PROFESSOR ALLEGEDLY BOUGHT COMPUTER PARTS FOR VIETNAM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000201300005-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 6, 2010
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: December 17, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201300005-2
UNITED PRESS 1NTEKNATiU1NAL
17 December 1984
PROFESSOR ALLEGEDLY BOUGHT COMPUTER PARTS FOR VIETNAM STAT
FULLERTON, CA
A physics professor whose friends call him a ''peacemaker'' and claim he was
murdered by a right-wing Vietnamese death squad bought computer parts for
Communist Vietnam and financed foreign travel for a convicted atomic-secrets
spy, the Orange County Register reported.
Edward Lee Cooperman, 48, was shot to death Oct. 13 in his office at
California State University, Fullerton.
Minh Van Lam, 20, a Vietnamese refugee and friend of Cooperman's, awaits
trial in the killing. His lawyer, Alan May, denies any political undertones.
But Cooperman's activities as an anti-war activist and scientist interested
in the rebuilding of Vietnam often carried him far from home and the campus
where he was known for befriending Asian students.
Cooperman was under investigation by the U.S. Commerce Department's Office of
Export Enforcement for shipping scientific equipment and computer components to
Vietnam, the Register said Sunday.
The CIA, FBI and Customs Service were also looking into his trips and the
equipment he shipped to Southeast Asia, the newspaper said.
Cooperman's records showed he funneled money through UNESCO, a United Nations
subsidiary criticized as a front for Soviet espionage by Sen. Daniel Moynihan,
D-New York, and the Foundation for Scientific Cooperation with Vietnam, a
non-profit venture Cooperman ran from his campus office.
In the past three years, Cooperman received at least $575,000 from UNESCO and
wrote checks for almost $1.5 million through the foundation to himself,
political associates, colleagues, friends and suppliers of scientific and
medical equipment, the Register said.
Among the payments made -- mainly for equipment for scientific projects in
Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam and to pay Vietnamese to travel to the United States
and Soviet Union -- were more.than $15,000 in checks to Morton Sobell.
Sobell was convicted in 1951 and imprisoned 18 years for conspiracy to commit
espionage with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed for their roles in
supplying the secret of the atomic bomb to the Soviets.
Close friends like former. Pentagon Papers defendant Anthony Russo recently
formed an international committee to focus attention on Cooperman's death, which
local police have said was not politically motivated.
Russo and others hope to prove Cooperman was killed by a right-wing
Vietnamese death squad.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201300005-2