Kuo Pin was born in 1905 in Longyan, Fujian Province. After graduating from Nanyang Public College in 1924, Kuo joined Sun Yat-sen’s campaign in South China, which advocated annihilating regional warlords and reunifying China, and was enrolled at the Whampoa Military Academy under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek. During the Northern Expedition (1926–28), Kuo participated in multiple battles with regional warlords. In 1933, Kuo chose a different career path, joining the Nationalist Chinese military intelligence under the leadership of Dai Li, Chiang Kai-shek’s spymaster.
During World War II, Kuo was assigned to various ultrasecret operations in Japanese-occupied areas. He was responsible for the withdrawal operations in Hong Kong before this British colony fell to the Japanese. In late 1943, Kuo became one of the very few military intelligence staff to accompany Chiang Kai-shek to Cairo, where the Allied leaders held a summit to discuss the defeat of Japan in the Far East. Toward the end of World War II, Kuo joined the Chongqing-based Sino-American Cooperative Organization, a mutual intelligence-gathering entity funded and operated by the US Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the CIA. After 1949, Kuo relocated to Taiwan, where he continued to be affiliated with the Nationalist Chinese military intelligence. He retired from the military in 1954 and began to engage in veteran affairs. Kuo died in Taipei in 1973.
The manuscript of Kuo Pin provides firsthand information about how the secret service worked under Chiang Kai-shek based on his personal experience. His writings also provide an insider’s view about China’s participation in the 1943 Cairo Conference. It complements Hoover’s existing acquisitions on modern China’s secret intelligence, such as the personal collections of Arthur J. Duff, Oliver J. Caldwell, and Tsai Meng-gian, enriching our understanding of the history of twentieth-century China.
