My Country Vs. Lee

I was especially fascinated by Lee’s “My Country Versus Me” because I remember following this story, to some extent, when it broke in 1999/2000 but had never heard the conclusion. I found this amazing: I never knew Lee was proved innocent! His ultimate release was obviously not deemed as important or sexy a news story as the initial charges. If it was and was as widely reported as his capture/incarceration, I would have definitely known about it cause I’m a news junky. I read CNN, the Christian Science Monitor (my favorite), NY Times, Wall St Journal, Boston Globe (less frequently) and the New Yorker pretty much every day (or month). I can’t remember Lee’s acquittal ever being mentioned. But stories about his capture/charges went through quite a new cycle lasting months.

At the time I thought: “Well it’s not quite clear if he was a spy or not. But the authorities are probably doing the right thing. As unfair as it seems, you can never be too careful when it comes to national security issues so it’s best to come down hard on people who are even remotely suspect”.

I love spy stories and when encountering them, part of me always thinks the punishment for spying or sharing national security secrets is too severe. Often it’s life imprisonment or even death – like the Rosenbergs in 1953. On the one hand, I always think even if the Rosenberg’s or Lee were guilty, what did they do but exchange paperwork and technical details that wouldn’t likely be used? [I just looked up the Rosenebrg’s, by the way, and they DID have a significant impact on the Soviets’ A-bomb development but I didn’t know this when I was initially reacting to the Lee story]

Anyways - It’s not like they directly murdered or hurt people with their own hands. And often, when you look back on it, you can see the charges/punishment were very much politically motivated. I doubt the Rosenbergs would’ve been rushed to execution if the US wasn’t at the height of its Cold War paranoia.

But then, the other side of me thinks: even a small detail released to the “enemy” could have the most devastating consequences. What if it gave a anti-US foreign regime the capability to kill or capture our spies/soldiers in the field? Or the power to develop a new weapon which could threaten millions of American lives? Or even info they could exchange with an even more hostile nation such as North Korea or Iran. Ultimately, as unfair as it might be to a handful of individuals, the US government is doing the right thing by going overboard and erring on the side of caution…

This was pretty much my viewpoint at the time the Lee “spy scandal” broke. And since I never heard Lee was cleared, my position (though I never consciously remembered the story for much longer than the stories of the initial charges) remained unchanged until this weekend.

This was why I was so embarrassed to find Lee was essentially charged with “being an ethnic Chinese”, as the Chinese for Affirmative Action group put it in the New York Times add (p. 303). The overwhelming evidence in his memoir leaves no doubt that this is exactly what happened.

I’ve always liked to believe in the comfortable notion that prejudice (at least official government prejudice) against Asians was a thing of the distant past – stamped out when the injustice of the Japanese internment camps was made highly public.

But even this rosy view of mine isn’t true. When I really look back, I’m ashamed to admit that, ultimately, my impressions of the case were motivated by the same ignorant views that informed the medias’ narratives: ethnic Asians born abroad (and particularly Chinese because they could be a loyal to a superpower that is in some ways still our enemy) may have stronger loyalties to their nation of origin. Especially because they look different, talk with a heavy accent, and are more comfortable speaking a language which (unlike Romance languages) is completely foreign and inscrutable to me. Who knows what secrets they could be hiding?

It’s not something that I thought consciously at the time, but this has to be the only reason I believed the medias’ heavily biased accounts at face value. Accounts in which Lee was presumed guilty. I never thought to question their logical inconsistencies although I do remember my dad pointing them out to me. Just look at the headlines from the time: “Suspected Chinese Spy Fired by U.S. Energy Department” (p. 90) or “Though Suspected as China Spy, Scientist Got Sensitive Job at Lab”. They make it sound as if Lee wasn’t even a citizen. But Lee was as American as they come – someone who’d dedicated himself to defending the US (in a way which would be unpalatable to many as going TOO far to help the US War Machine), was proud to drive a blue mustang to the Rose Bowl, and fish in the quintessentially American outback West.

These ignorant views of Asians is exactly what motivated the FBI investigators. Except they had enough intimate details about what Lee was really like that they knew better. And this is the government – an institution that’s supposed to guaranty justice.

Ultimately this book is excellent because it offers a counter-narrative to prejudiced misconceptions of Asians and shows in graphic detail (shackles, solitary confinement, unequal treatment at every step of the road) the consequences of these beliefs exposing them for the garbage that they are. How sad that we must be reminded yet again, though…