Subject: Special Issue: An Urgent Call for Signatures Against CBS

From: [email-masked] (Mi Mi)
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 94 17:14:44 CDT

>From [email-masked]  Fri Jul  8 16:58:46 1994
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Date: Fri, 8 Jul 1994 16:57:40 +0600
>From: [email-masked] (Miao Ye)
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To: [email-masked]
Subject: Special Issue: An Urgent Call for Signatures Against CBS
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%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%  Editorial Board of CBS Incident Committee  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

		       Friday, July 8, 1994   (No. 9)

=============================================================================
 ***  Special Issue: An Urgent Call for Signatures Against CBS  ***
=============================================================================
*** Please send your signatures to [email-masked] including the 
    signature line in form: 

      SIGNED  NAME    UNIVERSITY/COMPANY      E-MAIL-ADDRESS

    e.g.

      SIGNED  XXXXX XX   St. Louis University    [email-masked]

    Please collect signatures as more as possible. You may use your 
    e-mail-address for sending other people's signatures.

*** The deadline for sending protest letters to media is set to July 16, 1994.
    All the signatures received before that date will be included in the 
    original letter. All the signatures after that, will be sent separately
    in another package.

*** Let us join our hands and stand up together for our community interest 
    and image. We can and must make a difference! We will! 
 
=============================================================================
Table of Contents						   # of Lines
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1. We need your signatures!  We need your support for fight CBS! 
      A cover letter to Our Supporters Nation-wide               ......... 40
2. Details about how to send signatures by e-mails ....................... 88
3. The Letter From the National Coordinator of the CBS Incident Committee 128
4. Excerpt from Transcript of CBS Evening News (May 19, 1994, 6:30pm) ... 439
5. Mr. Shi's Original Protest Letter .................................... 562
6. The response from CBS Vice President  ................................ 648
============================================================================== 
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1. We need your signatures!  We need your support for fight CBS! 
      A cover letter to Our Supporters Nation-wide                ........ 40
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ladies and Gentleman:
 
    May 19, 1994, CBS Evening News, "Eye on America".  A group of Chinese 
faces, men, women and children, flooded out from an airport terminal.  "Only 
U.S. citizens continue straight ahead", an airport official said, directing 
these Chinese faces turn to the immigration gate.

   Now the reporter Connie's face, showing grave concern for America, 
"Everyday, planeloads of Chinese citizens arrive legally in the United States, 
ordinary people",  she started to explain that among  these ordinary Chinese 
faces, men, women and children, "some of them may be future spies, who, a few 
years down the road, will be activated to steal American's military and 
technological secrets"!

   That is one plane.  There are "planeloads", "everyday", spies!

   This program enraged the entire Chinese community.  No matter what their 
background is,  one thing is clear, this subjective, distorted and 
unprofessionally produced program has threatened everybody who looks like a 
Chinese.  They could be spies!  They don't have to be caught or convicted to 
be spies!  They are "future" spies!

   Thousands of protest letters have been received by the CBS, but CBS vice 
president, a Mr. Lane Venardos, shows no regret or sympathy.  In his identical 
replies to many protesters, particularly a letter to Mr. Shi Heping, the Vice 
President of IFCSS, a Chinese student and scholars association, Mr. Venardos 
lectured: "Our job is to bring all stories to the attention of the public, 
even those that may make some viewers uncomfortable, That is the very 
definition of a free press"! 

    Some story!  Obviously, to Mr. Venardos, the flat faced Chinese as shown 
in the program do not understand what freedom of press is! He contends that he 
can make any slanderous remarks, and that is the "very definition of a free 
press"!

    Attached please find a reply from the national coordinator of the CBS 
Incident Committee, which contains more detailed information about this racist 
and slanderous CBS report.  Also attached are the transcript of the original 
CBS Evening News program, Mr. Shi's original protest letter and Mr. Venardos' 
letter. We need your signatures to co-sign our letter. We need your support 
for fight CBS!

