Spy Schools
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“He began trying to add constraints”: David Smith email message to the author, April 14, 2016.
a program called Project 111: “China to Undergo Brain Gain Through Plan 111,” http://www.china.org.cn/english/China/181075.htm.
Xi Xiaoxing: Matt Apuzzo, “U.S. Drops Charges That Professor Shared Technology with China,” New York Times, September 11, 2015.
A study by Thomas Nolan: Nolan’s study, “Trends in Trade Secret Prosecutions,” was first presented at a meeting of the Chinese Biopharmaceutical Association in Qingdao, China, on July 3, 2012, and then at a meeting in New York of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, October 22, 2015. Updated data, including conviction rates, may be found at http://jeremy-wu.info/fed-cases/latest-statistics-on-fedcases/.
China accounts for: IP Commission Report, http://www.ipcommission.org/report/IP_Commission_Report_052213.pdf, pp. 2–3.
FBI report: Counterintelligence Strategic Partnership Intelligence Note, “Chinese Talent Programs.” It describes the Zhao and Liu cases.
“soon welcomed”: http://english.cas.cn/about_us/introduction/201501/t20150114_135284.shtml.
he hoped that 90 percent would return: Denis Fred Simon and Cong Cao, China’s Emerging Technological Edge: Assessing the Role of High-End Talent (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 219.
the U.S. government allowed them to stay: Ibid., p. 218.
Thousand Talents: The description of the Thousand Talents program and its perks is based on David Zweig and Huiyao Wang, “Can China Bring Back the Best? The Communist Party Organizes China’s Search for Talent,” working paper, Center on China’s Transnational Relations, March 2012, pp. 18–20.
“the most assertive government”: Ibid., p. 4.
In the 296: Yu Wei and Zhaojun Sen, “China: Building an Innovation Talent Program System and Facing Global Competition in a Knowledge Economy,” Brain Circulation, 2012.
Of Chinese students who received: Table 3-29, Science and Engineering Indicators 2014, www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind14/index.cfm/char.
Hong Ding: Wang Zhuoqiong, “China Fishing in Pool of Global Talent,” China Daily, April 16, 2009.
rejected a full-time offer: Yitang Zhang, telephone interview, November 2, 2015. Zhang said his arrangement was unique and not part of a talent program.
“migratory birds”: Simon and Cao, China’s Emerging Technological Edge, p. 245.
“I really had wanted him”: David Smith email message to the author, May 22, 2016.
“This is the point”: David Smith email message to the author, April 14, 2016.
“As time progressed”: Ibid.
“A bunch of smart people”: David Smith email message to the author, May 19, 2016.
Smith heralded the advance: Richard Merritt, “Next Generation Cloaking Device Demonstrated,” Duke Engineering News, February 2009, http://den.pratt.duke.edu/february-2009/cloaking-device.
“It all just fell apart”: Smith email message to the author, April 15, 2016.
“did make a positive scientific”: John Pendry email message to the author, January 12, 2016.
“limited interactions”: Ibid.
publishing its proceedings: Tie Jun Cui, David Smith, and Ruopeng Liu, Metamaterials: Theory, Design, and Applications (New York and London: Springer, 2010).
“There was no mention”: David Smith email message to the author, April 14, 2016.
“representing someone else’s work as your own”: https://gradschool.duke.edu/academics/academic-policies-and-forms/standards-conduct/prohibited-behaviors.
“It would have been very difficult”: David Smith email message to the author, April 18, 2016.
“going to get the best students”: Lindsey Rupp, “Duke’s Board Will Consider Groundbreaking Expansion into China,” Chronicle, December 4, 2009.
Shenzhen’s Peacock Program: Wu Guangqiang, “The Peacock Program’s Great Success,” Shenzhen Daily, May 16, 2016, http://www.szdaily.com/content/2016-05/16/content_13358994.htm.
municipal records show: The Shenzhen Municipal Science and Technology Bureau provided the $13.7 million figure in response to a request under China’s public records law.
interview on Phoenix Television: http://v.ifeng.com/news/society/201603/010d8df7-eae2-414d-bacb-32b663f5ea1f.shtml.
In 2012, Liu was chosen: “President Liu Was Appointed Subject-Matter Expert of ‘863’ Program,” http://www.kuang-chi.com/en/index.php?ac=article&at=read&did=989.
