More Clinton:
Another good article:
from the Washington Weekly:
BILL CLINTON'S ALGER HISS PROBLEM
Bombshell Report Cites Suppressed Evidence of Communist Plot
By Carl Limbacher
OYSTER BAY--Fifty years ago, a young California Congressman
became the first to take the allegations of Whittaker Chambers
seriously. Chambers had alleged that top State Department aide
Alger Hiss was a Soviet spy. Hiss's ensuing trial and conviction
on perjury charges laid bare one of the great American political
scandals of this century: The Communists had infiltrated the
highest levels of our government and were secretly working to
subvert it.
The revelations permanently tarnished Franklin Roosevelt's
legacy. To this day, many New Dealers refuse to accept the
notion that the president who had led the country through
Depression and World War could have been so easily duped by the
man FDR referred to as "Uncle Joe" Stalin. But the deals
Roosevelt cut with Stalin were followed inevitably by the descent
of an Iron Curtain across Eastern Europe. In a legendary photo
of the Yalta meeting between FDR, Stalin in Churchill, Alger Hiss
can be seen hovering in the background. In what may turn out to
be one of the great historical ironies of all time, the young
California congressman who used Whittaker Chambers to expose Hiss
was Richard Nixon, the future 37th president of the United
States. Ironic because fifty years later history may be
repeating itself for President Clinton, who, because of his own
"Alger Hiss" problem, may face the same fate Nixon ultimately
did.
Now it's clear that the taint of Communist infiltration
haunts the Clinton administration. Yes, it has thus far
weathered a year's worth of media reports on its campaign finance
scandal. And four months of Sen. Fred Thompson's investigation
into same had seemed to fall short of the mark. But it was
Thompson himself, the press often reminds us, who set the bar too
high. It had seemed as if the Tennessee Senator had over-reached
at the outset, when he charged that clear and compelling evidence
existed of a Chinese Communist plot to influence American
elections. By the end of October, Thompson cut bait, explaining
that, while he still believed his charge was accurate, the FBI
intelligence data that could have proved it necessarily remained
secret.
But just days ago, Fred Thompson was vindicated. In fact, if
anything, the story that ran on the front page of Friday's
Washington Post makes Thompson's claim seem positively
understated. The evidence uncovered by former Watergate sleuth
Bob Woodward, in a story headlined "FBI Had Overlooked Key Files
in Probe of Chinese Influence," suggests more than a mere attempt
by the Chinese to buy access. That evidence suggests that Bill
Clinton is embroiled in an espionage scandal the likes of which
haven't been seen since the days of Hiss and Chambers.
What else can one make of Woodward passages like this:
The belatedly discovered files indicate that Maria Hsia - a
Taiwanese American immigrant who for a decade has raised
money for Democratic causes - was "doing the bidding" of
Beijing as a Chinese agent, a senior official said.
As Woodward noted, Hsia has connections going back to 1988
with Clinton crony James Riady. Riady's Lippo Group has become
in recent years pretty much a wholly owned subsidiary of the
Chinese government. Maria Hsia worked closely with John Huang,
who's suspicious DNC fund- raising first raised eyebrows a year
ago. Hsia was co-chair with Huang of the April 1996 Buddhist
Temple fundraiser where $140,000 in foreign money was laundered
on its way to help with Clinton's re-election.
Speaking of Mr. Huang, another Woodward tidbit seems to put
him firmly in the Alger Hiss territory:
(FBI Director) Freeh's order turned up other previously
undisclosed leads from FBI files, including reports
considered reliable but unconfirmed that Huang, while serving
as a senior Commerce Department official in the Clinton
administration, passed a classified document to the Chinese
government.
That one classified document passed by Huang is surely the
tip of the Chinese Communist spy-berg - given the record brought
out at the Thompson hearings. While at Commerce Huang received
top secret clearance (without routine FBI background checks) and
sat in on numerous briefings covering classified material. Paula
Greene, a secretary with the Lippo connected Stephen's Investment
firm, recalled that Huang would sneak out from his office at
Commerce and go across the street to Stephens' Washington office,
where he would collect faxes and packages from his old Lippo
bosses. Ms. Greene would notify Huang whenever Lippo material
would arrive for him, but was instructed to do so in strict
secrecy. Telephone records indicate that Huang himself initiated
regular contact with Lippo throughout his Commerce Department
stint. Huang had numerous opportunities to get U.S. secrets to
the Chinese through that conduit alone. During a Sept. 13, 1995
White House meeting with James Riady, Lippo lawyer Joseph Giroir
and consigliere Bruce Lindsey, Bill Clinton personally approved
John Huang's transfer to a key DNC post.