                                                Mr. Huang Lin
                                                National Coordinator
                                                CBS Incident Committee

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Details about how to send signatures .................................. 88
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Hi, everyone:

        Thank you very much for sticking to the following format! Please
remember that I am collecting the signature by myself. If you don't stick to
this format, it will cost me a lot of time to retrieve your signature. If you
cooperate, I can retrieve your signature very rapidly using powerful Computer 
MACRO language.

        We are working very hard to fight against a baised news report by CBS.
Please help us by giving us your endorsement of this justified fight against
discriminating news report about us, honest and obedient people from the
mainland of China.

        Please help ourselves by giving me your signature.

        Here is the signature format. The signature line for one person should 
be in one line except being wrapped up. 

SIGNED  NAME    UNIVERSITY/COMPANY      E-MAIL-ADDRESS

        1. SIGNED must be put there and before others. Please Check spelling!!
Without this word correctly spelt, your signature may not be retrieved.
        2. The NAME format is Given + Surname. 
        3. UNIVERSITY/COMPANY should be concise such as St. Louis University,
           or blank if you choose to.
        4. E-MAIL-ADDRESS should be complete. 
e.g.

SIGNED  Yinrong Huang   St. Louis University    [email-masked]

        Best regards

        Yinrong Huang

E-mail: [email-masked]   
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. The Letter From the National Coordinator of the CBS Incident Committee  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Mr. Lin Huang
National Coordinator
CBS Incident Committee
3044 Albany Crescent 1G
Bronx, NY 10463
(718)-548-9114
[email-masked]

Lane Venardos
Vice President
Hard News and Special Events
CBS Inc.
524 West 57 Street
New York, NY 10019
(212)-975-6979

Dear Vice President Lane Venardos:

Your recent letter to the Vice President of the Independent Federation 
of Chinese Students and Scholars, Mr. Shi, has been brought to my 
attention, in my capacity as the National Coordinator of the CBS 
Incident Committee, a nationwide assembly of Chinese students and 
scholars who have joined to protest the CBS Evening News' May 19th 
broadcast regarding a presumed threat of ordinary Chinese nationals 
spying for China in the United States. Our committee consists of 60 core 
members, regional and local coordinators, and a pool of over a thousand 
volunteers nationwide, coordinating activities provoked by this 
unfortunate incident.

We appreciate your thoughtful and immediate response to Mr. Shi and 
other complainants. Yet, we find that the reply is far from 
satisfactory, fallacies were abound, questions were unanswered. We would 
like to take this opportunity to express our grave concerns in more 
detail. We expect your kind response point by point.

A.    In the CBS broadcast and in the subsequent transcript which we 
received, it was mentioned that the major interviewee in the report, Mr. 
Nicholas Eftimiades, was an employee of the Defense Information Agency. 
Your reply to Mr. Shi also states that your information came from "the 
United States Defense Information Agency in Washington". 

There is no "Defense Information Agency" anywhere in the United States. 
Mr. Nicholas Eftimiades is employed by the Defense Intelligence Agency. 
While this is a very small and subtle error, if CBS "special 
investigators" had read Mr. Nicholas Eftimiades' book, or had 
communicated with the Defense Intelligence Agency, they would have 
realized the mistake. This oversight not only characterizes the 
unprofessional nature of this program, but also highlights the fact that 
mistakes were definitely made in this broadcast. Now, the real questions 
are, how many more mistakes were made, and to what extent harm has been 
done to innocent people in this country!

B.    The May 19th broadcasting opened with the statement that, "Every 
day, planeloads of Chinese citizens arrive legally in the United States, 
ordinary people. But to the Chinese government, some of them may be 
future spies, who, a few years down the road, will be activated to steal 
America's military and technological secrets... ". Three aspects of this 
statement need to be addressed: 

1)    In reference to the "planeloads of Chinese citizens" who are 
allegedly recruited as agents, your report stated the following: "A 
Chinese student or scientist or businessperson applies for a visa to go 
to the US. Then the Ministry of State Security (MSS) starts asking 
questions: What can you learn in the States? Will you be working with 
computers? Will you be loyal to China? And most importantly, can you be 
patient?" This is apparently meant to illustrate the standard and 
routine process for recruiting an agent. In reality, according to your 
interviewee himself, Mr. Eftimiades, MSS is very picky and cautious in 
recruiting. On page 64 of Mr. Eftimiades' book, he details how a certain 
individual was recruited: 

     "MSS made use of its resources in identifying this individual and 
     assessing his ability to conduct espionage. The recruitment process
     took place over six months. The time invested, as well as the
     ministry's foreknowledge of the source's personality and apparent
     prospects for academic achievement, indicates a well-planned and
     carefully regulated process of development and recruitment."

