%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%  Editorial Board of CBS Incident Committee  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

                      Monday, September 12, 1994   (No. 15)

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1. New Developments ....................................................... 12 
2. CBS-IC's Complain Letter to Defense Intelligence Agency ................ 23
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1. New Developments ....................................................... 12
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a. CBS-IC has received more than $2,100 donation as of today. We thank
   everyone who has supported with his/her precious time and financial
   resources.

b. CBS-IC's complain letter was sent to Defense Intelligence Agency. It was 
   also sent to Dr. Zhao Haiqing, OCA and White House.

c. CBS-IC is in the process to mend the difference with CBS directly.
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2. CBS-IC's Complain Letter to Defense Intelligence Agency ................ 23
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                                             Mr. Lin Huang
                                             National Coordinator
                                             CBS Incident Committee 
                                             3044 Albany Crescent 1G
                                             Bronx, NY 10463
                                             (718)-548-9114
                                             September 3, 1994

Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper, Jr., USAF
Director, Defense Intelligence Agency
Room 3E258
The Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301 - 7400
Tel (703)-695-7353
Fax (703)-695-7336

Dear General:

I am writing to you as National Coordinator of the CBS Incident 
Committee (CBSIC) and as Chair of the Committee on Civil Rights of the 
Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars (IFCSS), to 
express our grave concerns about one of your employees, Mr. Nicholas 
Eftimiades, who has been conducting some seemingly non-job-related 
activities that contradict the U.S. national interests and affect 
people's lives in our community.

IFCSS is the national organization of Chinese students and scholars in 
the United States, and CBSIC is a nationwide assembly of 80 working 
volunteers and more than 6,000 members who have joined together to 
protect ourselves from recent racial attacks on ethnic Chinese, sources 
for most of which could be traced to Mr. Eftimiades.

In the name of an active agent from the Defense Intelligence Agency, Mr. 
Nicholas Eftimiades has written a book, "Chinese Intelligence 
Operations". He has been giving a series of public interviews to the 
mass media. Many newspapers, magazines and TV broadcasts carried stories 
that made shocking announcement about a massive Chinese spy network in 
the Chinese community in the U.S., crediting Mr. Eftimiades as the 
source.

On May 19, CBS Evening News announced that, China runs the "biggest spy 
network in America", and that "ordinary" Chinese in the U.S. are spying 
or will be "future spies, who a few year down the road, will be 
activated to steal America's military and technological secrets." 
(please see Attachments I for the transcript) Mr. Eftimiades was shown 
in the broadcast, confirming that the spy network fairy-tale was true 
and valid. In a letter to the Vice President of the IFCSS, the Vice 
President of CBS News proclaimed that their accusations are valid 
"according to the Defense Information [sic] Agency."

On July 16, the CBS anchor woman apologized for her careless report but 
again insisted that the content of the report is "written totally in 
accordance with the American intelligence agencies", meaning your 
agency.

There are more examples of this nature.

On April 4, the Wall Street Journal reported that "China's spying 
efforts in U.S. dwarf all others and they could prove costly to America 
firms." Mr. Eftimiades is quoted as saying that "they (China's MSS) 
recruited spies from some 15,000 Chinese students, 11,500 Chinese 
diplomats, trade representatives, and others visiting the U.S. every 
year", and "to back up their spies, Chinese agents have formed some 795 
U.S. companies."

Associated Press reported that Mr. Eftimiades attacked the American 
Government as "unseen, unspoken but real and deliberate reluctance" "to 
get tough with China on espionage." He is quoted as saying "people (in 
the United States Government) don't want to bang on China."

Agence France Presse reported on May 24, 1994 that "an US intelligence 
officer" alleged that "Chinese intelligence uses the 11,500 diplomats as 
well as the 15,000 Chinese students who arrive in the United States each 
year and hundreds of thousands of Chinese-Americans."

Let me be very clear that our organizations are not at all at odds with 
the efforts on the part of your agency and other counter-intelligence 
agencies of the U.S. government to ferret out moles who are of any 
country origin. What concerns us is the fact that this Mr. Eftimiades 
has been spreading unsubstantiated information to the mass media and 
purposefully misleading people to believe that his acts have been 
authorized by your agency. The result of such information, when picked 
up by certain network after sensationalisation, could serve as the basis 
for a witch hunt and consequently victimize tens of thousands of 
innocent people. The ethnic Chinese could very well be the target of 
victimization.

In the ensuing paragraph I would like to cite a few cases to show how 
innocent people have been hurt in this spy witch hunt. 

Case number I, a Chinese American working for an U.S. government agency 
was reported by an informant as a possible Chinese spy. His office was 
searched, computer files were scanned and private communications 
compromised, but he was found innocent. However his employer, scared to 
death of the so-called biggest Chinese spy network in America, fired him 
on ground that he has used his computing equipment for private e-mail 
files that were not related to his work!

Case number II, a Chinese national was employed by a private U.S. firm. 
Few months after his employment, Mr. Eftimiades' book was published and 
CBS broadcasted Mr. Eftimiades allegations that ordinary Chinese are 
potential spies. Within days he was fired, and the only obvious reason 
is that his company just got a big contract from the military.

In his interviews as well as in his book, Mr. Eftimiades especially 
targeted tens of thousands of ordinary Chinese in the academic areas who 
are diligently studying and working in this country and accused them of 
being "future" spies for the Chinese government. By formulating various 
theories (please see Background Studies), Mr. Eftimiades has 
methodically crafted a trap which no ethnic Chinese in this country can 
escape from falling into. For instance , he alleged that these Chinese 
academics coming to this country to pursue an advanced degree are like 
fish lurking at the bottom of the sea and will eventually surface 10 or 
20 years later to steal high-tech information or secrets from the United 
States even though these people are innocent right now. In many 
occasions, he used harsh words with strong biased tones. In doing so, he 
not only has attacked the personal integrity of every ethnic Chinese by 
questioning their motives of coming to this country, but also insulted 
many of us who have fought hard for freedom and democracy.

