CIA Aide Called a ‘Living Lie’ for 30 Years

A retired Central Intelligence Agency employee supplied China with classified documents so voluminous that it took translators in Peking two months to process each surreptitious shipment, an FBI agent testified Wednesday.

Larry Wu-tai Chin, accused of selling U.S. secrets for more than three decades, was “treated royally” by high-ranking Chinese officials who feted him at a lavish banquet when he traveled to Peking in 1982, agent Mark Johnson said at a hearing before U.S. Magistrate W. Curtis Sewell.

After the FBI agent testified that Chin had at least three Hong Kong bank accounts, including one containing $98,000 in 1983, and had once contemplated fleeing to China with his mistress, the magistrate ordered Chin held without bail because he poses a “serious risk of flight.”

The 63-year-old Chin, one of four recently arrested spy suspects who were being held without bail Wednesday, was apprehended last Friday and indicted by a grand jury Tuesday on a charge of conspiring to commit espionage beginning in 1952, when the government charges he sold information on the location of Chinese prisoners during the Korean War.

His spying continued after he retired from the CIA’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service in 1981, Assistant U.S. Atty. Joseph Aronica told Sewell.

‘Heart and Mind in China’

“This man has lived a lie for 30 years,” the prosecutor said. “The man’s heart and mind have been in China.”

Johnson, one of three FBI agents who questioned Chin before his arrest, said the suspect took classified documents from the CIA’s offices and photographed them, delivering the film on at least four occasions to a Chinese contact in Toronto. The documents, which were not described in detail at the two-hour hearing, were “so voluminous” that “it took two months per shipment” for them to be translated for delivery to the Chinese Politburo’s central committee, Johnson testified.

The agent said that Chin traveled to Peking in 1982 and was the guest of honor at a banquet attended by the Chinese security minister and other high-ranking officials. Those officials also arranged for Chin to meet with his brother and sister who still live in China, Johnson said. “He was treated royally while he was there,” the agent said.

‘Gold Bullion’ Account

While Chin acknowledged having one Hong Kong bank account, Johnson said, the FBI investigation disclosed that he also had two other accounts, one a “gold bullion” account and the other an account that contained more than $98,000 in 1983.

The agent testified that Chin and his wife, who was in the courtroom, had “a rather stormy relationship” and that Chin had been arrested several years ago on a charge of assaulting her, a complaint later dismissed. Chin has a mistress who lives in Chicago, Johnson said, and about a year ago “discussed with his mistress the possibility of the two of them pulling up stakes here and moving to China.”

Defense attorney Peter Meyers argued that Chin should be released on bail because he poses no threat to his community, has strong family ties in this country and is in such frail health that he suffered a diabetic seizure in jail this week. He said Chin and his wife had reconciled and would offer as security “a number of condominiums” they own.

Meyers also contended that Chin’s CIA job did not involve highly sensitive documents. He mainly translated Chinese broadcasts and newspaper articles, the attorney said, adding that the CIA asked him five months ago to come out of retirement and work again for the agency.

In Peking’s first response to the Chin case, a foreign ministry spokesman denied Wednesday that the Chinese government had any involvement. “We have nothing to do with this man, and the accusation made by the U.S. side is groundless,” the spokesman, Li Zhaoxing, told reporters.