and used them to improve
their neutron bomb, the newspaper reported.
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- Citing American officials, the newspaper
said the spy offered details of what the Chinese agents were up to and
how the information was taken from the United States to China. The report
came as U.S. intelligence agencies were examining a separate suspected
theft of designs of America's most modern nuclear warhead, known as the
W-88.
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- Until now, White House officials have
maintained that there is no evidence Chinese nuclear spying continued
into the Clinton administration. However, the officials' accounts call
into question these assertions, the newspaper said.
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- Officials told the newspaper that current
National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, in April 1996, was briefed on evidence
of the theft of the warhead design, the need to raise security at the weapon
labs and the report about the loss of neutron bomb data.
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- A National Security Council spokesman
told the newspaper that Berger did not believe the neutron bomb issue
was mentioned at the briefing.
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- Officials told the newspaper that the
briefing, led by Energy Department's Chief of Intelligence Notra Trulock,
presented information about the theft of the warhead and concluded China
had obtained data about the miniaturized warhead, officials told the newspaper.
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