Philip Jones; CIA Analyst Was a Specialist on China

Philip J. Jones, a retired CIA research analyst who died May 3 at 82, always wanted to be "where the action is," a son said. That's exactly where he was as a 17-year-old in 1942, riding in a Dodge pickup down from the foothills of Tibet toward the Chinese city of Chengtu. The other passenger, confined to a bamboo cage in the truck bed, was a giant panda cub, a gift from Chinese military leader Chiang Kai-shek to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

As it turned out, no one mentioned to young Mr. Jones and the driver, his Methodist missionary father, that pandas eat bamboo, exclusively. After chewing through its confinement, the restless cub made the remainder of the trip on the teenager's lap.

"Baby pandas may look cute and cuddly," he told family members in later years, "but let me tell you, they have claws."

Mr. Jones, a longtime Bethesda resident who died of complications from Parkinson's disease at Hillhaven Nursing Home in Adelphi, was born in Kuliang, Fujian Province, China, where his parents were missionaries.

A year before his panda adventure, he had learned to drive while accompanying his father as he hauled wartime supplies along the treacherous Burma Road to a seminary in western China. Skirting sheer cliffs at night, hoping to elude Japanese Zeros that strafed traffic during the day, they encountered bombed-out bridges over rain-swollen rivers and entrusted their truck -- and their lives -- to makeshift pontoon boats floating on oil barrels.

The rookie driver blew out the Dodge's differential on the trip; he and his father spent a month in a Chinese village waiting for a replacement part from Detroit.

Fluent in Chinese, Mr. Jones served in China during World War II with the Office of Strategic Services (forerunner to the CIA). After the war, he enrolled at Northwestern University, intending to major in music. When his older brother persuaded him he'd never make a living as a pianist and harpsichordist, he switched to economics, graduating in 1948. He joined the CIA the next year.

He was stationed in Taiwan from 1956 to 1969, a time of great tension and threats of war between Communist China and Nationalist China. His wife, who worked undercover for the National Security Agency, told her sons many years later that one of Mr. Jones's proudest accomplishments during his CIA career involved gathering intelligence that helped prevent war from breaking out over Quemoy and Matsu, two islands in the Taiwan Strait that were flash points throughout the 1950s.

Earlier in the decade, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff had recommended using nuclear weapons if China continued to lay claim to the islands. Mr. Jones uncovered information showing that Quemoy, Matsu and other disputed islands were not in imminent danger from China, family members said.

He transferred from the CIA's China Division in 1969 and volunteered for duty in Saigon, where he served for two years. Despite his penchant for being at the heart of the action, he said in later years that he regretted the move. The brutality of the war effort troubled him, he told family members.

He retired from the CIA in 1974.

A gifted pianist, Mr. Jones helped introduce Western chamber music to Taiwan audiences in the 1950s. He might have been a spy by trade, but as a lifelong music lover, he toured the country with a piano quartet and made early radio broadcasts of live chamber music.

He was the piano accompanist for the choir at River Road Unitarian Church in Bethesda. He also built harpsichords. A member of the Hong Kong-Taiwan Marching and Chowder Society and the Friday Morning Music Club, he enjoyed arranging backyard music recitals that included his son on viola and himself at the homemade harpsichord.

A treasurer of the Sycamore Island Canoe Club, he was one of several CIA employees who occasionally commuted to work via canoe.

His wife, Virginia Logan Jones, died in 2004.

Survivors include four children, Peter Jones of Takoma Park, Steve Jones of Kensington, Emily Jones of Madison, Wis., and Jono Jones of San Francisco; a sister; a brother; and four grandchildren.