In your broadcast, all those procedures and precautions disappeared. 
Each and every ordinary Chinese is simply approached with a blatant 
request to be recruited as agent, according to your reporter. I can 
summon thousands, if not tens of thousands, of "ordinary" Chinese to 
testify before any grand jury that your spy recruiting story is simply 
fake.

It is not too hard to find the discrepancies between your report and the 
book. Your report generalized and distorted the facts obtained from the 
U.S. intelligence, putting words into the interviewee's mouth and 
pointing fingers at us, the "ordinary people", as we are referred to in 
your report.

2)    The report also alleged that those "ordinary" Chinese are sent by 
the Chinese intelligence as "sleeper spies", "fish in the bottom of the 
ocean" waiting to be surfaced in the "future".

However, as the report stated, the development of "sleeper" agents 
usually require a long preparation period, yet that is not possible with 
most Chinese nationals entering the United States. According to American 
Government documents, the majority of students and scholars who have 
arrived in the U.S. since 1978 (when diplomatic relations between the 
U.S. and China were normalized) have been exchange visitors on J-1 
visas. A J-1 visa holder must return to his or her home country after 
completing research and study programs. This is generally three or four 
years for a scholar and the reasonable length for a student to complete 
an advanced degree. It was not until after the Tiananmen pro-democracy 
movement that President Bush waived this requirement for some of the 
Chinese exchange visitors who were in the U.S. at the time. Thus, there 
was no way for these alleged "fish", as they are ridiculed in your 
report, even to think about surfacing 20-30 years in the future as your 
report suggested.

There is no evidence at all to support the "future" spy allegations in 
your report, which are the most disturbing and outrageous part. Those 
claims establish that even if a Chinese does not get caught spying, he 
or she is still a spy suspect! He or she is a spy suspect for life! CBS, 
as a news organization, cannot blame the US intelligence agencies for 
this irresponsible claim. The US intelligence agencies can suspect and 
investigate any Chinese or non-Chinese in the US, however "ordinary", if 
there is sufficient evidence to do so, but they do not make a public 
announcement that any "ordinary" Chinese is suspected of being a 
"future" spy. What CBS has done is clearly slanderous!

3)    In reference to your "concrete example" of an "ordinary" Chinese 
who was chosen to become a "sleeper" agent, Mr. Kao is hardly ordinary. 
Mr. Kao arrived in the United States in 1971, seven years before formal 
Sino-U.S. diplomatic relations were established. In 1971, there was no 
way for any ordinary Chinese to get visa to the U.S., no transportation 
from China to the U.S. and certainly there were no "planeloads" of 
"ordinary" Chinese as shown in the opening of the report. Mr. Kao is not 
one of the alleged "ordinary" "Chinese student, scientist or 
businessman" whose dramatic spying journey "all starts here in 
Beijing..."! 

C.    In the May 19 broadcast, an interview was staged to dramatize the 
issue. The interview went as follows:

  "Unidentified Man #1: Never forget, you belong to our organization.
  "CHUNG: Never forget,' they told him, 'you belong to our rganization.
  "Man #1: You were sent by our organization.
  "CHUNG: You were sent by our organization, and this organization 
          belongs to the Communist Party.
  "Man #1: ...Communist Party.

If we were actually to believe that this was a conversation between a 
"sleeper" spy and an MSS case officer, we would like to pose the 
following questions:

1)    Wouldn't this conversation be in Chinese, rather than in English?

2)    Who is this unidentified man, what is this unidentified man and 
      what Chinese or American agency does he work for?