Xi Jinping: www.kuang-chi.com/htmlen/details/139.html.
bought a controlling share: Sally Rose, “Hong Kong Investor to Lift Jetpack,” http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/65173346/hong-kong-investor-to-lift-jetpack.
Liu and two other Kuang-Chi scientists: The other applicants were Lin Luan and Chaofeng Kou. On April 14, 2015, examiner Patrick Holecek issued the “final rejection,” available at http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/view/BrowsePdfServlet?objectId=I8HDVH8HPXXIFW4&lang=DINO. U.S. patent 9219314 was issued on December 22, 2015.
“has not demonstrated”: David Smith email message to the author, April 14, 2016.
“The prospect of true invisibility”: Ibid.
“Ruopeng was not really capable”: Michael Schoenfeld email message to the author, forwarding responses from David Smith, February 5, 2016.
“certainly Ruopeng would”: Ibid.
which raised $62 million: Michael J. de la Merced, “Kymeta Raises $62 Million in Investment Led by Bill Gates,” New York Times, January 11, 2016.
“At all points”: Michael Schoenfeld email message to the author, forwarding responses from David Smith, February 5, 2016.
“I now look for signs”: David Smith email message to the author, April 14, 2016.
2: THE CHINESE ARE COMING
The phone rang at 3 a.m.: Former president Carter recounted the story of Frank Press’s phone call in a 2013 speech at the U.S.-China Relations Forum in Atlanta: https://www.cartercenter.org/news/editorials_speeches/jc-what-us-china-can-do-together.html.
“I had no idea”: The source for Atkinson’s account is Richard C. Atkinson, “Recollections of Events Leading to the First Exchange of Students, Scholars and Scientists Between the United States and the People’s Republic of China,” 2006, http://rca.ucsd.edu/speeches/Recollections_China_student_exchange.pdf.
“Chinese intelligence flooded”: Michael Sulick, American Spies: Espionage Against the United States from the Cold War to the Present (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2013), p. 159.
Accustomed to hosting visiting scholars: Daniel Golden, “American Universities Infected by Foreign Spies Detected by FBI,” Bloomberg News, April 8, 2012.
Wentong Cai: The account of Wentong Cai is taken from documents in his criminal case in U.S. District Court in New Mexico. The Bo Cai quotation comes from his plea agreement, filed July 23, 2014. The plea agreement also quotes Wentong’s “we finally obtained support” email. The description of angular rate sensors is based on Applied Technology Associates’ website, www.aptec.com/ars-14_mhd_angular_rate_sensor.html.
“Me and my cousin Bo”: This and Wentong’s statement “I feel so unfortunate” are both in an April 23, 2015, letter to the court. He received his Iowa State “research excellence” award on August 10, 2013, and was married on August 20, 2013.
A study conducted for this book: Data on Chinese defendants in espionage-related crimes who attended U.S. universities come from a study by Lili Sun, with help from David Glovin. For her research, Sun relied on cases archived at cicentre.com, the online site of the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, as well as Bloomberg Law, FBI.gov, Justice.gov, and news reports. In some cases, defense attorneys provided their clients’ educational backgrounds.
Ahmad Jabbari: The CIA’s approach to Jabbari was reported by Frances FitzGerald in “The CIA Campus Tapes,” New Times, January 23, 1976.
Of 400 Soviet exchange students: “Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activit
ies,” known as the Church Committee, 1976, p. 164.
“young radical high-fliers”: Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (New York: Basic Books, 1999), p. 57.
“By the early years”: Ibid., p. 58.
“youngest major spy”: Ibid., p. 129.
“It was important that there should be no monopoly”: Widely quoted, for example, in http://spymuseum.com/major-events/spy-rings/the-atomic-spy-ring/.
“talent-spotters”: Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield, p. 217.
“The scientific contacts”: Ibid., p. 107.
sought sensitive information: Data on spying by Soviet scientists come from “Soviet Acquisition of Militarily Significant Western Technology: An Update,” September 1985, released by the CIA Historical Review Program in 1999.
“spotting and assessing”: Ibid., p. 22.
KGB had placed Boris Yuzhin: Yale Richmond, Cultural Exchange and the Cold War: Raising the Iron Curtain (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), p. 36.
