No Redemption for Bill Richardson

http://www.asianweek.com/2009/01/01/no-redemption-for-bill-richardson/
Don’t forget him: Wen Ho Lee is 2008’s person of the year

I know, Lee made news back in 1999. But people forget, and they need to remember. That’s especially true now that Lee’s main tormentor, Bill Richardson — the former energy secretary under Clinton and now governor of New Mexico — has been named President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for secretary of commerce.

Richardson is relevant again. And so is Lee. Yet to my surprise, nearly ten years after Lee’s sordid treatment at the hands of Richardson, the media and the U.S. government, Lee’s name barely seems to register with anyone. Not with mainstream society or media. Not with Barack Obama. Not even with the Asian American community as a whole.

For Asian Americans (the majority of whom backed Obama), the Richardson nomination can be seen as the most serious transgression against Asian Americans in some time.

Richardson may be considered in political circles as the “Latinos’ Latino,” but to Asian Americans he remains the perpetrator of one of the worst racial profiling cases in America before 9-11.

Some of you recognize that. A few have gone to wenholee.org to sign an online petition against Richardson’s nomination. But it seems more people are sympathetic to the indignity suffered by American Idol’s William Hung rather than the injustice endured by Wen Ho Lee.

Who He Lee?
Just repeating the facts makes one cringe. Lee was the naturalized citizen from Taiwan who became a prominent American nuclear scientist. He was falsely suspected by the United States of being a spy for China, then subjected to nine months in solitary confinement.

If the consequences were only limited to Lee, I wouldn’t be surprised at how quickly it’s been forgotten. But as Lee’s fate worsened, so did Asian Americans’. In the pre-Sept. 11 world, nothing was considered more dangerous to the American way of life than an Asian American student/professor/high-tech worker with ties to China. The suspicion was entirely based on race, and it was official. It was a de facto APA witch-hunt set off by Richardson’s green light: the xenophobic targeting of Lee as a spy.

To be responsible for all that is no small deed. As the 20th Century came to a close with America becoming more and more diverse, Richardson found a way to use fear of Asians to whip up hysteria against Asian Americans not seen since World War II. For his role, Richardson deserves at least a yellow, if not scarlet, letter.

Instead, Richardson has neither been shunned nor dishonored. After a brief stint as chief executive of New Mexico, he is poised to become a major player in the “cabinet of change.”

Where is Richardson’s accountability? Where is his place in America’s racial hall of shame? It is the same place where you’ll find the respect for Asian Americans by the American political class. Nowhere.

Don’t misunderstand Lee’s silence
While Richardson maintains his prominence, Lee’s fall was hard and permanent. His scientific career lost, Lee now lives in quiet obscurity in Northern California. His daughter Alberta communicated that the family prefers to stay “above the fray.”

But don’t take that as your cue to be silent. It may be your sign to continue a broader fight for justice for Lee and the entire Asian American community.

Consider that in 2000, after all he went through, Lee was released without ever being charged with espionage. His lone crime? A lowly charge of mishandling computer files. For all he went through, Lee got an apology from the presiding federal judge, and even from Bill Clinton. But nothing came from Richardson.

Prior to his release, Lee filed a lawsuit in 1999 alleging that Clinton officials disclosed to the media that he was under investigation. Lee’s claim was neither about race nor discrimination, but simply about privacy. It would have crystallized Richardson’s culpability.

But in 2006, the government and five media organizations paid for Lee’s silence. Lee got an unprecedented $1.6 million settlement from the United States, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, ABC News and the Associated Press. The government gave Lee $895,000 of your tax dollars to drop the suit on the condition that the money would cover legal fees and not personal damages.

The media organizations came up with $750,000, the only money he gained personally. That’s chump change for what Lee went through. But the media willingly paid it to protect its leakers. Hmm, could that have been Richardson?

Chu’s no salve
Obama knew he would catch some heat from Asian Americans on Richardson. So to balance Richardson, there’s Shinseki to Veterans’ Affairs and Steve Chu to Richardson’s old post at the Department of Energy.

