Ex-DIA Analyst Admits Passing Secrets To China

**Ryan Ruck** · June 24th, 2006, 20:37

A former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst has pleaded guilty to illegally holding classified documents and admitted in a plea agreement to passing "top secret" information to Chinese intelligence officials.

Ronald N. Montaperto, the former analyst who held a security clearance as a China specialist at a U.S. Pacific Command research center until 2004, pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful retention of national defense information, according to court papers and law officials familiar with the case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"Montaperto admitted to verbally providing [Chinese military] attaches a considerable amount of information that was useful to them, including classified information," according to a statement of facts submitted in the case.

Montaperto told investigators he could not recall specific information he gave Chinese attaches Col. Yang Qiming, Col. Yu Zhenghe and other Chinese officers during his 22-year career in government. But the statement said it included both "secret" and "top secret" data. It also said he had close unauthorized relationships with the two officers.

The guilty plea was part of an agreement reached Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. The conviction can carry fines of up to $250,000 and a prison term of up to 10 years. Sentencing is set for Sept. 8.

A Pentagon official said Montaperto's value to China included both the secrets he shared and his role facilitating Chinese deception of U.S. intelligence by providing feedback on how those efforts were working.

A senior U.S. intelligence official bluntly stated, "He was a spy for China."

During questioning by investigators in Hawaii in 2003, where he was dean of the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, Montaperto said he verbally gave Col. Yang and Col. Yu both "secret" and "top secret" information, the statement said.

"He admitted to passing classified information to military attaches who the FBI determined were Chinese intelligence officials," said a law-enforcement official involved in the case.

Montaperto, 66, joined the DIA in 1981 and eight years later sought a post at the CIA that eventually led to suspicions he was a spy for China. An investigation of his links to Chinese intelligence in 1991 was dropped for lack of evidence.

He had been part of a DIA program involving authorized contacts with Chinese embassy officials. However, the statement said Montaperto failed to report his contacts, as required by security rules.

After leaving DIA, Montaperto continued in government at the National Defense University and then became the dean of the Pacific Command think tank until his dismissal in 2004.

A second investigation that led to his guilty plea was started in August 2001 and led to the discovery of classified documents in his Springfield residence.

Reached by telephone Monday at his home in Morehead City, N.C., before the plea agreement was finalized, Mr. Montaperto declined to comment.

Investigators from the FBI and Naval Criminal Investigative Service started a sting operation in July 2003 that involved asking Montaperto to join a China-related intelligence program that required him to undergo polygraph testing. Under questioning prior to the test, he made the admissions about passing secrets to China, the statement said.

The information supplied to the Chinese included top secret details of the sale of Chinese military equipment and missiles to the Middle East, the statement said.

The plea agreement requires Montaperto undergo debriefings and forbids him any contact with foreign agents. "He's already given a lot of information," one official said.

According to U.S. intelligence officials, Montaperto was among a number of U.S. intelligence officials who came under suspicion of being informants following the defection of a Chinese intelligence official in the late 1980s. The defector revealed that Beijing had successfully developed five to 10 clandestine sources of information here.

Montaperto also was part of an influential group of pro-China academics and officials in the U.S. policy and intelligence community who share similar benign views of China. The group, dubbed the Red Team by critics, harshly criticizes anyone who raises questions about the threat posed by Beijing's communist regime.

**American Patriot** · June 28th, 2006, 16:10

Sons-of-bitches....

He needs a cell next to that asshole Alrich Aimes.

Those bastards almost got me killed once.

**Neue Regel** · June 28th, 2006, 16:30

I'm always left wondering what the motivation was. Money? Sexual liason later used as extortion against him? Highly sought promotion denied so he retaliated? I'd just like to know what was the root cause was. These things typically come from somewhere. Somewhere stupid.

**Sean Osborne** · July 3rd, 2006, 11:47

This penetration is far worse than anyone had previously believed it was. However, the damage done as a result to the US-based Pro-China (i.e.: Leftists, Communists and World Socialists) crowd is now permanent, total, and beyond any pretense of recovery. The People's Pepublic of China is seen as a major enemy of the United States.

Oh, and the last two sentences of this report are gems.

http://www.geostrategy-direct.com/geostrategy-direct/secure/2006/07_05/ba.asp?

