Michael Lee White - Passport Controversy

Passport Controversy

On August 28, 2008, Col. Gen. Anatoliy Nogovitsyn gave a news conference in Moscow where he produced a photocopy of an American passport with the name of Michael Lee White born in 1967 who lived in Texas. Subsequently internet bloggers tried to locate Mr. White. The Wall Street Journal did locate and interview Mr. White in Guangzhou on September 2. Mr. White told the Journal that he was in Texas caring for his ailing father during the period when Russia alleged that he was in Georgia. The Journal says that White showed reporters two U.S. passports in his possession, one issued in 2005 and one issued in 2008. (Although US passports typically have a 10 year validity, no explanation is given in the article as to why he has two in his possession.) The Associated Press interviewed Mr. White the next day, on September 3, and reported that White said he couldn't show his passport to the AP because university officials who are helping him apply for a work permit have the document. The Office of National Intelligence, which oversees all U.S. intelligence agencies, refused to comment on Mr. White, and the Central Intelligence Agency said that Mr. White is not an employee of theirs. Mr. White claims, and the United States Department of State confirms, that he contacted the authorities immediately in 2005 to report the loss of his passport and that the passport was canceled. Mr. White said that he must have left it in a seat pocket on a Moscow to New York flight in October 2005. His current passport shows he left China July 18, 2008 and returned there on August 28. The Wall Street Journal says there is no entry stamp in the passport from U.S. authorities to show that he returned to the U.S. during those 41 days, but that sometimes US authorities do not mark the passports of returning Americans. White also told the Associated Press that he applied for a Russian visa while teaching in Kazakhstan in the summer of 2005.

Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn said that Russian military discovered a passport in a building where Georgian Interior Ministry forces had been fighting. Nagovitsyn said,

What was the gentleman’s purpose of being among the special forces and what he is doing today, I so far cannot answer..there is a building in Zemonekozi - a settlement to the south of Tskhinvali that was fiercely defended by a Georgian special operations squad. Upon clearing the building, Russian peacekeepers recovered, among other documents, an American passport in the name of Michael Lee White of Texas...I do not know why he was there, but it is a fact that he was in the building, among Georgian special forces troops.

On August 31, an Austin Texas newspaper reported that on August 29 the U.S. State Department phoned Austin resident, John White, the younger brother of Michael Lee White, asking where they could contact Michael.

The State Department official said: "It's urgent that we speak with him," according to John White. When asked why, the official said that he could not discuss the matter. John White said his brother is a world traveler who went to China on August 27, 2008, and that he contacted his family Saturday evening by e-mail.

"He appears to be fine. And he's certainly not a thug training Georgian troops," John White said.

The newspaper also reported that it had email conversation on August 30 with Michael Lee White who is apparently in Guangzhou, China lecturing at the Guangdong University of Business Studies. He said that his passport was lost/stolen during a flight from Moscow to New York in 2005 and that he had no idea how the passport ended up in South Ossetia.

Alexei Kondaurov, a KGB veteran and critic of the Kremlin is quoted as saying that 'using a 'found' passport to expose the Americans seems really small-time." He added, "the Soviet Union's secret services never stooped that low."