Any suggestion that the Iranians would thereby be getting US, as opposed to Russian, technology should have alarmed them greatly. After all, it had to have been suspicious enough to Iran that a Russian who had moved to the US was seeking to deal blueprints (it’s unclear whether the blueprints were ultimately in English or Russian). Merlin’s suggestion - that he, a CIA asset, entice Iran to accept his Russian blueprint by pointing out that China had allegedly jump-started its own nuclear weapon program by stealing blueprints from the US - reveals just how unclear on the concept of the operation Merlin was. Which is strong evidence that Merlin was reading Risen as far back as 1999.

Those stories were written by James Risen. (Remember, too, that Merlin lived in the NY area, so if he read this in the dead tree version - as most people still read newspapers in 1999 - he most likely read it in the NYT.) Merlin has to be referring to the stories about Wen Ho Lee which started appearing on page one of the NYT starting on March 6, 1999. lauded for his thinking but said some thought would need to be given to such a proposition prior to implementing it. ’s reasoning was that others now see that it is possible to obtain nuclear secrets which can advance their programs, and that the project can build upon that supposition to entice the Iranians. then suggested that in some of his future messages, he may make mention of the recent revelation that another country had secured nuclear secrets from the U.S.

So he made an utterly bizarre suggestion. ( Exhibit 22) Merlin seemed to be getting impatient - and perhaps a little insulted - that the Iranians he was approaching weren’t showing more interest in his 20 year experience as a Russian nuclear engineer. On March 16, 1999, Jeffrey Sterling met with Merlin, the Russian scientist Sterling was trying to get to establish ties with Iran so he could hand off a nuclear blueprint.

Merlin project donald trump