In late 1994, Taiwan launched a campaign to get Lee a US visa, this time to attend a reunion at his alma mater, Cornell University. The Clinton administration turned him down. On April 17, Secretary of State Warren Christopher assured Chinese foreign minister Qian Qichen that no visa would be issued. But a democratizing Taiwan had made new allies in Washington. Helped by a $5 million PR campaign, the Senate voted 97–1 to grant Lee a visa on May 3, 1994. The administration was forced to reverse itself, and as David Rothkopf, a former Commerce Department official, later told the Washington Post,
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