Selling Out America:

The American Spectator investigations

By Kenneth R. Timmerman

Preface

by U.S. Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.)

 

Read Ken's Introduction, which lays out the general outline of the book.

Endorsement by Reagan defense panel

Praise for The Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq

 

Selling Out America home page

Ken Timmerman has long been investigating a problem that, if neglected, will grow ever more serious in the

future: the relentless efforts by the communist People's Republic of China to acquire U.S. military technology through any means -- legal or illegal.

Many of the facts Ken first reported were later confirmed to me and my colleagues in classified briefings by the Clinton administration during the year-long work of the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China.

Those warning of the growing military might of the communist People's Liberation Army, and the help they were getting from the Clinton-Gore administration, were treated as pesky Cassandras by Clinton allies in the media. In some cases that were brought to our attention, capable intelligence officers were either fired or demoted, because they presented information that contradicted the administration's view that the communist People's Republic of China was a "strategic partner" of the United States.

The bi-partisan Select Committee that I chaired unanimously found that the PRC targeted specific U.S. technologies to enhance their military, including nuclear weapons, and the high performance computers and precision machine-tools needed to make them. We found that U.S. satellite manufacturers had transferred technology to the PRC that enhanced China's ballistic missile programs, in violation of U.S. law.

Timmerman deserves credit for having exposed many of these transfers in an accurate and timely manner, without the benefit of billions of dollars of intelligence community assets. He used old-fashioned shoe leather to find PLA front companies operating in California. His investigation into CATIC prefigured the Select Committee's look into this very important area of Chinese Communist penetration of America.

The Select Committee made 28 recommendations that have since been implemented, to better secure our military technology and nuclear secrets from espionage -- including the creation of a new National Nuclear Security Administration to take responsibility for nuclear weapons security away from the Department of Energy bureaucracy.

In a perfect world, the PRC should never have been able to gain access to America's sensitive military technology in the first place. In the future, it is my hope that our nation's decision-makers will pay more attention to the early-warning signs of trouble presented by courageous investigative reporters such as Ken Timmerman.

-- U.S. Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.)