Michael Kinsley: Secrets and Spies

What we can learn about confidential sources from Wen Ho Lee.

By Michael Kinsley
Posted Friday, June 9, 2006, at 5:36 AM ET

Remind me: Who is Wen Ho Lee again? Oh, yeah; he's "an atomic scientist once suspected of espionage." That was the New York Times' seven-word summary in its story last week about the settlement of Lee's privacy suit against the government. This settlement comes seven years after Lee—an American citizen—was arrested, held in solitary confinement for nine months, and subjected to an organized campaign of leaks using private information from his personnel file and painting him as a spy for China and a traitor to his country on a par with Benedict Arnold.

The government never produced any good evidence that Lee was a Communist spy and apparently no longer believes it. To get out of solitary and back to his family, Lee copped a plea to a trivial offense. But no matter how long Wen Ho Lee lives, the headline on his obituary will be "atomic scientist once suspected of espionage." And on the "where there's smoke" principle, people have been left with a vague sense that—who knows?—maybe he was a spy after all. Knowing nothing but what's been published about the case, I plead guilty to a baseless but lingering suspicion myself.