John K. Fairbank
Mote was born in Plainview, Nebraska, one of ten children. In 1943 (during World War II) he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force but was unable to go to flight school for medical reasons. Due to a college course he took in Chinese language the year before, the Air Force sent Mote to Harvard where he studied Chinese under John K. Fairbank for a year. In 1944, he joined the Office of Strategic Services (the war-time precursor to the CIA) as a noncommissioned officer, serving in the China-Burma-India theater of operations until 1946.