Goss: Huang probe inadequate

Intelligence Chairman Believes Commerce Official Had 'Double Agenda'

The ranking intelligence expert in the U.S. Congress says he believes that onetime Democratic National Committee fundraiser John Huang had a "double agenda" when he was working at the U.S. Commerce Department and that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) probe of the matter has been inadequate.

"I think the FBI has not done an adequate job on this," said Rep. Porter Goss (R.-Fla.), who is chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. Goss also served as a member of the House Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China (the Cox Committee). 'I'm a little disappointed that they have not been more aggressive on this case and a couple of other ones."

In a wide-ranging interview with the editors Of HUMAN EVEN, Goss, who was a clandestine services officer in the Central Intelligence Agency for 10 years, also discussed what he sees as a potential disaster looming for the U.S. intelligence community as the result of the gutting of.resources that has taken place during the Clinton presidency (,see story on page 4).

'Aiding and Abetting'

But his most notable remarks went to the issue of John Huang and a campaign-finance investigation that never seemed to get off the ground. Goss was asked about the connection between the Lippo Group--an Indonesian corporation run by James Riady, who offered to raise $1 million for Clinton's 1992 campaign-and China Resources Holding Co., an organization owned by the People's Republic of China that the Cox Committee report indicated was an "agent of espionage."

Does he believe that part of the agenda of Chinese-government-owned China Resources when it became a partner with the Lippo Group was "intelligence gathering"?

"I would say information gathering, yeah," said Goss. "I'm not sure I'd classify it as intelligence the way we do business. I don't know what the value added is. But, do I think there is any doubt that John Huang had a double agenda or there was a double agenda assigned to John Huang? No, none in my mind at all.

"I think John Huang was aiding and abetting another country. Whether he was doing it wittingly or not, or how wittingly, I don't know. I assume it was wittingly.

"I can't rationalize the fact that the guy has an office across the street and is so concerned about the fire-wall between official business and private business and is being such a goody two-shoes that he's not going to call his wife from his phone because that's not really official business. So he's got this front office across the street where he goes and he calls his wife. I'm not buying that."

Goss was referring to a private business office in the Willard Hotel that Huang routinely visited while he was employed across the street at the U..S. Commerce Department. At Commerce, Huang received regular briefings from the Central Intelligence Agency on matters relating to China. As documented by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee investigation of the matter, frequent calls and faxes were placed from the office at the Willard to Lippo, offices in Asia. (See HUMAN EVENTS, last week, page 4.)

In August, Huang pleaded guilty to violating federal election laws in a different matter, became a cooperating witness, and has recently been immunized to testify before the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. He is expected to appear next month.

Reached by phone and read Goss's remarks, Huang's attorney John Keeney said that he would have no comment.

"My view would be that the Huang behavior is extremely irregular and is suspicious and certainly fits the pattern, the M.O., if you could even give it that formal a designation, of the way the Chinese operate," said Goss. "To say 'Chinese intelligence' conjures up an organized entity that functions with clear lines, clear communication . . . benchmark activities and so forth. It doesn't work that way. The Chinese are very acquisitive and they use every means at their disposal-beg, borrow, steal, whatever it is-to get information and then they patch it together."

He compared the schematic diagram of Chinese government information gathering to Hillary Clinton's national health care plan. "It is worse looking than Hillary Clinton's health care plan, trying to make anything out of that chart," he said. "But it works because it sucks in vast amounts of information. here and there, in multitudinous ways and they do profit from it.

"They are very good at taking what they saw yesterday and repackaging it and selling it to somebody else and get the money for something new to go out and acquire something else-see there, as I say, beg, borrow, steal, and in some cases purchase. And they have stepped themselves forward, or up the ladder, very well doing that.

"The one thing I will say about the Chinese and about the Cox report is that they did gain time, lots of time, and time is important in technological advance. Any country that can move quicker than another country with the geometric progression of technology has an advantage, and they've used that very well."