3)    Doesn't this sound like a Hollywood interpretation of how a spy 
      ring would be enforced? We regret to inform you, but China is not 
      Hollywood, and business (be it espionage or car manufacturing) is 
      not conducted in the same terse and straight-forward manner as it
      is here.

D.    At the end of the report, the reporter announced that "The FBI is 
trying to help American corporations protect themselves from espionage. 
The Bureau has a program now to brief executives about how their 
companies could become targets." By stating "The Bureau has a program 
now ..", it implies that the FBI has recently created a new program 
against Chinese nationals to deal with the presumed threat of Chinese 
espionage. This is another fabrication alleging the U.S. government 
launching racist programs against the Chinese community! The fact is 
that the FBI has had programs in place for many years to protect 
America's interests from espionage originating from all countries, 
friendly or hostile. The implications arising from this misleading 
statement is overwhelming, possibly leading to a national "witch hunt" 
for Chinese in high-power jobs.

E.    In your reply to Mr. Shi's letter, you mentioned (as further proof 
that this broadcast was legitimate) that between 1986 and 1993 "one in 
eight of all illegal export enforcement cases closed by U.S. Commerce 
Department involved the People's Republic of China...". First of all, 
trade violations and espionage are different concepts. Second, we would 
like to know, what percentage of these "illegal export" crimes are 
committed by businesses that tried to get around trade regulations to 
make money, and which were genuine "spy network" cases? According to our 
investigation, there is only one in thirty of all illegal export cases 
that could be related to espionage involving China. And this percentage 
is comparable to that of cases involving the U.S. allies such as the 
United Kingdom, West Germany and Japan. 

Besides, you cannot use illegal export cases to China to support this 
particular news report, which was targeting "planeloads" of "ordinary" 
Chinese, and which made no mention whatsoever about Americans of 
non Chinese origin. You must know that most of these illegal export 
cases to China involve Americans of non-Chinese origin and you would not 
like to suggest that the Chinese Americans who were involved in these 
cases are Chinese spies and those non-Chinese Americans who were 
involved are patriotic citizens who just made unfortunate mistakes, 
would you?

F.    Your reply also states that CBS "in no way intended to suggest 
that the recruits represented anything other than a minority of the 
Chinese population in this country and we do not believe that we in any 
way suggested otherwise", although there is no mention or implication of 
such statement in the original broadcast. In fact, CBS' choice of words 
in the report portrayed exactly the opposite intention, as shown in the 
following four examples:

1)     CBS implicated the entire Chinese community by using the word 
"ordinary" and by providing no distinction between being an intelligence 
recruit and being an ordinary member of the Chinese population.

2)     Onch again, the CBS broadcast opened by a crowd of Chinese 
visitors coming out of a plane, saying "planeloads of Chinese citizens 
arrive [daily]... some of them may be future spies." The statement makes 
it seem as if spies arrive in every plane, and leading to the 
inescapable conclusion that, since there are numerous planes arrive each 
day, America must be inundated with Chinese spies!

3)     The broadcast stated that ordinary Chinese "will be activated to 
steal America's military and technological secrets, whether they want to 
or not." This statement further implicates the entire Chinese community 
by virtually demanding that the least spy-like person must also be 
watched, because they can be forced to spy against their will. It is 
outrageous to suggest that a freedom-loving, law-abiding Chinese, whose 
very presence here shows an appreciation and understanding of the 
American dream, could be forced to commit crimes against his or her own 
will and against this great nation, the United States of America! 

4)     In the broadcast, the reporter announced that China has a 
"biggest spy network" in America, without any concrete evidence or 
statistical data. She simply asked the interviewee: "Are there any other 
countries that you know of that have this kind of spy network operating 
here in the United States?" To which the eye-rolling interviewee 
mumbled, "No, not-certainly not to this -- to this degree." This broad 
generalization and paranoid imagination creates an overwhelming image 
that there is a China spy network that has infiltrated every home and 
office in America, putting these "ordinary" Chinese under its control!

