Note: Particularly revolting among the various types of miscreants who achieve at least temporary celebrity when their misdeeds come to light are those who betray their country. Some traitors who spy for foreign powers rationalize their actions by saying they acted for the greater good, given some of the ill-advised foreign-policy decisions that have been made by our government over the years. Most of these individuals, however, were in it for the money. A few of the people appearing in this section of the blog realized significant amounts of swag for their treachery, but most spies, like so many politicians, can be bought cheaply.
Peking-born Larry Wu-Tai Chin spent more than 40 years in sensitive U.S. government jobs, all the while selling information to China. He is thought to be among the elite group of only five spies who were paid more than $1 million for the intelligence they traded for cash.
It is also thought that Chin was a trained spy for China when he got his first U.S. government job in 1951, translating Korean prisoner of war interviews for the State Department.
In 1952, he went to work in Japan for the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service, and in 1961, he took a new CIA job in California. Chin became a U.S. citizen in 1965.
Having been promoted, he moved to a higher-level job in Arlington, VA. Reportedly, no one in the agency suspected him of being a mole. Chin cultivated a reputation as a successful gambler as cover for his more lavish than normal lifestyle.
He retired in 1981 and was given the CIA's career intelligence medal for distinguished service. Meanwhile, Chin had a wife in Virginia and a mistress in Chicago.
Chin was arrested in 1985 by the FBI and was held without bail as a flight risk. He admitted to spying for China and in 1986 was convicted. Prior to his sentencing, however, he apparently placed a plastic bag over his head and committed suicide in his cell.
No comments:
Post a Comment