Michael Lee White
Encyclopedia
Michael Lee White is a Business/English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 teacher and writer residing in China. The Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n government has implied that he may be a covert agent of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 or Military Professional Resources involved in the 2008 South Ossetia war
2008 South Ossetia war
The 2008 South Ossetia War or Russo-Georgian War was an armed conflict in August 2008 between Georgia on one side, and Russia and separatist governments of South Ossetia and Abkhazia on the other....

, a claim that White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

 has repeatedly denied.

Biography before controversy

White was born in 1967, the second son of Philip L. White
Philip L. White
Philip Lloyd "Phil" White was an American history academic and civil community organizer. A tenured professor of early American history at the University of Texas at Austin from the 1960s through 2000, White is acknowledged by many citizens of Austin, Texas, to have been a primary architect of...

, later a Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...

. White served in the United States Army from 1992 to 1997 as a Petroleum Supply Specialist in Fort Campbell
Fort Campbell
Fort Campbell is a United States Army installation located astraddle the Kentucky-Tennessee border between Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and Clarksville, Tennessee...

, Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, and Bosnia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...

. He fueled helicopters, drove fuel trucks, and, according to a resume posted on the internet (which he says he wrote ), he graduated from Air Assault training school
United States Army Air Assault School
The Sabalauski Air Assault School is a FORSCOM TDA unit located at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Its primary task is training leaders and soldiers assigned to the 101st Airborne Division , other US Army units and US armed services in several courses annually.- Background :Air Assault School qualifies...

 in 1993. Although part of the curriculum of this school has included training in the application of infiltration and extraction techniques (such as Special Patrol Insertion Extraction), it is very common for soldiers with non-elite specialties to attend the 10-day course. This is especially true for soldiers stationed at Fort Campbell (the location of the school) and assigned to the 101st Infantry Division (Air Assault)
101st Airborne Division (United States)
The 101st Airborne Division—the "Screaming Eagles"—is a U.S. Army modular light infantry division trained for air assault operations. During World War II, it was renowned for its role in Operation Overlord, the D-Day landings on 6 June 1944, in Normandy, France, Operation Market Garden, the...

, as this entire division is supposed to be able to perform the helicopter air assault operations
Air assault
Air assault is the movement of ground-based military forces by vertical take-off and landing aircraft—such as the helicopter—to seize and hold key terrain which has not been fully secured, and to directly engage enemy forces...

 taught by the school. After two years at Fort Campbell, White was transferred to the 1st Armored Division
1st Armored Division (United States)
The 1st Armored Division—nicknamed "Old Ironsides"—is a standing armored division of the United States Army with base of operations in Fort Bliss, Texas. It was the first armored division of the U.S...

 in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 in 1994, where he continued to work as a fueler. The division was deployed to Operation Joint Endeavor in January, 1996 as part of the multinational effort responsible for carrying out the Dayton Peace Accords
Dayton Agreement
The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as the Dayton Agreement, Dayton Accords, Paris Protocol or Dayton-Paris Agreement, is the peace agreement reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio in November 1995, and formally signed in Paris on...

.

After his single term of enlistment, White earned a degree in Public Management
Public management
Public management is a term that considers that government and non-profit administration resembles private-sector management in some important ways. As such, there are management tools appropriate in public and in private domains, tools that maximize efficiency and effectiveness...

 at Austin Peay State University
Austin Peay State University
Austin Peay State University is a four-year public university located in Clarksville, Tennessee, and operated by the Tennessee Board of Regents. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools .-History:...

 in Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

. He got his first teaching assignment in the Haidian District of Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

 in 1998. It was the first of many education-related travels around the world, including teaching stints in Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

, Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

, and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, in addition to graduate work in Development Studies
Development studies
Development studies is a multidisciplinary branch of social science which addresses issues of concern to developing countries. It has historically placed a particular focus on issues related to social and economic development, and its relevance may therefore extend to communities and regions...

 at the University of Melbourne
University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1853, it is the second oldest university in Australia and the oldest in Victoria...

 in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, and at the University of Essex
University of Essex
The University of Essex is a British campus university whose original and largest campus is near the town of Colchester, England. Established in 1963 and receiving its Royal Charter in 1965...

 in Colchester
Colchester
Colchester is an historic town and the largest settlement within the borough of Colchester in Essex, England.At the time of the census in 2001, it had a population of 104,390. However, the population is rapidly increasing, and has been named as one of Britain's fastest growing towns. As the...