Both are qualified non-affirmative action appointees. The choice of Nobel laureate Chu may also be a sign to all APAs in the scientific community that these are different times from when Richardson ran the department. Unfortunately, the appointments do nothing to hold Richardson accountable for his past.

If Richardson’s appointment flies through the Senate unchallenged, it will be a big blow to all justice-loving Americans. But for Asian Americans in particular, it will be the stripping of any moral authority we might have gained from Lee’s martyrdom.

There’s still time to let the president-elect know that this case still matters, and that we haven’t forgotten the time when APAs were singled out and looked upon with suspicion. If Richardson isn’t held accountable and soon, here is my New Year’s prediction for the future: There will be another Wen Ho Lee.

For your New Year greeting and other thoughts, see the blog at amok.asianweek.com. E-mail: emil@amok.com

WHL and Chancellor Tien

http://www.asianweek.com/2008/12/28/letters-to-the-editor-wen-ho-lee-and-chancellor-tien-healing-victims-of-trauma/
The Wen Ho Lee case, taking place between 1999 and 2000, did not affect Chancellor Tien’s chance of being appointed secretary of energy by Clinton (“A Nobel Laureate in the White House,” Dec. 19). Instead, it was John Huang and the 1996 campaign finance scandal that torpedoed Tien’s chance. Bill Richardson was appointed secretary of energy in 1998 and he, among other officials, was the one responsible for the prosecution and persecution of Dr. Wen Ho Lee.

L. Ling-Chi Wang
Professor Emeritus, Asian American Studies,
UC Berkeley
San Francisco, Calif.,
Dec. 19

The Price of Wen Ho Lee

http://www.asianweek.com/2008/12/17/the-price-for-wen-ho-lee/
President-elect Obama has designated two APA cabinet members: retired Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki for Veterans Affairs and Cal’s Nobel Prize winner Steven Chu for Energy, which is a makeup for President Clinton getting cold feet over U.C. Berkeley Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien after the “Chinagate” witch hunt. But Obama’s selection of Bill Richardson for Commerce raises hackles over the New Mexico governor’s unrepentant role in the espionage prosecution of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, who won a $1.6 million civil settlement from the feds and five major national media outlets in 2006. The Richardson selection is symptomatic of the Obama transition team’s vetting process. While sensitive to Latino political influence (note the expected pick of Colorado Senator Ken Salazar for Interior), the team is downplaying APA anger over Richardson’s handling of the Lee case. Petitions are nearing 10,000 in opposition to his appointment at wenholee.org. However, Obama is already committed to Richardson and is unlikely to risk embarrassment by pulling his name or having Congress reject the nomination. Richardson could defuse the issue at his Senate confirmation hearing by publicly apologizing and pledging to elevate APAs into major management positions to avert future Wen Ho Lees…

WHL case will forever haunt Richardson

http://www.asianweek.com/2008/12/14/letters-to-the-editor-richardson-and-wen-ho-lee-michael-wong-responds-oppression-nothing-new/#more-9972
Richardson and Wen Ho Lee
The Wen Ho Lee case will forever haunt Richardson (Emil Amok, Dec. 5).

China is one of America’s biggest trading partners and creditors. Richardson, if confirmed, would have a very difficult time dealing with the Chinese, as they all remember the inhumane, cruel and unusual treatment Dr. Lee received while incarcerated. The Obama administration needs to reassess this nomination.

Guy M. Wong
Sacramento, Calif., Dec. 6

To me the whole issue is not about race but about the person who did not have courage to apologize for his mistake (“Commerce Secretary Appointment Draws Ire From Asian Americans,” Nov. 28). What happened to Dr. Lee has also happened to people of other races: whites, Hispanics, blacks. My concern about Richardson is that he misses very important traits of a leader. Have courage to apologize when you made a mistake.

Anand Shaw
Sunnyvale, Calif., Dec. 9]

Lest We Forget

http://www.asianweek.com/2008/12/04/a-slap-in-our-face-we-can%E2%80%99t-forget-what-richardson-did-to-wen-ho-lee/

A Slap in Our Face: We can’t forget what Richardson did to Wen Ho Lee

December 4, 2008

Wen Ho Lee is as close as it gets in contemporary Asian Pacific American history to a mythic victim of racism in our nation.