“largely taught a new generation”: Christopher Lynch, The CI Desk: FBI and CIA Counterintelligence as Seen from My Cubicle (Indianapolis: Dog Ear, 2009), p. 41.
“How can one ride”: I. C. Smith, email message to the author, July 20, 2015.
“They were invaluable”: Ibid.
Wu-Tai Chin: Sources regarding Wu-Tai Chin include Smith, news coverage of his trial, and Sulick, American Spies, pp. 159–64. The “eclipse” quotation is from p. 164. For a fictionalized version of the Chin story, see Ha Jin, A Map of Betrayal (New York: Vintage International, 2015).
“I took the position then and now”: I. C. Smith, email message to the author, February 23, 2015.
“I sat with the two”: I. C. Smith, email message to the author, August 8, 2015.
“It was those golden youth”: I. C. Smith, email message to the author, February 23, 2015.
“He knew that they had been lied to”: Ibid.
“We would not ask”: I. C. Smith, email message to the author, February 24, 2015.
“Some agents even brought in their families”: I. C. Smith, email message to the author, August 8, 2015.
“It was well down the whole effort”: Ibid.
“Taiwan, feeling betrayed”: I. C. Smith, email message to the author, August 7, 2015.
“An immense tension existed”: Jones, The Human Factor, pp. 53–54.
“My proposals”: Smith, email message to the author, February 24, 2015.
“Academic Security Awareness Program”: The proposal for the program was included among FBI communications that Texas A&M University provided in response to my public records request.
ranks third in national security funding: William M. Arkin and Alexa O’Brien, “The Most Militarized Universities in America,” VICE News, November 5, 2015; Federal Science and Engineering Support to Universities, Colleges and Nonprofit Institutions, FY 2013.
3: SPY WITHOUT A COUNTRY
I am indebted to Paul O’Mahony, senior editor at The Local in Stockholm, for his reporting for this chapter, including visits to Thorildsplans Gymnasium and the Spånga neighborhood, and a phone interview with Morgan Malm.
It periodically sends students: See, for example, http://thorildsplansgymnasium.stockholm.se/te13d-och-te13e-aker-till-san-francisco.
an indictment was unsealed: “Unsealed Indictment Charges Former U.S. Federal Employee with Conspiracy to Commit Espionage for Cuba,” U.S. Department of Justice press release, April 25, 2013.
“one of the most damaging spies”: “Cuba’s Global Network of Terrorism, Intelligence and Warfare,” hearing before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, statement submitted by Michelle Van Cleave, May 17, 2012.
“known to actively target”: FBI Private Sector Advisory, “Cuban Intelligence Targeting of Academia,” September 2, 2014.
Harvard, Yale, Columbia, New York University: All of the universities except Johns Hopkins are cited in Jose Cohen, “El Servicio de Inteligencia Castrista Y La Comunidad Academica Norteamericana,” 2002, http://www6.miami.edu/iccas/Cohen.pdf. I added Johns Hopkins because of its proximity to Washington and because it was the nexus for Myers, Velázquez, and Montes. Orlando Brito Pestana—like Cohen, a defector from Cuban intelligence—identifies its leading academic targets as Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, Duke, Georgetown, and George Mason. Pestana, “La Penetracion Del Servicio De Inteligencia De Cuba En El Sector Academico De Estados Unidos,” Cuba in Transition, Vol. 25, Papers and Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting, 2015.
“and even invitations to visit Cuba”: FBI advisory, “Cuban Intelligence Targeting of Academia.”
Almost every lawyer: The description of Don Miguel’s life and family comes from interviews with faculty colleagues and family friends as well as his obituary: Daniel Rivera Vargas, “Fallece ex juez Miguel Velazquez Rivera,” El Nuevo Dia, December 14, 2006.
“to read, learn, work hard”: http://www.chkd.org/Our-Doctors/Our-Pediatricians/PDC-Pediatrics/Nivea-Velazquez,-MD/.
a distinct minority: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico_political_status_plebiscites.
an independent confederation: Phone interview with Arturo Lopez-Levy, June 29, 2016.
“two wings of the same bird”: The poem is by Lola Rodriguez de Tio (1843–1924).
“Cuba was working very hard”: Luis Dominguez forwarded my list of questions to Pestana and sent me the responses in a March 3, 2016, email message. Dominguez then translated the responses into English over the phone.
“Princeton, divest”: Phone interview with Nilsa Santiago.
