W-88
Warhead Not Stolen from Los Alamos
Two government
panels with the necessary access investigated whether
the evidence supported a conclusion that the designs
for the W-88 warhead was obtained by espionage by China,
One panel was headed by Robert Walpole, the CIA's National
Intelligence Officer for Nuclear Proliferation, the
other by Admiral David Jeremiah. They concluded that
there was no evidence that China has stolen and copied
a US nuclear bomb design and that China had the scientific
and engineering capabilities to develop such a war head.
It further turned out that the engineering on the W-88
was bor done at Los Alamos, but at other labs. So if
elements f the design were indeed stolen, it was not
from Los Alamos. (In addition, the suspected scientists,
Wen Ho Lee, had passed not failed, the polygraph.)
The Times,
while admitting its story was flawed, but blamed the
sources who misled their reporters. As Renata Adler
notes in her book Canaries In The Mineshaft, the Times
" cast itself as essentially a victim having "attracted
criticism" from three categories of persons: "competing
journalists," "media critics" and "defenders of Dr.
Lee."
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