TO FAMILY, CHIN'S CONVICTION 'A HORRIBLE ERROR'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504650016-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: February 27, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504650016-8
WASHINGTON POST
27 February 1986
To Family, Chin's Conviction `a Horrible error'
By Caryle Murphy
Washington Put Staff Wnrrr
Roberta Mauri was surprised when she
heard that form CIA analyst Larry Wu-Tai
Chin had been arrested on espionage charges.
The man described in news reports as an ac-
cysed s and compulsive gambler did not re-
semble the man she and her brothers Homer
i;nd Peter m knew as their tat her.
Yesterday, five days after e committed
suicide in jail, the three talked in detail about
Chin. They described a man who raised them
to be 100 percent American, who was gen-
erous but disciplined and who would never
knowingly have harmed the United States.
"Spying is not the right word," said Mauri.
"To us, he was a goodwill ambassador who
was misunderstood ... and his conviction
was a mistake, a horrible, horrible error."
Chin was awaiting sentencing next month
for his conviction on charges of espionage,
consairacy and tax evasion when he was _
found dead in his jail cell. According to tes-
tinionv at his trial. he sold secret intorniation
t9 Chinese intelligence officials for more than
30 years in exchange for thousands o oars,
which was deposited in Hong Kong bank ac-
counts.
Mauri, a 35-year-old mother of four, and
Peter, 34, and Homer, 30, both physicians,
,,at around a circular, glass-topped dining
room table in the high-rise Alexandria apart-
nient where Chin lived with his wife Cathy,
their stepmother.
Because Chin "can no longer defend him-
self," Mauri said. they wanted to speak out.
All three, now living in California,
were born outside the United
States and were relocated as teen.
agers.
Our father raised us as Amer-
icans. Our relationship with China is
minimal. His views on China were
never discussed with us," said
Mauri.
Chin always spoke to them in
English, said Peter Chin, who is
completing a residency in anethe-
siology. "I still have a hard time
speaking Chinese," he said.
So American was Mauri that her
friends called her "a banana" when
she lived in the 1950s on a U.S.
military base in Okinawa, where her
father worked for the CIA's For.
ei n Broadcast Information rvice.
"That meant was yellow on t e
outside, but white on the inside,"
she said.
When they were children Chin
told them to tell their friends he
worked at the State Department.
They Iearned he was a CIA emnlov
only when h y became adults they
said. "We didn't talk about what he
dic or why he did it," said Peter
Chin.
His children say he never pre-
pared them for his possible arrest,
and they believe he thought he
would never be discovered. The
news of his arrest last November
shocked them, they said. "I felt that
maybe there was some mistake,"
Peter Chin said, "and the CIA would
step in and say he did this because
we told him to."
But Chin's explanation that he
had passed classified information-
not military secrets-to the Chin-
ese as part of a personal "mission"
to reconcile the United States and
China made sense to them, they
said.
"My dad felt he did not hurt the
United States at all," said Peter
Chin. "I think he felt that things he
had done were not that severe. He
didn't think the documents were
that crucial. When he was arrested,
he called my stepmother and told
her, 'I will be home tomorrow.'
"He felt he had done nothing se-
riously wrong .... He didn't pass
any secret codes like the Walkers,"
he said, a reference to John, Mi-
chael and Arthur Walker, who were
convicted last year of espionage.
Chin testified that he had only
chosen information that cast the
United States in a favorable light.
"There is no hard evidence that
he harmed the United States," said
Homer Chin, a graduate of Dart-
mouth Medical School who is doing
research in medical computer sci-
ence at Stanford University.
"To us, his crime was so minor
and his goal was so great," said
Mauri.
"When you say he had a secret
life." said Mauri, "it was just a facet
of his life. I'm sure when you look at
his life as a whole, it was a minus-
cule part."
The money he received from
passing classified information to the
Chinese, more than $180,000 ac-
cording to trial testimony, was in-
cidental to Chin, his children said.
Maori also denied that her fathe-
was a compulsive gambler, saying
that he approached it like a busi-
ness, writing down in a small book
his losses and gains as well as the
time he spent at each table in the
casino.
"lie was completely in control of
his gambling .... There's nothing
compulsive about my dad. He had
the strongest self-control of anyone
I know."
Homer Chin also disputed pub-
lished reports that his father's rent-
al properties were worth $700,000.
Most are mortgaged, he said, leav-
ing a final equity of only about
$100,000.
The Chin children, who took
their father's body to California yes-
terday for burial, said they still are
confused about the circumstances
surrounding his death. Chin was
found in his cell last Friday with a
plastic bag tied around his head
with shoelaces. His death was ruled
a suicide.
The Chin children cannot under-
stand why Chin, who wrote almost
obsessively in his diaries about his
activities, did not leave a note ex-
plaining his suicide.
His last letter to his wife, written
the day before he died, described
efforts he was setting in motion to
ask the Chinese government to
come to his assistance. He de-
scribed himself as "in a good frame
of mind," said Peter Chin.
"I've never known him to be de-
pressed," said Mauri. "Homer and I
said Dad will be all right in jail be-
cause he's such an adaptable per-
son. lie was always looking to have
extra time to write his memoirs."
"To leave those unfinished was
out of character," added Peter Chin.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504650016-8