Photo Illustration: Chantal Jahchan for Bloomberg; Source: National Security Archive; National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada; Google Earth
The CIA Spy Who Thwarted Taiwan’s Nuclear Plans
Gray Chang was branded a traitor for exposing Taipei’s covert weapons program in the 1980s. Many now view him as a hero.
During the summer months, when the winds of eastern Idaho don’t make them unplayable, Gray Chang likes to head to one of the courses near his home for a round of golf. In his 80s, with a pencil-thin mustache and an impish laugh, he strikes an amicable if unremarkable figure.
Chang has lived largely anonymously since arriving in Idaho Falls in 1990, holding a steady job at the nearby laboratory — the details of which were too technically bewildering for most to probe further. He raised three children, and in retirement tries to squeeze in two golf games a week. The prosaic, utterly suburban existence befits, almost too perfectly, an international spy trying to blend in. And that’s just what Chang was.