Guilty Plea in Classified-Document Case

While a High-Ranking State Dept. Official, Fairfax Man Also Concealed Taiwan Trip

A former high-ranking State Department official, a leading expert on China, pleaded guilty yesterday to illegally keeping numerous classified documents in his Fairfax County home and admitted that he concealed his relationship with a Taiwanese intelligence agent.

Donald W. Keyser, 62, removed the documents from the State Department over 12 years, beginning in 1992, according to court papers filed with his plea in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. In all, the former principal deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs had more than 3,600 documents in his home, some of them highly classified, prosecutors said.

Keyser, who had advised Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on issues concerning China, also acknowledged having a "personal relationship" with the Taiwanese agent, Isabelle Cheng, and meeting her on a trip to Taiwan in 2003. He pleaded guilty to concealing the trip -- made when he was in Japan and China on State Department business -- from his supervisors.

Keyser pleaded guilty to unlawfully removing classified documents and two counts of making false statements. He faces up to 13 years in prison when he is sentenced Feb. 24. Attorneys for Keyser did not return telephone calls.

The guilty plea adds to the mystery surrounding the downfall of Keyser, a Foreign Service officer for three decades whose arrest last year stunned people in diplomatic circles. According to the charges filed against him in September 2004, he passed documents to Taiwanese agents at a series of covert meetings in the Washington area.

But court papers filed yesterday did not mention passing any documents, and law enforcement and diplomatic sources said the case did not involve espionage, but rather a government employee who became careless. They characterized the investigation as uncovering potential, more than actual, harm to U.S. national security.

Keyser was not authorized to store classified documents at his residence and was obligated under federal law to disclose foreign travel on State Department forms. He falsely told State Department investigators that he had not "engaged in conduct which may make him vulnerable to coercion, exploitation or pressure from a foreign government," court papers said.

Janelle Hironimus, a State Department spokeswoman, said that Keyser retired from the department Sept. 30, 2004, but would not comment on his guilty plea.

Albert Liu, a spokesman for the D.C.-based Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, said that Cheng and others involved in the case had been recalled to Taipei. He would not comment further.

The office represents Taiwan's government in the United States, as the countries do not have full diplomatic relations. The United States has a long-standing "one China" policy, under which it maintains diplomatic relations only with China. China and Taiwan are adversaries, with China insisting that Taiwan reunite with the mainland.

Keyser, a fluent Mandarin speaker who is also knowledgeable about the former Soviet Union, was elevated last year to the principal deputy assistant secretary post, which made him the No. 2 person in the State Department's East Asia bureau. He has served in high-ranking positions in the U.S. embassies in Beijing and Tokyo and was deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs when he made the trip to Taiwan in 2003.

Court documents said Keyser's supervisor told the FBI that Keyser was not permitted to travel to Taiwan on official business and that he would have vetoed the trip.

Staff writers Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler contributed to this report.