Unlike a symbol of injustice like a Rosa Parks, Lee was no activist and did not seek to challenge society. He was merely an ordinary Asian American scientist doing his life’s work. And solely because of his race was he wrongly suspected of being the most heinous kind of criminal to democracy — a spy.

For his ordeal, Lee rarely receives the respect he deserves and now lives in quiet obscurity after being stripped of his livelihood as a nuclear scientist. To add insult to injury, some still don’t think Lee is innocent.

Meanwhile, Bill Richardson, secretary of energy in the late 1990s and the man who fingered Lee and presided over his public flogging, remains in the limelight and is now being honored as President-elect Obama’s new secretary of commerce.

That may be the ultimate injustice to Wen Ho Lee.

Simply for his lead role in the Lee case, Richardson should have a karma deficit so huge that he should be happy to remain ensconced as the popular governor of New Mexico, far from the national stage.

But politics and ambition being what they are, Richardson has apparently rehabilitated himself to glory in the last eight years. His recent unsuccessful run for president seemed to be waged on the basis that someone who was Latino had to do it. Yet it’s likely he never saw himself with a real shot to win, and instead used the campaign to position himself to fail upwards.

Sure enough, at this year’s Democratic National Convention, the also-ran spoke on that last memorable night at Invesco Field and achieved what his failed presidential run could not — a real shot at national prominence and a place in Obama’s inner circle. I mean, there’s got to be a Latino in there somewhere, right?

Too bad it’s someone responsible for what is arguably the most prominent case of racism and xenophobia against Asian Americans since the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Richardson, the charming politician, would love for us all to forget Wen Ho Lee. But we must insist that APAs and all Americans go back to the memory vault and re-experience the pain of that episode, which caused a ripple effect from the white towers of academia to the dim sum houses of Chinatown and everywhere in between where Asian Americans were.

For a time in our country, every Chinese American was seen as a suspect. Whether student or professor, Asian or Asian American, just enough doubt was cast to impact all working relationships.

Wen Ho Lee’s pain suddenly became all our pain. We were all suspects. Before Sept.11 and the terrorist fear, the profiling standard was not a man with a turban, but a brainy Chinese or Asian American scientist or student with access to some form of technology, top secret or not. It really didn’t matter. All that mattered was your Asian heritage.

Richardson’s disgusting role
These days, the modern memory vault seems to be YouTube (check out this short recap of the Lee saga at: tiny.cc/BGHDZ). It’s a painful reminder of Richardson’s adamant defense of his role in the Lee case. The clip includes Richardson being grilled on 60 Minutes, as well as Lee being interviewed on NBC. There’s a shot of the cell where Lee spent nine months in solitary confinement, waiting for the trial that would exonerate him from espionage charges.

The broadcast clips unfortunately do not represent the overall media coverage, which was as close as it gets to a modern “yellow journalism.” The media and the government were in lockstep, feeding on each other. There were so many leaks to the media from federal sources that it could not have been done without some orchestration from the top of the Department of Energy. The New York Times was so gung-ho about being leaked upon, it lost its sense of ethics.

But even The Times was able to see its error. It ran a massive apology to Lee for its failure to present a fair human portrait of Lee and admitted to an over reliance on a few government sources.

The Times had no choice but to apologize. Even Judge James Parker, the presiding judge in the Lee case, issued an apology to Lee upon his release for how badly government prosecutors had bungled the case.
One man should have had the moral courage to change all of that history: Energy Secretary Bill Richardson. But he didn’t.

Now he hopes we’ve forgotten all about it. It would be quite the norm to forget what happens to Asian Americans; we have constantly been ignored, overlooked. How many Asian Americans do you see mentioned in the Obama transition? So why should we expect anything different now? Because America cannot afford to forget what happened to Lee.

President-elect Obama should not give in to Richardson’s charm or to the large Latino vote he claims. Latino activists have propped Richardson up as the “Latino guy.” But how many people outside a small circle even know Richardson is Latino? Besides, his race is irrelevant; ours isn’t.

