The Story Within The Story

When New York Times reporters James Risen and Jeff Gerth broke it on March 6, 1999, the story of Wen Ho Lee carried the plot line of a first-rate cold war thriller. In case the gravity of the security breach was lost on readers, the Times evoked the memory of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of--and executed for--leaking nuclear secrets from the same lab to the Soviet Union. The paper quoted a former CIA official as saying the case was "going to be just as bad as the Rosenbergs'."

Now that so much of the story has unraveled, many are turning a critical eye on the newspaper's handling of it. When the Times told the FBI it was going to press, the agency asked for a few more days to shore up lingering questions about Lee. The paper ran the story anyway. Though it did not name Lee, the article set off a frenzy of finger pointing. The next morning, two FBI agents showed up on Lee's doorstep brandishing a copy of the Times piece and mentioning the Rosenbergs' fate. Soon Lee's name was linked everywhere to the Times article as the "suspected Chinese spy"--nowhere more prominently than on the Times's editorial page, which lamented the Administration's "lackadaisical" treatment of the case and questioned National Security Adviser Sandy Berger's "fitness" for office.

Since then, the Times has toned down its rhetoric. Following the initial report, the paper put reporter William Broad on the case and six months later turned out another front-page story. This one took pains to explain that building an espionage case is an "imprecise art" and that federal investigators may have "focused too soon" on Lee. The paper's editorial page has also redirected its barbs, prodding the President to appoint an independent examiner. Last week the Times maintained that "if racial profiling is found, investigators and prosecutors should be called to account for their conduct."

As for its own conduct, the Times says it has faithfully reported on all angles of the case. But after White House spokesman Joe Lockhart railed against the climate of "near hysterical investigative reporting" late last week, the Times released a statement by managing editor Bill Keller that it is "looking back at the full run of our coverage to see how it stands up in light of the latest developments and whether there are lessons to be learned." The paper quoted Keller's statement in a front-page story last Saturday. Presumably the review will look at whether the paper should have relied on Notra Trulock as a source. Recent affidavits in the case allege that Trulock, then the Energy Department's intelligence director, targeted Lee because of his race. Trulock vehemently disputes the charge.

For some, the lessons have already been gleaned. Says Henry Tang, chairman of the Committee of 100, a Chinese-American advocacy group: "The Times started the story, and others jumped on it without waiting for any official substantiation, and this clearly helped create the hysteria."