Spies, you see, find it non-productive to probe for secrets on the first date. "Enough about me, what about your cold fusion design" rarely works.

Media spin leads to the neatly packaged conclusions that this is some bold new policy, and that the Chinese really stole all those atomic weapons secrets from Los Alamos Labs employees during repeated covert sexual encounters. Both are a stretch.

First, a new policy this is not. A disclosure of personal relationship requirement has been standard practice in the FBI, CIA, Department of Defense, National Security Agency -- and -- the Department of Energy for years. According to a former worker at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1997, employees were well aware of this policy even then.

Second, trading sex for secrets may have been the very first ploy in the history of spying. Could the United States Department of Energy, smashers of the atom and masters of the Manhattan Project, really have just figured it out? "Wow! They might really trick us with that one. We'd better get a new policy out, pronto!"

To this day, the Chinese government denies "stealing" any sensitive information from Energy Department sources. Little doubt remains they did "acquire" some. But exactly from where and how remain uncertain. They have always claimed they simply located the information on Energy computer systems in public or otherwise non-secured locations.