The chap in question may be considered to be a bit suss; he did after all choose to go by two different names depending on what he was doing at the time, and many people who met him in one incarnation were not aware of his other activities.

His service in academia, the military and public service was lived out under his birth name Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger. As Linebarger he spent extended periods in Canberra in the late 1950s and early 1960s as a visiting professor at the Australian National University.

When he was penning some of the greatest science fiction stories ever written, many of which had the misfortune to first see print in ''pulp'' magazines featuring lurid and occasionally risque cover art, he went by the moniker of ''Cordwainer Smith''.

Those stories, for the record, include the 1960 novel Norstrilia, which is a quietly ironic tribute to Australia's postwar prosperity and character, and Quest Of The Three Worlds, one of the most poetic and imaginative works of science fiction ever produced. Both books feature an easy familiarity with the Australian vernacular of the time, including ''cobber'' and ''missus''. The planet Norstrilia, a contraction of Old North Australia, has New Canberra as its capital and ''Her-majesty-the-queen'', who has been missing in action for the past 15,000 years, as its head of state.

Linebarger led a remarkable life from the get-go. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he had moved to Shanghai by his sixth birthday and spent his childhood moving between China, America, France and Germany. By the time he started at Johns Hopkins University he was fluent in six languages.

A polymath, Linebarger achieved success in fields ranging from academia and military intelligence to applied psychology and speculative fiction.

His efforts in the latter sphere, which drew heavily on a remarkable knowledge of oriental literature, have been compared with the creative genius of Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Mervyn Peake.

If you ask a military person, however, they will say Linebarger's greatest achievement was as the author of the 1950s classic Psychological Warfare which is still in print. That work was based on his experiences during World War II when he apparently moved between Australia and China (spending much more time in China than here) assisting Chiang Kai-shek and co-ordinating military intelligence for the Chinese Nationalists.

A historian or student of Asian studies would point to his account of the rise of the Chinese Republic, contained in The Political Doctrines of Sun Yat-sen, Government in Republican China and The China of Chiang Kai-shek as signal achievements.

These books highlight the fact that Linebarger's links with China and the revolution of 1911, which survives today on Taiwan, ran deep.

His father, a retired judge, helped finance the early leadership, winning the deep friendship of Sun Yat-sen who became the infant Paul Myron's godfather.

It was his work on Asia, which combined academic knowledge with remarkable insights gleaned during both war and peace, that drew Linebarger to the Australian National University.

His science fiction stories, woven into the fabric of a future history of the Instrumentality of Man set 14,000 years hence, were a diversion from his ''day job''. The two fed off each other, however, with story plot lines borrowed from the Chinese classic The Romance of the Three Kingdoms published by Lo Kuan-chung in the 1300s.

A high church Episcopalian (that's Anglican to us), there is reason to believe Linebarger worshipped at St John's while he was in Canberra. I have also heard he made friends with property owners around Yass and Goulburn and certainly spent time on sheep stations.

That writing took up a considerable part of Linebarger's time during his Australian sojourns, particularly the one in the early 1960s, can be deduced from the timing of the publication of some of the works and their dedications.

These also provide windows into the soul of a man remarkably free from prejudice or racial discrimination at a time when the American civil rights movement was yet to reach its height and Australia withheld citizenship and the vote from Aborigines.

The dedication for Space Lords, the collection of short stories he published in 1965, is particularly poignant. It is addressed to Eleanor Jackson of Louisa, Virginia, who died while caring for Smith during one of his not-infrequent spells of poor health on November 30, 1964.

''You came to my house to tend me while I was sick and trying to finish this book,'' Smith wrote.

''You died there in my house, Eleanor; you looked very sleepy when you were dead, like one of the little 'coloured' dolls that they have in department stores. You were a negro, Eleanor, and I have been called white. For 17 years you shared my home, cooking and cleaning and tending my things in America. You were a woman and I am a man. There was never an indecent gesture or unchaste word from one of us to the other. I'll see the real you again, Eleanor, in a friendly place in which we both believe. Cordwainer Smith.''

Linebarger's achievements are even more remarkable when the fact he was almost blind and had poor health for much of his life is taken into account. After losing one eye in an accident at the age of seven, his other became infected and he lost significant vision in that as well.

His early death at the age of 53 cut short Linebarger's hopes of retiring to Australia with his second wife, Genevieve.

The former colonel is buried in the Arlington National Cemetery and would be happy to know that while his works are critically acclaimed they have not become ''popular''.

His epilogue to Space Lords concludes: ''If you have enjoyed this collection don't tell anyone. Keep it a secret. Go on and enjoy it some more. I'd rather be appreciated by a select few than enjoyed by the bawling millions. Canberra, ACT, Australia, April 15, 1965.''