American Notes Espionage

His meek appearance masked the fact that Larry Wu-Tai Chin was a master of deception. For nearly 30 years, Chin, 63, a naturalized American citizen who had been born in Peking, lived a double life. While working as a highly valued translator and analyst for the CIA, he also passed classified documents to the People's Republic of China. His duplicity earned him at least $300,000, and though he gambled much of it away, he had parlayed his take into real estate and other investments worth $700,000. Throughout his four-day trial, Chin insisted that he had only intended to improve relations between his homeland and his adopted country. Nevertheless, he became the first American to be convicted of spying for China, and faced life in prison.

When the jury found him guilty, Chin showed no emotion. But that too, it seems, was just another ruse. Last week in a Virginia county jail, where he was being held pending a March 17 sentencing, Larry Chin committed suicide. Police say Chin appeared fine when guards brought breakfast to his cell. But later in the morning, they found the inmate lying unconscious with a plastic bag wrapped around his head. Efforts to revive him failed.