It is impossible to prove a negative. Mr. Vice President Venardos, if 
you have a neighbor who happens to be an ethnic Chinese, what could he 
or she possibly do to prove to you, or CBS Evening News for that matter, 
that he or she is not a spy for China, since you have expressed so 
firmly a belief in your reply that portraying ordinary Chinese as spies 
is "important" and that the Chinese spy "problem may be even greater"?!

A primary mission of U.S. intelligence agencies is to investigate spy 
threats in the U.S., whether posed by "ordinary" citizens or by 
government agents, and we wholeheartedly support their efforts to ferret 
out the multinational spies infiltrating American business. The job of a 
news organization, such as CBS, is to report and to investigate real 
life events, not to fabricate, distort, and manipulate facts to create a 
fairy tale in an attempt to boost ratings.

It is understandable that there are paranoia about the presumed Chinese 
"spy" threat among some individuals. But as a major network, CBS should 
report it professionally, that is, while reporting the paranoia, you 
should also report those innumerable facts and views that prove the 
opposite. 

On the contrary, the open generalizations and implications of your 
report invite American public to "keep an eye on" and be suspicious of 
their Chinese employees, job applicants, business partners, and even 
neighbors! The eye-catching proclamations in the report were unsupported 
by facts, but a collection of irrelevant stories patched together with 
some vivid imaginations, outright fabrications and unsubstantiated 
allegations. Just because a person is from a certain country of origin, 
it does not make him or her believe in the politics of that nation and 
would sell his or her soul and American secrets for fame or for money!

Your May 19th, 1994 report by Ms. Connie Chung, produced by Mr. Thomas 
Anderson and Mr. Eric Sorensen, is an unprofessional, irresponsible, 
subjective, bigoted, and tabloid style show piece. It defamed all the 
law-abiding ordinary Chinese in this country. Rarely have we seen such 
blatant discrimination against an  ethnic group on national television.

We have fought so hard for the principles of freedom and democracy. We 
will not tolerate being accused of subverting democracy in this country! 
We demand that CBS issue a formal public apology on "Eye on America" and 
devote equal air-time to an objective discussion of this issue. We also 
ask that you respond in writing to the specific points we have addressed 
in this letter. You cannot defame an entire ethnic community by using 
anonymity, getting away with "sources say", "unidentified man", "CBS 
special investigators find" and the rest of those elusory clauses.

Sincerely,

Lin Huang,

National Coordinator
CBS Incident Committee

CC:

CBS President Howard Stringer
CBS Vice President Eric Ober
Producer Thomas Anderson
Producer Eric Sorensen
News Anchor Connie Chung
News Anchor Dan Rather

Major national newspapers  (See attachment A)
Local CBS stations         (See attachment B)
CBS advertisers            (See attachment C)

Co-Signed By:

signatures from prominent Chinese individuals, organizations
signatures from ordinary Chinese
signatures from other American friends

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Excerpt from Transcript of CBS Evening News (May 19, 1994, 6:30pm) .... 439
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Connie Chung: And later, Eye on America, Tonight, how a foreign
power may be planting the seeds in your backyard.

......
Chung: Comming up next, Eye on America. Tonight, the biggest spy network in
America. We'll tell you who's running it and how.

Connie Chung, co-anchor:

The recent Ames spy case served as a reminder that the espionage bussiness in
this country is still thriving; that you don't always find spies in trench
coats and that you could find them in the house next door. In a special
investigation, CBS News found out how China is grooming agents to keep an Eye
on America.

Unidentified Woman:  Only US citizens continue straight ahead. 

Chung: Every day, planeloads of Chinese citizens arrive legally in the United
States, ordinary people. But to the Chinese government, some of them may be
future spies, who a few year down the road, will be activated to steal
America's military and technological secrets, whether they want to or not. 

Are there any other contries that you know of that have this kind of spy
network operating here in the United States?

Mr. Nicholas Eftimiades (Defence Information Agency): No. Not-certainly not to
this--to this degree.

Chung: Nicholas  Eftimiades, who works for an American spy agency, the Defence
Information Agency. His new book on Chinese intelligence raise questions for
American government and business.

Mr. Nicholas Eftimiades: I don't think we can say at this point any Western
government is prepared to deal with this type of espionage threat, because it's
different from anything that we've known to date.