After extensive research (please see Background Studies) by our 
committee members, we have found many serious cases of inaccuracy and 
exaggeration in Mr. Eftimiades' book and interviews. In fact, Mr. 
Eftimiades employs more fictitious style writing, imagination and hear-
says than hard facts in his book. He himself stated in the book that 
some of his evidence came from conversations with dozens of mysterious 
anonymous persons (presumably China's current intelligence officers, and 
recruited agents) in public places around Washington D.C., the kind of 
non-verifiable interviews "straight out of a novel by William F. Buckley 
or John Lecarre in an attempt to break new ground," as one of his 
commentators pointed out. But more importantly, our research also 
indicates that Mr. Eftimiades has grossly misrepresented or 
misinterpreted the data he cited from the Senate Intelligence Sub-
Committee, the U.S. Custom Service and the Department of Justice (please 
also see Background Studies).

In his book, Mr. Eftimiades even cited the IFCSS, our very own 
organization as his accomplice. He alleged that the IFCSS "stated that 
numerous MSS agents identified themselves to dissident leaders 
immediately after the Tiananmen incident." The IFCSS leadership has 
investigated the claim by checking with all the past leadership of the 
organization. Each and every former 5 terms' president of the IFCSS has 
denied making such alleged announcement by the IFCSS headquarters. 

As you can see, and I hope you will also agree, Mr. Eftimiades' methods 
in constructing his whole theory are flawed to say the least, and his 
attitude toward the original source of his data is hardly professional. 
Once the distorted pictures presented in these questionable books and 
interviews are accepted by the general public and become deeply rooted 
through the news media, which sometimes play their own part in 
exaggeration and distortion, they will bring nothing but racial tensions 
to this society. They will create prejudice, stir fear, arouse suspicion 
and generate resentment and even hatred toward ordinary Chinese, be they 
employees, job applicants, business partners, next door neighbors or 
even oriental looking strangers walking down the street!

Mr. Eftimiades is entitled to his own opinion. We recognize that and we 
respect his personal assessment of the espionage situation based on the 
information and experience he has as a career officer, so long as the 
information is true and the assessment unbiased. However, we feel that 
it is irresponsible and professionally unethical to announce his 
personal opinions to the public in the name of Defense Intelligence 
Agency without considering the possible damage it may cause. It is all 
the more so considering that he has been continuously offering public 
interviews, to this day, to spread the unsubstantiated allegation 
through books, newspaper articles and TV broadcasts that every ethnic 
Chinese who resides in this country could be a spy, and could be forced 
to become a spy! That such allegation comes from a DIA officer who is in 
active duty makes us even more seriously question its appropriateness, 
based on civil rights laws, the relevant government rules, and also 
according to the legal experts we have consulted. It is therefore my 
sincere wish that you may share our views in this regard and urge your 
employees to provide true and accurate information to the public 
whenever they are called for, and to refrain from any conduct that may 
defame a minority group and destroy the racial harmony which we are all 
striving to promote in this country.

Our committee has made continuous efforts trying to contact Mr. 
Eftimiades to share our views with him and to seek his assistance to 
promote mutual understanding. We have tried for several months along 
that line in vain. Recently Mr. Eftimiades has disconnected his phone 
lines, provided phony phone numbers and even asked the Defense 
Intelligence Agency receptionist to ignore our inquiries. As a last 
resort, I am writing to you in the hope that our voices can be heard by 
your agency and through you by Mr. Eftimiades.

We would like to ask you specifically:

1. Since the receptionist at your agency refuses to let us contact Mr. 
Eftimiades about the matter, we, as a concerned group, wish General's 
office could help us to build the communication with Mr. Eftimiades, so 
we can have the opportunity to discuss with Mr. Eftimiades about the 
mistakes he made in the name of a DIA agent and in his book, and to 
improve mutual understanding.

2. Since Mr. Eftimiades has been using the name of an agent of the 
Defense Intelligence Agency to advance his personal agenda, we wish the 
agency could investigate this issue and measure it with discipline. 

3. We understand that the DIA can not possibly authorize Mr. Eftimiades' 
public appearances, but the public will perceive Mr. Eftimiades as an 
"insider" of the agency in the name of an active agent, and having 
access to internal top secret information which led him to reach his 
unsubstantiated conclusions. We wish the Defense Intelligence Agency 
would clarify this misunderstanding to the mass media and the American 
public.

4. Given the existence of many mistakes in the book, and distortions in 
Mr. Eftimiades' public interviews, both intentional and unintentional on 
his part, we wish the Defense Intelligence Agency should create a 
guideline for its employees in public appearances and private conducts 
to prevent anyone from taking advantage of the Agency for personal 
gains.

Thank you for your attention. I am looking forward to your kind 
response.

Sincerely,


Mr. Lin Huang
National Coordinator, CBS Incident Committee
Chair, Committee on Civil Rights
The Independent Federation of Chinese Student and Scholars in the U.S.

CC: Mr. Eftimiades

Enclosure:

Vice President of IFCSS' Letter to CBS;
Vice President of CBS Hard News to IFCSS;
CBSIC's letter to Vice President of CBS Hard News;
Attachment: Interviews by Newspapers, Magazine and TV station;
Background Studies: Truth vs. Mr. Eftimiades's Lies;
 
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