Life of a Double Agent

About the Book

Jim Hunt grew up in a small town near Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. He was always tall for his age. He played basketball and baseball in high school, and was a good student. He entered the University of Delaware and studied Chemical Engineering. During his junior year in college, the CIA recruited him to monitor the radical groups on campus that were a growing concern in the U.S. government during the 1960s.

After graduation from college, Jim entered the U.S. Army as a 2nd Lieutenant and attended officer’s training in the Chemical Corps. He was assigned to Ft. Lewis, Washington and was immediately transferred to the Corps of Engineers, which was staffing several units for deployment to Vietnam. While at Ft. Lewis, Jim was recruited by a Chinese intelligence agency, with the full knowledge and support of the CIA. Thus began his life as a double agent.

In Vietnam, Jim Hunt uncovered an operation by the North Vietnamese to assassinate Bob Hope, and participated in the take down of the assassin.

After the Army, Jim joined The Dow Chemical Company, but maintained his relationships with the Chinese intelligence agency and the CIA. He helped uncover a network of Chinese spies, working out of the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. that were receiving information from dozens of U.S. contacts in industry and academia.

His career at Dow Chemical eventually took him to Hong Kong where he and his family lived for almost a decade.

He became involved in an operation where the Chinese were buying top-secret computer software from a senior official at the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).

While in Hong Kong, he recruited his Chinese handler with the Ministry of State Security (MSS) to work for the CIA.

After a successful career with Dow Chemical, he retired and joined a smaller company in San Diego named Renewable Power Company. They were involved in the alternative energy business and were actively developing power plant projects in several Asian countries.

While working on a project in the Philippines, two of Renewable Power’s employees were kidnapped on the island of Mindanao by the MILF, a Muslim terrorist group. Jim Hunt had to use all his skill and resources to gain the freedom of his fellow employees.

His final operation before retiring was to recruit a senior official of China’s MSS to work for the CIA.

After retirement from the CIA, the Chinese MSS, and Renewable Power Company, Jim Hunt and his wife moved to Hilton Head Island, SC for a restful retirement. Jim missed the action and decided to join the Peace Corps. He was assigned to Russia, and after a ten-week training program in Moscow, moved to Krasnoyarsk, Russia for a two-year assignment teaching business courses at a university in the middle of Siberia. When the CIA learned of his assignment, they brought him back for one more mission, to penetrate the Russian secret city, K-26, located several miles outside Krasnoyarsk, where the Russians operated nuclear reactors to produce weapons grade plutonium.

About the Author

Mr. Kerr is retired after a successful business career, which included extensive international travel, and living overseas in Hong Kong and Japan for almost a decade. He now lives on Hilton Head Island, SC with his wife, Kryl, and their yellow lab, Etta. They spend the summers at their cottage on Lake Charlevoix, Michigan. Their daughter, Kathryn, lives and works in Washington D.C.