Chung: It all start here in Beijin. A Chinese student or scientist or
businessperson applies for a visa to go to the US. Then the Ministry of State
Security asking questions: What cab you learn in the State> Will you be working
with computer? Will you be loyal to China? And most importantly, can you be
patient? Eftimiades says the prospective spiues are trained, paid and warned to
stay in touch, 'Remember.' they are told. 'we'll be watching your family
members in China.' 'Lay low until you're contacted.' they are told. It could be
years.

Mr. Nicholas Eftimiades: Let me put it to you in the terms that the Chinese
Intelligence Service describes it: Chen di yu, which is a Ministry of State
Security slang term for fish on the bottom of the ocean. This has been defined
in  Western espionage as sleeper agents.

Chung: So they just sit there like fish at the   bottom of the ocean and do
nothing?

Mr.   Nicholas Eftimiades: They wait.

Chung: Until they have to surface.

Mr. Nicholas Eftimiades: Exactly.

Chung: This man is one of those Chinese fish at the bottom of the American
ocean. Call him a reluctunt spy. he's afraid he'll be contacted soon to hand
over state-of-the-art computer programs.

Unidentified Man#1: Never forget, you belong to our organization.

Chung: ' Never forget," they told him, ' you belong to our organization.'

Man#1: You were sent by our organization.

Chung: ' You were sent by our organization, and this organization belongs to
the Communist Party.'

Man#1:...Communist Party.

Chung; Twenty-three years ago this man, Kao Yen Men, came to the US. In recent
years, he lived a quiet life in this house in Cherlotte, North Carolina, and he
even bought a restaurrant in downtown Cherlotte. His neighbors never knew what
he was up to.

Unidentified Man #2: I really didn't know what to think. I mean, you know, we
came down to this nice little Southern city, and the next thing you know I'm
down the street from a spy. I thought this was, like, a little friction movie
or something, but...

Chung: Some movie. After a six-year FBI investigation, Kao was arrested and
charged with trying to steal the advanced Mar 48 torpedo, engine for the FA-18
Homet jet fighter and radar for the F-16 Falcon jet. Kao was caught, but
security expert 'Pat pattakos says most American companies are too naive about
the Chinese spy thret.

Mr. Arion "Pat" Pattakos (Beta Analysis): Right now a lot of people don't
really think of the protecting themselves.

Chung: Especially when the target is information and computer data...

Mr.  Pattakos: They'll look at all this information here that they can access.

Unidentified man #3:  Yes.

Chung: ...all part of the more and more accesible information superhighway.

Mr.  Pattakos: I mean, it's very easy to know when a truck is missing in front
of your place. I mean, it's gone. It's physical object. But think about
information. Information is more intangible, and people may not know--realize
that it's lost.

Chung: pattakos says a new national strategy between business and government
can trap the spies.  Eftimiades is much less optimistic.

Mr. Eftimiades: Once these spies get into American society, once they're deeply
rooted into our structure, our society's structure, we're not going to be able
to detect them. There is no way to stop them at this point.

Chung: The FBI is trying to help American corporation protect themselves from
espionage. The bureau has a program now to brief executives about how their
companies could become targets. Dan.

 ......

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5. Mr. Shi's Original Protest Letter .................................... 562
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
05/23/94

Mr. Eric Ober
President, CBS News
524 West 57th St. 
New York, NY 10019

Dear Mr. Ober:

As president of the Independent Federation of Chinese Students
and Scholars(IFCSS), I am writing you to express my deep concern
over the CBS Evening News report on Chinese espionage, which was
aired on May 19, 1994.

The report, with Connie Chung as the anchorwoman, apparently
aimed at warning American businesses of Chinese information
espionage. However, it was structured in such a manner as might
very well introduce a bias into American people's perception of
ordinary Chinese citizens. 

The report began with these words:

     "Every day, planeloads of Chinese citizens arrive legally in
     the United States, ordinary people. But to the Chinese
     government, some of them may be future spies, who a few
     years down the road, will be activated to steal America's
     military and technological secrets, whether they want to or
     not."

