Wen Ho Lee
Taiwanese-American nuclear physicist
Wen Ho Lee (Chinese: 李文和; pinyin: Lǐ Wénhé; born December 21, 1939) is a Taiwanese-American nuclear scientist and mechanical engineer who worked for the University of California at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. He created computerized simulations of nuclear explosions for the purposes of scientific inquiry, as well as for improving the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
A federal grand jury indicted him on charges of stealing secrets about the U.S. nuclear arsenal for the People's Republic of China (PRC) in December 1999. After federal investigators were unable to prove these initial accusations, the government conducted a separate investigation. Ultimately it charged Lee only with improper handling of restricted data, one of the original 59 indictment counts, a felony count. He pleaded guilty as part of a plea settlement.
Lee filed a civil suit that was settled. In June 2006, he received $1.6 million from the federal government and five media organizations as part of a settlement for leaking his name to the press before any charges had been filed against him.
Federal judge James A. Parker eventually apologized to Lee for denying him bail and putting him in solitary confinement. He excoriated the government for misconduct and misrepresentations to the court.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Wen Ho Lee” is taiwanese-American nuclear physicist. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Taiwanese-American, nuclear and physicist, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “taiwanese-American nuclear physicist” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8982093. VIAF identifies the subject as 136149294310780521761. The Library of Congress control number is no2001058148. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1939, 1999 and 2006.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Wen Ho Lee”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Wen Ho Lee primary sources, Wen Ho Lee archive and Taiwanese-American research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Wen Ho Lee”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Wen Ho Lee” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.