DIA analyst's espionage plea deal a major setback for pro-China hands in U.S. government

The guilty plea of a prominent former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst for illegally withholding documents is a major setback for pro-China academics and policy and intelligence analysts in government.

Ronald N. Montaperto, a former chief of intelligence estimates on China at the DIA, was at one time the U.S. government’s most important intelligence analyst on the People’s Liberation Army. He pleaded guilty June 21 to one espionage-related count of unlawful retention of classified information.

Ronald N. Montaperto

As part of the plea deal, Montaperto admitted to passing both secret and top secret information to Chinese intelligence officers during more than 20 years at the DIA, National Defense University and the U.S. Pacific Command’s Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies.

“It is accurate to say that he was one of the most important U.S. government specialists on China and he was helping the Chinese,” said a U.S. government official.

According to a statement of facts made public as part of the plea bargain, Montaperto admitted to passing classified information to two PLA intelligence officers: Yang Qiming and Yu Zenghe. The officers were posted at the Chinese Embassy in Washington.

Montaperto was part of a six-member DIA analyst group that in 1982 began making contacts with Chinese embassy officials. The other five DIA analysts eventually retired or moved to other assignments.
Montaperto, however, developed close ties to the PLA and ended up providing what he claims were verbal classified data, both secret and top secret, to the agents. Numerous classified documents were found in his Springfield, Va. Home.

The investigation of Montaperto was botched twice. The first time came in 1991 when he denied all wrongdoing, despite admissions of passing classified data to China. Then in August 2001 he was investigated a second time. Rather than seeking to use him as a possible double agent or disinformation channel, he again was allowed to get away.
Yu returned to China and, according to U.S. officials, eventually led an ultra-secret unit of the Chinese military intelligence responsible for planting agents inside the U.S. government, specifically the U.S. intelligence community.

Among those linked to Montaperto are former DIA analysts Dennis Blasko and retired Rear Adm. Eric McVadon.

“Montaperto's closest friends and allies all work at CIA DIA, PACOM and the NSC now — his long-term, self described "best friend" — has just been named the "Ombudsman for Analytical Integrity" by DNI Negroponte,” one official said.

[American] Leftist China experts “deeply admire” Montaperto and claim that he was a victim of right wing pressure and did nothing wrong.
Two online China security groups last week claimed Montaperto committed only “technical violations” of the law and was a victim of right-wing political activists.

**falcon** · July 3rd, 2006, 16:35

Now start to think really why Peter Gross left his position.

**Ryan Ruck** · September 25th, 2006, 02:58

Pentagon Analyst Gets Light Jail Term

A former Pentagon analyst who passed highly classified intelligence to two Chinese military officers was sentenced to three months in prison yesterday -- far shy of four to five years called for in sentencing guidelines.

Federal Judge Gerald Bruce Lee said that despite the "very serious charge" against Ronald Montaperto, he was swayed to reduce the sentence based on letters of support from current and former intelligence and military officials.

Montaperto, 67, who pleaded guilty in June to unlawful retention of classified documents he obtained while working at the Defense Intelligence Agency, said he was trying to get intelligence for the United States from the Chinese officials.

"I never meant to hurt my country in any way," Mr. Montaperto said during his hearing at U.S. District Court in Alexandria. He worked at the Pentagon from 1981 until his dismissal in 2003.

Neil Hammerstrom, the assistant U.S. attorney, told the court that Montaperto met 60 times with two Chinese military intelligence officers and provided both secret and top secret information during the meetings.

Mr. Hammerstrom asked for at least a two-year sentence, arguing a tough prison term was needed because Montaperto "repeatedly placed in jeopardy sensitive sources and methods pertaining to our national security."

Montaperto told investigators he could not remember the specifics of the classified information he passed to Chinese intelligence, lapses that prevented prosecutors from charging him with more serious spy charges.

U.S. officials said a major U.S. electronic eavesdropping operation against China went silent around the time Montaperto admitted passing the highly classified data to the Chinese in 1988.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, chairman of the House intelligence committee, said he is concerned by the apparent support for Montaperto from the U.S. intelligence community and promised a committee probe.

"You would think that the intel community would set the standard for holding people accountable for mishandling and passing of classified information to our enemies," Mr. Hoekstra said.

