Larry Wu-tai Chin
Larry Wu-tai Chin (simplified Chinese: 金无怠; traditional Chinese: 金無怠; pinyin: Jīn Wúdài; August 17, 1922 – February 21, 1986) was a Chinese Communist spy who worked for the United States Government for 37 years (1944–1981), including positions at the U.S. Army and the CIA, while secretly being a mole for the Chinese Communist Party's intelligence apparatus from the very beginning. He kept passing classified documents and secret information to the People's Republic of China even after his retirement, until he was finally exposed in 1985.
Larry Wu-tai Chin | |
|---|---|
| Born | Chin Wu-tai August 17, 1922 Peking, Republic of China |
| Died | February 21, 1986 (aged 63) Manassas, Virginia, United States |
| Cause of death | Suicide |
| Burial place | Alta Mesa Memorial Park, Palo Alto, California, US |
| Alma mater | Yenching University |
| Spouse | Cathy Chin |
| Children | 3 |
| Espionage activity | |
| Allegiance | China |
| Agency | SAD CIA (as a mole) |
| Service years | 1944-1985 |
Chin was one of China's most valuable foreign intelligence agents of the entire Cold War period; he supplied the PRC with top-secret information on American foreign policy initiatives relating to China, as well as biographical profiles of CIA agents. In 1970, he passed CIA documents to Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai regarding President Richard Nixon's desire to open relations with the PRC; Mao therefore knew about Nixon's intentions well in advance of his diplomatic overtures, which allowed him to alter his policy (such as the volume of anti-American rhetoric in the state-controlled Chinese press) in order to extract the maximum political concessions from the Americans. Chin was a naturalized U.S. citizen.