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Comment (I could probably be tossed out of the business for telling you this — it violates every journalistic principle in the book — but once, long ago, in the course of my work as a reporter, an international man of mystery pressed upon me a gift of rare jewels, and to my shame, I accepted.
Skip to next paragraph Enlarge This ImageAssociated PressMONSIEUR BUTTERFLY Shi Pei Pu, circa 1965. RelatedShi Pei Pu, Singer, Spy and ‘M. Butterfly,’ Dies at 70 (July 2, 2009)The man’s name was Shi Pei Pu, the Beijing opera singer and spy who died in Paris last week. True, he was not out of the James Bond mold of international men of mystery or even the Austin Powers mold: He was a delicate, theatrical, otherworldly little man who beguiled an employee of the French Embassy in Beijing into espionage during the Cultural Revolution by claiming to be a woman. In the course of their affair, he even produced a child.
I was wor...