A Richardson selection is purely a matter of ambition and political payback, not the public good. Surely there is someone better for the commerce job who doesn’t have a history of trading in xenophobia?

President-elect Obama shouldn’t dismiss concerns of Asian Americans who overwhelming supported his campaign. The choice sends a negative message to APAs everywhere. Richardson represents a regression. He is simply unfit to be part of any “cabinet of change.”

On-line petitions are being circulated at http://www.wenholee.org/ and petitiononline.com/GovBillR/petition.html. For updates and other musings on the Obama transition, David Chiu and more, check out amok.asianweek.com.

Richardson Draws Ire

http://www.asianweek.com/2008/11/28/commerce-secretary-appointment-draws-ire-from-asian-americans/

Commerce Secretary Appointment Draws Ire From Asian Americans

November 28, 2008

Community looks back at Richardson’s role in Wen Ho Lee Case

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson’s appointment this week as President-elect Barack Obama’s commerce secretary is being greeted with anger and disappointment by some who remember the former energy secretary’s role in the botched investigation and prosecution of scientist Dr. Wen Ho Lee.

In 1999, Richardson and several other Department of Energy officials publicly accused the Taiwanese-born Lee of stealing classified nuclear-related documents from the Los Alamos Laboratories.

Lee, who had been employed at Los Alamos for 21 years, was indicted and spent 278 days in solitary confinement. Meanwhile, the case became a national story as suspicions formed that Lee was performing espionage for the Chinese government.

In the face of insufficient evidence, Lee pled guilty to a substantially reduced charge and received a public apology from President Bill Clinton for his mistreatment at the hands of the federal government.

The future New Mexico governor came under fire for his role in the case, as allegations surfaced that it was Richardson who leaked damaging classified personal information about Lee in an apparent attempt to smear the 69-year-old doctor in the press. Lee eventually received a multimillion-dollar settlement from the federal government and several media outlets in 2006.

Richardson’s new appointment has drawn fierce criticism from members of the Asian American community, many of whom still blame the New Mexico governor for perpetuating a harmful image of Chinese Americans.

“Richardson inflamed the stereotype that Americans of Chinese descent are easily disloyal citizens of our country,” said Henry Der who was Executive Director of Chinese for Affirmative Action in the 1990s. Der called upon members of the Senate Commerce Committee to investigate Richardson’s conduct as secretary of energy during Richardson’s confirmation hearings.

For critics like Der, Richardson’s refusal to acknowledge his own misconduct during the scandal remains a bitter sticking point.

“[He] needs to… apologize for the grave, calculated mistakes and harm he perpetrated against Lee and our nation’s sense of justice,” Der said.

Guy Wong, a member of a group of Chinese Americans who supported Wen Ho Lee during his imprisonment, went further in his criticism of the former energy secretary.

“Bill Richardson is simply a ruthless opportunist,” said Wong, who circulated a petition urging President-elect Obama to deny Richardson any cabinet position prior to Tuesday’s announcement. Wong criticized Richardson and other government officials for being “willing to lie, not just to Dr. Lee, but also in open court, in order to gain advantage over an innocent and powerless man.”

That Richardson’s appointment comes at a time of unprecedented economic turmoil concerns Asian American business leaders like John Jin Lee, chairman of the Asian Business League of San Francisco.
“Mr. Richardson’s association with the well-documented mishandling of the Wen Ho Lee case at the very least raises the question as to his qualifications,” said Lee.

Shien Biau “S.B.” Woo, former lieutenant governor of Delaware and co-founder of the prominent 80-20 Initiative, an Asian American political organization, had a different view.

“I doubt if we want to burn our political capital opposing the appointment of Richardson,” Woo said, questioning the notion that the Wen Ho Lee case was an important issue to Asian Americans.

In lieu of opposing the appointment and risk angering the Hispanic community, Woo proffered that the Asian American community should work to increase its influence instead of focusing on negatives.

“The politic way of doing things has always been not to be concerned with what others are getting,” said Woo. “We have to be politically astute. Otherwise we’ll never succeed in enlarging our political clout.”

Also Read: A Slap in Our Face: We can’t forget what Richardson did to Wen Ho Lee