Sunday, May 24, 1998

'Chinagate' is dire threat to Clinton

By Morton Kondracke

With national security at its core rather than sex, the Chinagate scandal has more potential for bringing down the Clinton presidency than Zippergate -- if there is any substance to it.

Republicans have every right and responsibility to thoroughly investigate whether the Clinton administration sold U.S. missile technology to China for campaign cash -- but as usual they are prejudging the outcome, seemingly hoping to convert the budding scandal into an election-year bonanza.

Chinagate does indeed contain the potential -- which the Monica Lewinsky scandal may not -- of converting the 1998 election into a "six-year itch" GOP landslide, especially if Democrats are seen helping Clinton with another cover-up.

Congressional Democrats have sought to undercut every probe of Clinton wrongdoing -- from Whitewater to campaign finance to Lewinsky. This one is too serious for stonewalling.

Instead of resisting creation of a House select committee headed by Rep. Chris Cox, R-Calif., Democratic leaders should welcome it and assign to it their most able investigators, not their toughest partisans. Republicans, of course, should do the same.

The Clinton administration may have made key decisions allowing sensitive missile and satellite technology to go to China, a potential adversary, in return for campaign contributions from the Chinese government and/or U.S. companies.

The administration and the companies, Loral Space and Communications Ltd. and Hughes Electronic Corp., deny any connection. China denies making the contributions claimed to the Justice Department by Democratic fund-raiser Johnny Chung.

Republicans, however, are assuming the worst. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., declared if the administration does not immediately produce evidence sought by Congress, "my presumption is that we have a genuine breach of national security for corrupt political purposes."

The first question to be answered in a serious probe is: To what extent was U.S. national security actually violated by Clinton's decisions to allow U.S. satellites to be launched by Chinese rockets?

Both anti-China hard-liners and some nonpartisan proliferation experts claim the United States has been helping China make its nuclear missile force -- as well as its satellite-launchers -- more accurate, posing a danger to the United States if we become enemies with China.

Loral and Hughes claim no technology transfer was involved because U.S. guidance secrets are sealed in the satellites, which are under U.S. control as they are placed atop Chinese rockets.

Moreover, the administration claims waivers to allow the launches were made by President George Bush as well as by Clinton.

The situation is complicated, however, by three factors: the Justice Department's apparent conviction that Loral and Hughes did convey secrets in a 1996 report on a Chinese missile failure, accusations that Clinton undermined Justice's case by approving new launches, and Clinton's 1996 decision to shift technology export decisions from the security-conscious State Department to the trade-friendly Commerce Department.

The second big question to be answered by probers is: Who in the Clinton orbit knew Chinese government money was flowing to the Democratic party?

China claims Chung is lying about getting $300,000 from a Chinese weapons merchant -- who did, though, get her picture taken with Clinton -- but Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., and others insist U.S. intelligence has strong evidence of a "China plan" to influence the U.S. election.

Justice Department investigators apparently believe Clinton friend and fund-raiser John Huang, when he was a Commerce Department official, received top-secret briefings on satellite encryption technology and may have conveyed the information to China.

And the third major question for investigators is: What influence did Loral chairman Bernard Schwartz's gifts to the Democratic party have on Clinton decision-making? Schwartz gave $632,000 to the party, making him the largest single individual donor during the last election.

Moreover, Schwartz had apparently given Democrats just $12,000 prior to his being granted a place on one of the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's trade missions to China in 1994 -- a place allegedly secured for him by Huang. Thereafter, he gave $100,000.

"Chinagate" may be just a series of suspicious coincidences. However, Clinton has been operating so close to the ethical edge on so many fronts that Republicans have every right to demand answers. Assuming Clinton has nothing to hide, Democrats have every interest in getting the answers on the record quickly.

Morton Kondracke is executive editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill.

Newspaper Enterprise Assn.