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Feds: TVA Executive Traded Nuclear Information For Cash In Chinese Espionage Case (knoxnews.com)
mdsolar quotes a report from Knoxville News Sentinel: An East Tennessean who served as a senior manager in the Tennessee Valley Authority's nuclear program swapped information with one of China's top nuclear power companies in exchange for cash, according to federal court records unsealed Thursday. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Knoxville on Thursday announced an espionage conspiracy indictment against China General Nuclear Power, Chinese nuclear engineer Szuhsiung 'Allen' Ho, and Ho's firm, Energy Technology International. Prosecutors said Ho conspired with the companies to lure nuclear experts in the U.S. into providing information to allow China to develop and produce nuclear material based on American technology and under the radar of the U.S. government. Ho was taken into custody in Atlanta on Thursday afternoon and will be returned to U.S. District Court in Knoxville to face the two-count indictment. The indictment consists of one count of conspiracy to illegally engage and participate in the production and development of special nuclear material outside the U.S. and one count of conspiracy to act in the U.S. as an agent of a foreign government.
Which, needless to say, is a strong indication he really was spying for the Chinese.
Not really. The 1950s were a time of totalitarian Maoism, and millions were starving during The Great Leap Forward. He had little choice but to do the bidding of the Chinese government. There was no evidence that he committed any espionage will he was in America, nor was he ever even accused of that. He was just accused of having "communist sympathies". His return to China was controversial at the time, and some high level people thought it was extremely stupid. But McCarthyism was raging in America at the time, and common sense was in short supply.