“commit itself completely”: Daily Princetonian, April 14, 1978, p. 3.
She organized a Latino Festival: “Latino Festival Schedule of Events,” Daily Princetonian, March 29, 1977, p. 6.
a Third World Cultural Festival: Daily Princetonian, December 13, 1976, p. 3.
“the descendant of an African woman”: Marta Rita Velázquez, “Race Relations in Cuba: Past and New Developments,” senior thesis, May 2, 1979, p. 80. Made available courtesy of Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University.
“continued this oppression”: Ibid., p. 70.
“the defender of a powerful racist class”: Ibid., p. 74.
“The government has instituted”: Ibid., pp. 78–79.
“a brief period of field research”: Ibid., p. 4.
an impressive roster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_H._Nitze_School_of_Advanced_International_Studies#Notable_alumni.
“voiced that opinion freely”: Scott W. Carmichael, True Believer: Inside the Investigation and Capture of Ana Montes, Cuba’s Master Spy (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2007), p. 51.
edited a journal on immigration law: Curriculum vitae, Marta Rita Velázquez, provided by Stockholm school district. Translated by Paul O’Mahony.
a legal intern: Grand jury indictment, Marta Rita Velázquez, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, February 5, 2004, p. 2.
taught a course at SAIS on Cuban history: SAIS communications director Lindsey Waldrop, email message to the author, February 10, 2016.
“gained her first real insight”: Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Defense, “Review of the Actions Taken to Deter, Detect and Investigate the Espionage Activities of Ana Belen Montes,” June 16, 2005, p. 17, http://www.dodig.mil/pubs/documents/05-INTEL-18.pdf.
“U.S. Relations with Latin America”: Waldrop email to the author, February 10, 2016.
Kendall Myers taught: My account of Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers is based on documents in their U.S. District Court case, including their June 4, 2009, indictment and an affidavit by FBI Special Agent Brett Kramarsic. It is also taken from media accounts, including Toby Harnden, “Spying for Fidel: The Inside Story of Kendall and Gwen Myers,” Washingtonian, October 5, 2009, and Carol Rosenberg and Lesley Clark, “The Curious Case of Al
leged Cuban Spy Kendall Myers,” Miami Herald, June 14, 2009.
“Everything one hears about Fidel”: Kramarsic affidavit, p. 9.
“looking for someone to translate”: Inspector general’s report, “Review of the Actions Taken,” p. 9.
“expressed wish”: Velázquez indictment, p. 10.
“It has been a great satisfaction”: Ibid.
“unhesitatingly agreed”: Inspector general’s report, p. 9.
the technique required tensing: Jim Popkin, “Ana Montes Did Much Harm Spying for Cuba. Chances Are, You Haven’t Heard of Her,” Washington Post Magazine, April 18, 2013.
Montes applied to the Office of Naval Intelligence: Carmichael, True Believer, p. 55.
withheld her master’s degree … until 1989: Dennis O’Shea, Johns Hopkins executive director for media relations, email message to the author, giving the date as 1989, February 2, 2016. “American Spies,” by Sulick, gives the date as 1988, p. 269.
“By day, she was a buttoned-down GS-14”: Popkin, “Ana Montes Did Much Harm Spying for Cuba.”
“She successfully opposed”: Phone interview with Chris Simmons, December 5, 2015.
controversial Defense Department assessment: “The Cuban Threat to National Security,” Defense Intelligence Agency, November 18, 1997, https://fas.org/irp/dia/product/980507-dia-cubarpt.htm. On Montes’s role, and criticism of the assessment: interview with Daniel Fisk.
exceptional intelligence analyst: Carmichael, True Believer, p. 56.
Pinned to the wall: Ibid., p. 145.
As she ate lunch alone: Popkin, “Ana Montes Did Much Harm Spying for Cuba.”
“Montes compromised all”: Van Cleave testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, May 17, 2012.
“What makes Ana Montes so extraordinary”: Carmichael, True Believer, pp. 138–40.
Born in Cuba, Alvarez: This summary of Alvarez’s background and career is based on filings in his case in U.S. District Court in Miami, 05-20943, including his curriculum vitae and his “Memorandum in Aid of Sentencing and Request for Downward Departure.”
about seventeen thousand Cuban-American students: Jorge Duany email message to the author, December 16, 2015.