There are several inappropriate points in this paragraph alone.
First, the number of people who might work as spies was greatly
exaggerated. China may or may not has the biggest spy network in
the United States in comparison with other countries, but the
absolute number of spies vis-a-vis the whole Chinese population
in the U.S. is very limited. By using words like "planeloads",
the report greatly exaggerated the proportion of spies. Secondly,
spies are not "ordinary people." The Chinese agency in charge of
espionage would not choose ordinary people as spies; on the
contrary, it relies on those who are most loyal to the Communist
Party. Ordinary Chinese coming to the United States, just like
ordinary Americans going to China, have impeccable business or
personal purposes and are very friendly with the country they
visit. Thirdly, Chinese people are not cowards, as was well
demonstrated in the 1989 Democracy Movement, therefore they could
not be forced to work as spies. Chung's statement "whether they
want or not" is at best a distortion of the integrity of the
Chinese people. It is well-known that despite repeated
intimidation from the Chinese government, Chinese students in the
U.S. are still carrying on the fight for democracy and freedom.
On the same day of this report on Chinese espionage, five Chinese
nationals embarked on a 360-hour hunger strike in front of the
White House demanding improvement in China's human rights
situation, which once again demonstrated the kind of courage
witnessed by people all over the world in 1989.

For ordinary Chinese students, America represents the land of
freedom. It was the American dream of liberty and democracy which
inspired thousands of young Chinese to lay down their lives on
Beijing's streets five years ago. Because of China's human rights
situation, many Chinese students are choosing to live in the
United States for the time being. Instead of spying for the
Chinese government, they are making great contributions to the
American society with their knowledge of advanced science and
technology and fostering a profound friendship between the two
peoples. 

In the past three days, my organization has received hundreds of
messages and phone calls from Chinese student nation-wide
expressing their concern over the report. They are worried that
the unrealistic picture painted by the CBS Evening News report
could negatively affect their life in the U.S.. It is my sincere
hope that CBS will take appropriate measures to mend the damages
done and present a balanced, realistic view of Chinese nationals
to the American public.

Thank you for your attention.

Sincerely,

Shi Heping
Vice President, Independent Federation of Chinese Students &
Scholars

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6. The response from CBS Vice President  ................................ 648
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

CBS 
News
A Division of CBS Inc.
524 West 57 Street
New York, NY 10019

Vice President
Hard News and Special Events

June 1, 1994

Dear Mr. Shi:

Your letter to Eric Ober, regarding Connie Chung's report 
about the threat of Chinese government spying on U.S. 
concerns, has come to my desk for a response since I am Vice 
President of Hard News and Special Events.

On May 19th, we reported the Chinese Ministry of State 
Security has recruited hundreds of ordinary Chinese citizens 
to steal U.S. military, technological, trade and computer 
secrets. This, according to the United States Defense 
Information Agency in Washington. Within our report, we also 
presented concrete examples of this having occurred 
(including the arrest of a Chinese restaurant owner in North 
Carolina, charged with trying to buy parts for two jet 
fighter planes.)

Between 1986 and 1993, one in eight of all illegal export 
enforcement cases closed by U.S. Commerce Department 
involved the People's Republic of China. Security experts 
have told CBS News that many of the spy cases uncovered are 
then hushed up and the suspects deported, so the problem may 
be even greater than we reported.

Our report was responsible and important. We stand by it. In 
doing this story, we in no way intended to suggest that the 
recruits represent anything other than a minority of the 
Chinese population in this country and we do not believe 
that we, in any way suggested otherwise.

Furthermore, we have led network coverage of those brave, 
freedom-loving Chinese who have fought government 
repression. We have risked censorship, and worse, to bring 
those stories to the American public. However, our job is to 
bring ALL  stories to the attention of the public, even 
those that may make some viewers uncomfortable, That is the 
very definition of a free press.

If damage IS done because of our reporting on the Chinese 
government's effort to spy on American institutions and 
American business, it is the fault of bigoted viewers who 
draw subjective conclusion from objective reporting. We wish 
we could control that, but we can't.

Sincerely,

Signed

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