Larry Wu-Tai Chin
| Larry Wu-tai Chin | |
|---|---|
| Allegiance |
 People's Republic of China
|
|
|
|
| Birth name | Wu-tai Chin |
| Born | 1922 Peking, Republic of China |
| Died | February 21, 1986 (aged 63–64) Manassas, Virginia, United States |
| Cause of death |
Suicide |
| Buried | Alta Mesa Cemetery, Palo Alto, California, United States |
| Nationality |
 United States
|
| Spouse | Cathy Chin |
| Children | 3 |
| Alma mater | Yenching University |
Larry Wu-tai Chin (simplified Chinese: 金无怠; traditional Chinese: 金無怠; pinyin: Jīn Wúdài; 1922 – February 22, 1986) was a Chinese language translator working for the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service. He sold classified documents to the People's Republic of China from 1952 to 1985.
Chin served as a Chinese translator in the US Army during the Korean War, at which time he is believed to have first come into contact with Chinese intelligence. He may have supplied the Chinese with information about prisoners of war captured by American, South Korean, and allied forces. He misrepresented the intelligence that he was translating from captured Chinese soldiers resulting in the loss of US forces and missed tactical opportunities. Many of these Chinese soldiers intended to defect to South Korea. He also provided the Chinese with the names of captured Chinese soldiers who were revealing information or intended to defect. The Chinese then specifically requested these soldiers by name to be released back to China before the armistice negotiations could take place. This delayed the negotiations process for over a year, resulting in countless lost lives.
Following his military enlistment, Chin applied to and was accepted by the CIA, where he continued his espionage for China. According to No Kum-Sok, the North Korean pilot who defected with a MiG-15, Larry Chin was one of his CIA handlers after his defection. During his long term as a spy, Chin is now regarded as having been lavishly compensated for his services. His skill at laundering those espionage profits is reputed to be without peer. Chin purchased apartments and tenements in the low-income section of Baltimore, Maryland and made huge gains as a slumlord. Chin also cultivated the persona of a womanizer with a gambling addiction. It was later believed that while Chin did indeed show signs of compulsive gambling, that he did not so much apply his espionage profits towards financing gambling junkets; rather he used the cultivated persona of a high roller to help cover up his unexplained affluence from espionage as gambling winnings. Some CIA coworkers noted suspicious behavior concerns Chin's lifestyle did not match up with what a CIA salary could afford, but this was dismissed largely by friends and coworkers who gambled with Chin and would occasionally see him indeed win at gambling. Not once during Chin's tenure in the Army or CIA was he suspected of espionage or placed under investigation. In fact, in 1980 Chin was awarded a medal from the CIA for his long and distinguished service.
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