Among the officials who wrote letters of support were Lonnie Henley, currently the deputy national intelligence officer for East Asia in the office of Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte. Mr. Henley said he has been "close friends" with Montaperto since the 1980s.

Another supporter was retired Rear Adm. Eric McVadon, who currently holds a security clearance as a consultant on China to the CIA and Pentagon. Adm. McVadon said he would not second guess the case against his friend but could only "recoil at characterizations of him in the press as a spy."

Judge Lee said he also considered Montaperto's "extraordinary" voluntary confessions in the light sentence, which includes three months of home detention and five years' probation.

However, investigators said Montaperto did not reveal or admit the passing of secrets until fooled into making the admissions in a 2003 sting operation while he worked at the U.S. Pacific Command think tank in Hawaii.

U.S. intelligence officials have said Montaperto was first investigated in the late 1980s after a Chinese defector said Beijing considered him one of their "dear friends," or informal supporters of China.

The light sentence contrasts with the 12-year prison term given in January to another former Pentagon official, Larry Franklin, who was convicted of providing classified information to two officials of the America Israel Public Affairs Committee.

**Ryan Ruck** · January 26th, 2007, 19:14

Analyst Rebuked Over His Support Of Spy For China

A senior U.S. intelligence analyst has been formally criticized for "poor judgment" after writing a letter and e-mails in support of a convicted former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, U.S. intelligence officials said.

Lonnie Henley, the deputy national intelligence officer (NIO) for East Asia, was given a letter of reprimand several months ago after an investigation within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).

Mr. Henley, who could not be reached for comment, was a close friend and protege of former DIA analyst Ronald Montaperto, who was convicted in June on espionage charges that included supplying secrets to Chinese military intelligence. Mr. Henley wrote a letter to the judge supporting Montaperto, and an e-mail that criticized the FBI investigation of the former analyst.

DNI spokesman Carl Kropf declined to comment on the reprimand, noting that it was an administrative matter.

"The issue has been appropriately addressed within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence," Mr. Kropf said.

Montaperto pleaded guilty in June to charges related to illegally storing classified documents. As part of a sting operation that led to his conviction, Montaperto admitted passing "top-secret" and "secret" information to two Chinese military intelligence officers. He was sentenced to three months in prison.

Montaperto's admissions of passing highly classified data to the Chinese coincided with the loss of a major U.S. electronic eavesdropping operation against China in the late 1980s, U.S. officials said.

Mr. Henley is in line for promotion to the top post of NIO for East Asia, but the appointment could be derailed by the reprimand, officials familiar with the internal inquiry said.

Mr. Henley is favored for the job by National Intelligence Council Chairman Thomas Fingar, who officials say shares the views of Mr. Henley and Montaperto on China.

The current NIO for East Asia, James J. Shinn, is set to take a job in the defense secretary's office.

The letter of reprimand was similar to the punishments received in two other cases of bad judgment within the National Intelligence Council, of which NIOs are a part.

Lawrence K. Gershwin, NIO for science and technology, and retired Army Maj. Gen. John R. Landry, NIO for military issues, were reprimanded for their role in the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

The cases are expected to be raised during Senate intelligence committee hearings on the nomination of retired Vice Adm. Mike McConnell to be the next director of national intelligence.

Mr. Henley first got into trouble after writing a private e-mail in June to a closed group of more than 100 China specialists known as "Chinasec" that included several high-ranking CIA and other U.S. intelligence officials and private China affairs specialists.

The two-page e-mail criticized the FBI for investigating Montaperto. Mr. Henley stated that he had spoken with Montaperto and that he regarded his passing of secrets to Chinese intelligence as inadvertent and minor security violations.

Mr. Henley also compared Montaperto in the e-mail to fired FBI Agent James J. Smith, a senior counterintelligence official who was convicted of lying to the FBI as part of the Chinese spying case of Los Angeles businesswoman Katrina Leung.

Montaperto's conviction was a blow to the influential group of China affairs specialists in the U.S. government and private sector who share similar benign views of China. The group has been called the Red Team by critics and are known to harshly criticize or discredit anyone who questions or criticizes China's communist government and its activities.

A rebuke isn't that special...