WASHINGTON -- The FBI has found new evidence suggesting China may have stolen information about the most advanced U.S. nuclear warhead from one of the weapon's assemblers, the Washington Post reported Friday.
Quoting unidentified government sources, the newspaper said the new evidence has widened an investigation that once focused almost exclusively on Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and one of its staff scientists, Wen Ho Lee.Lee was fired by Department of Energy officials earlier this year for violating lab security procedures but has denied passing information to China. He has not been charged with any crime, and U.S. officials have said there was not enough evidence to pursue espionage charges against him.
China has steadfastly denied the spying allegations.
The Post said the new evidence emerged after weapons scientists at Los Alamos noted errors in a Chinese intelligence document that sparked the initial FBI and congressional investigations into Los Alamos and Lee.
The telltale errors, contained in a description of the miniaturized W-88 warhead, were traced to one of the contractors and defense installations that assemble nuclear weapons, the newspaper said.
One source quoted by the Post said the analysis "widened the circle and gave convincing evidence" backing up the contention that China could have obtained classified information about the W-88 and other U.S. nuclear warheads from any of dozens of facilities.
While the new evidence did not completely eliminate Los Alamos or Lee, the sources told the Post that it indicated the most likely origin of the information was one of the weapons "integrators."
The newspaper said those included Sandia National Laboratories, which puts together prototypes of some warheads; Lockheed Martin Corp., which attach warheads to missiles; and the Navy, which supervises the process.
A Lockheed Martin spokesman told the Post the company "is cooperating with the government in its investigation and is not under investigation nor implicated in any wrongdoing.