, and Communication, Psychology, and Business at Angelo State University
Angelo State University
Angelo State University is a public, coeducational, doctoral level degree-granting university located in San Angelo, Texas, United States. It was founded in 1928 as San Angelo College. It gained University status and awarded its first baccalaureate degrees in 1967 and graduate degrees in 1969, the...

 in Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

. Mr. White also claims to have visited more than 85 countries, and all major regions of the world, while attending graduate classes or working on four different continents over the past 15 years. The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

reported that he married and later separated from a Kazakh
Kazakhs
The Kazakhs are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia ....

 citizen.

Nationality in World History

White has co-authored with his father a book entitled Nationality in World History; the work discusses the roots of nationalism and includes a chapter titled ["The Evolution of the Russian National Identity"]. According to Mr. White, "Nationality
Nationality
Nationality is membership of a nation or sovereign state, usually determined by their citizenship, but sometimes by ethnicity or place of residence, or based on their sense of national identity....

 has caused major conflicts in world history. Much of what has passed for history through the ages concerns such nationalistic conflicts. Many works of contemporary history (political, constitutional, etc.) have been written in a ‘national’ context. It is not wise to simply hope or assume that a phenomenon that has dominated history so far will now simply fade away in the Information Age. Nationality in World History aims to help others understand the deeper phenomenon of why and how sovereign nations have been formed and maintained, from prehistory to the present day. We believe that understanding nationality in our species is helpful to attaining a peaceful and more civil future."

Passport controversy

On August 28, 2008, Col. Gen. Anatoliy Nogovitsyn
Anatoliy Nogovitsyn
Anatoliy Alekseevich Nogovitsyn is the Deputy Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Colonel General, most known for being the primary spokesman of the Russian Armed Forces during 2008 South Ossetia War and for warning Poland about the possibility of a nuclear strike...

 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
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

. Subsequently internet bloggers tried to locate Mr. White. The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

did locate and interview Mr. White in Guangzhou
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...

 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
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

 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
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

 said that Mr. White is not an employee of theirs. Mr. White claims, and the United States Department of State
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...

 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
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 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
Tskhinvali
Tskhinvali , is the capital of South Ossetia, a disputed region which has been recognised as an independent Republic by Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Nauru, and is regarded by Georgia and the rest of the world as part of the Shida Kartli region within Georgian sovereign territory.It is located...

 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
Alexei Kondaurov
Alexei Kondaurov is a former KGB general, former Head Analyst at Yukos, and current member of Russia's State Duma for the Communist Party. Asked about the fact that he is both a Communist and a millionaire, Kondaurov stated "There's no contradiction. Engels was an oligarch and Lenin hardly a...

, a KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...

 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."

Foreign Media coverage

Mr. White was interviewed by Guangzhou's leading newspaper, Southern Metropolis Daily
Southern Metropolis Daily
Southern Metropolis Daily is a daily Tabloid newspaper published in Guangzhou, sister to the Southern Daily and part of the giant Southern Media Group. It circulation is mainly in the Pearl River Delta area, contains Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macau....

, on September 4
, for whom he provided a computer image of the lost/stolen passport in question, in addition to a family photo of his father's 85 birthday party from July 31 in Austin, Texas
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...

. The English language publication Shenzhen Daily also ran a story the same day. A Russian Newsweek interview with Mr. White from September 8 appears not to support the Russian government's accusation, and other Russian sites have noted the US State Department's confirmation of White's claim that the passport was reported lost/stolen and canceled in October 2005. Russian state television Channel One
Channel One (Russia)
Channel One is the first television channel to broadcast in the Soviet Union. The channel was renamed Ostankino Channel 1 in 1991, after the Soviet Union broke up and the Russian SFSR became the Russian Federation. According to a recent government publication, the Russian government controls 51%...

 (ORT), however, appears to have repeated the government's innuendos against White in a 14 September broadcast. Several weeks later, an October 2008 article in the Chinese weekly magazine Southern Weekly summarized the chronology of events.

External links

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