William Helms: “I am appalled at the legal gymnastics in which the administration has engaged for the purpose of avoiding sanctions…”

“I am appalled at the legal gymnastics in which the administration has engaged for the purpose of avoiding sanctions against Communist China. This, mind you, Mr. President, was after Beijing had supplied critical dual use technology to another nation's nuclear weapons program. At a minimum, the administration's refusal--on May 10, 1996-- to determine that sanctionable activity occurred under section 2(b)(4) of the Export-Import Bank Act of 1945 undermined the credibility of the United States' effort to discourage trafficking in nuclear weapons technology. This administration traded away our vital national security concerns in exchange for a denial by the Beijing government that it knew that Government-owned entities were in fact selling highly specialized ring-magnets to other countries, and China's promise not to do it again--and we all know what that promise is worth. In any event, that is all it took for China's nuclear traffickers to make a complete mockery of United States sanctions legislation.”