For those who still believe, as many did for years with Alger
Hiss, that Huang and Hsia's behavior was somehow unrelated to
plans hatched in Communist capitals, Woodward's concluding
paragraph contains some bad news:
After Thompson announced two weeks ago that he was suspending
his public hearings, officials said, the FBI obtained
intelligence showing that the Ministry of State Security in
Beijing - the Chinese equivalent of the CIA - boasted it had
been successful in "thwarting" the congressional inquiry.
So much for Chinese strongman Jiang Zemin's denials of just
two weeks ago, which he offered personally while looking Clinton
right in the eye, that there was no Chinese plot. Of course,
what significance is such a denial of conspiracy - as offered
from one conspirator to another? That may be a heady charge.
But look at the evidence staring Americans foresquare in the
face.
On February 2, 1996, the BATF issued special importation
permits for 100,000 Chinese assault rifles and millions of rounds
of ammunition. The guns were unmodified and therefore illegal as
per Bill Clinton's own assault weapons ban. Then why did our
government wave them in at a time when there was no legal US
market for such weaponry? Here's a clue: On February 6, 1996,
just four days after those permits were signed, Bill Clinton
feted Chinese arms dealer Wang Jun inside the White House. Wang
had been brought to the White House by Clinton funny-money man
Charlie Trie, whose invitation had been greased by investment
banker Ernest Green's $50,000 contribution.
This incident was separate and distinct from the 4,000 AK47's
that Wang Jun's Polytechnologies had attempted to smuggle to
Oakland street gangs using Chinese government ships. In fact,
within a month of Wang's White House visit that smuggling
operation was busted; a development that scuttled the much larger
100,000 gun Polytechnologies deal. But the fact remains, not
only did Mr. Clinton play host to a Communist princeling who was
then running a massive US smuggling operation, he was apparently
willing to grant Wang special dispensation from gun control laws
that Clinton himself fought hard to pass.
Curiously, the illegal Wang Jun/Clinton administration gun
deal was reported only by Michael Hedges of Scripps Howard News.
Hedges' story ran on the front page of the March 14, 1997
Arkansas Democrat Gazette - above the fold. But apparently
neither The Washington Post nor The New York Times noticed. In
fact, this development went unreported by every national news
outlet in America.
Need more evidence that Bill Clinton was willing to put
America in harm's way for the price of his own re-election? Try
renowned New York Times columnist A. M. Rosenthal - who just last
month explored "Clinton's Nuclear Deception." Rosenthal began
thusly:
Craftily, ever so craftily, President Clinton is deceiving
the American public about a critical danger to world
security: China's international sales of materiel and
technology of nuclear warfare.....No previous President, and
not even Mr. Clinton himself until now, would take the step
required to permit Chinese nuclear shopping in America -
certifying that China was not illicitly peddling its own
nuclear goods abroad. The U.S. knew that was not true.
Rosenthal concludes:
President Clinton is crafty, but not crafty enough. He has
turned China's broken pledges into a guilt of his own -
deception about a matter of life and death, many lives and
perhaps some hideous day, many deaths.
It's hard to see how importation permits for a Chinese
government gun runner and nuclear technology for the Butchers of
Beijing are in America's interest. And the only aspect that
explains how any of this is in Bill Clinton's interest is the
Chinese campaign cash, raised by foreign agents like John Huang
and Maria Hsia, that bought him his re-election.
No wonder the Chinese CIA is happy. Somewhere, no doubt, the
recently deceased Alger Hiss is smiling. But for the rest, who
may find all this less amusing, I suggest a visit to Georgia
Congressman Bob Barr's website ( http://www.house.gov/barr ),
where support for Barr's resolution for an impeachment inquiry
can be registered via e-mail.
Published in the Nov. 17, 1997 issue of The Washington Weekly
Copyright 1997 The Washington Weekly (http://www.federal.com)
Reposting permitted with this message intact
THANKS MUCH.