They may not be as sexy as allegations of oral sex in the Oval Office, but satellite deals are stirring up a storm of scandal in the Clinton White House.
The administration says it did nothing wrong -- or even out of the ordinary -- when it waived sanctions against China and approved the launch this year of a communications satellite made by Loral Space and Communications Ltd.
The fact that Loral's president was the single biggest donor to Democratic candidates in the last election cycle had no bearing on the decision, the White House contends, nor did a US$100,000 campaign donation that reportedly originated with a Chinese general's daughter who used to run a satellite-launching business.
The White House on Thursday unveiled a set of declassified National Security Council memos, which ran from 1993 through 1996, to document its contention that Clinton followed the same standards used by previous presidents in granting the waivers.
Congressional Republicans have started hearings to see whether political considerations affected the administration's judgment, and whether Loral gave away missile guidance secrets to the Chinese after a 1996 satellite launch went awry.
The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Shelby of Alabama, said closed hearings featuring CIA testimony showed China tried to influence the outcome of the 1996 US elections. Whether China succeeded was not clear, Shelby said.
These questions are beside the main point, administration officials say, which is to get more satellites aloft. The Federal Aviation Administration expects to have more than 30 satellite launches this year from the United States, nearly double the 17 that went up in 1997.
But that is a small percentage of world launches, and the need for more satellites is expected to climb exponentially as people depend more on satellites for phone, television, pager, and Internet services.
Dependence on satellite technology came into sharp focus on 19 May when the Galaxy IV orbiter turned away from Earth, silencing pagers, some television feeds, and other devices. Without contingency satellites, the outages would have lasted for days.
The United States makes about two-thirds of the world's commercial satellites, but simply cannot launch them all, says the Satellite Industry Association.
US satellite firms are in sync with the Clinton administration -- and the Bush and Reagan administrations before it -- for encouraging launches of commercial satellites in places with known or suspected nuclear weapons capability. So far, that has included Russia, Ukraine, and China.
One aspect of the US reasoning is basically "idle hands are the devil's workshop": Rocket scientists with time on their hands and no money in their pockets are more likely to sell what they know to hostile parties; those with lucrative satellite-launching contracts are less likely to do so.
But there are other reasons than money for the transfer of technology, and this is certainly true for China, which is known to have transferred missile components to Pakistan, a country with which it has a long-standing defense relationship.
In Senate testimony Thursday, Gordon Oehler, retired director of the CIA's Nonproliferation Center, said China continues to be one of the world's worst offenders in terms of spreading nuclear-weapons technology. Pakistan could not have conducted its recent nuclear tests without nuclear materials and technology given it by China, Oehler testified.
Another witness, Gary Milhollin, director of the University of Wisconsin's Project on Nuclear Arms Control, told the panel, "Whether or not our satellite policy has caused US missile technology to go to China, it has certainly made it easier for Chinese missile technology to go to Pakistan."
This troubles Washington, which is monitoring these transfers to make sure the missile components from China do not end up enhancing Pakistan's nuclear capability. US nervousness was heightened after Pakistan responded to India's recent nuclear tests with some nuclear tests of its own.
Nuclear fear has grown up with the satellite industry, dating back to the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, which the Soviet Union launched in 1957. If our enemies can send a beeping basketball-sized orbiter over our heads, American worriers said then, they might send a nuclear weapon.
The US government has planned a network of domestic spaceports for commercial satellite launches. Three are up and running, two more are on the drawing board.
But for now, the price of American satellite launches is prohibitive. Launching a "bird" on a US-built Delta rocket costs about $5,800 per pound. Do it in China aboard a Long March 3, and the cost is $3,000 per pound. With payloads commonly more than 10,000 pounds, the difference amounts to millions of dollars.
Since 1988, the United States has authorized the launch of US commercial satellites in China, but since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, US satellite-makers have needed a special waiver for Chinese launches.
Loral got such a waiver for its 1996 satellite, which exploded soon after launch at a facility of China Great Wall Industry Corp. Congressional critics contend Loral may have passed along missile-guidance secrets that could be useful both for satellite launch and for a long-range weapon.
The Justice Department is investigating the technology transfer allegations. Meantime, President Clinton is headed for China this month.
