Thursday May 20 11:21 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AP) - Highly classified U.S. documents in a new book divulge a wealth of secrets, including that North Korea's leader crushed a 1995 coup attempt and President Clinton assured Boris Yeltsin that U.S. policy would have a "positive impact'' on the Russian leader's re-election.
The documents also detail how Navy intelligence used the cover of a Coast Guard ship inspection to search for laser weapons aboard a Russian ship. None were found.
Though the government is prone to leaks, the unauthorized publication of classified documents that in most cases are just a year or two old is rare. It has touched off widespread concern in the intelligence community.
"This is the kind of material that people file lawsuits to obtain after it's 30 years old,'' said Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, a Washington group that follows intelligence issues.
"These documents carry some of the highest classifications in the U.S. government and it's absolutely astonishing that they would be published in this way,'' Aftergood said.
"Betrayal'' by Bill Gertz, a reporter for The Washington Times, presents a critical account of Clinton administration security policy that tracks closely to stories Gertz has written over the last several years. The original articles, however, did not include reprints of the classified documents.
U.S. officials interviewed Thursday confirmed the authenticity of the documents and voiced concern.
One senior administration official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the White House didn't consider any of the published information embarrassing but was concerned about risk to intelligence sources and methods.
For several years, the FBI has been trying to identify Gertz's sources, U.S. officials said. CIA Director George Tenet has complained about a "hemorrhaging'' of classified information. Tenet has not blamed the news media, focusing instead on "people who believe they derive some power from leaking classified information.''
Gertz, in a telephone interview, declined to discuss his sources.
But his book states the Clinton administration carried out a policy of appeasement of real or potential U.S. enemies that "so angered some intelligence, defense and foreign policy officials that they responded in the only way they knew how: by disclosing to the press some of the nation's most secret intelligence.''
Gertz wrote that his sources were "unsung heroes'' who "jeopardized their careers to expose wrongdoing.''
The book's appendix reprints all or part of 23 documents from the Clinton administration - some as recent as last year - ranging in classification from confidential to top secret. Several are marked "umbra'' or "gamma,'' code words for information derived from electronic intercepts.
A 1996 U.S. intelligence report disclosed that the North Korean government had detailed three cases of cannibalism stemming from famine. It was classified at the "code word'' level, among the highest levels of classification.
A secret dispatch written last August by Larry Robinson, a State Department official in Seoul, raised questions about leader Kim Jong-Il's hold on power.
"There is extensive evidence of a major coup attempt by elements of the VI Corps in 1995, which appears to have been crushed only with some difficulty,'' the dispatch said.
A March 1996 State Department memorandum, marked "confidential,'' summarized Clinton's meeting with Yeltsin at a terrorism summit in Egypt. Clinton told Yeltsin he "wanted to make sure that everything the United States did would have a positive impact and nothing should have a negative impact'' on Yeltsin's upcoming re-election, the memo said. The memo added that the United States wanted an upcoming summit with the Russian leader to be successful to "reinforce everything that Yeltsin had done.''
An April 1997 Pentagon report described how the Navy inserted an intelligence team into a Coast Guard inspection crew that searched, unsuccessfully, for evidence of the laser weapon aboard a Russian merchant ship. The memo alleged the ship was involved in spying on U.S. submarines and appeared to direct a "laser emanation'' at a helicopter carrying a Navy officer. No weapon was found.
And a 1997 CIA report, based in part on electronic intercepts and spy satellite imagery, indicated Russia was building a bunker and subway line for use in evacuating leaders in a military emergency.
Not all of the documents' messages were serious. The March 1996 memo detailed an offer Yeltsin made in jest after Clinton handed him a document translated only in English.
"Foreign Minister (Yevgeny) Primakov said that he could read it, and Yeltsin joked that since Primakov knew English, Secretary (of State Warren) Christopher should now learn Russian,'' the memo related. "The Russians would be glad to provide the secretary with a young attractive instructress who would work with the secretary night and day." Clinton joked that would change Christopher's droll image, the memo said.