REAP AS YE SOW

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 It’s understandable, isn’t it, that an aging rocket engineer would, upon reading a Space News headline: “China Plans to Launch Three Astronauts to its Spacelab in 2013,” be moved to follow a path of inquiry  that recalled an obituary in the November 4, 2009 New York Times on the passing of Qian Xuesen, Father of China’s Space Program, at 98, and finally, to a period of American history following World War II that was called the Second Red Scare, (The first Red Scare occurred after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, a period of labor unrest, strikes, riots and associated radicalism)

During the Second Red Scare, which arguably coincided with the onset of the Cold War, the nation was preoccupied with the problem of communist spies in its midst, even infiltrated into high government positions. The central issue was the transfer of atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, which enabled their development of nuclear weapons faster than anyone could have imagined. There was reality in this, as communist party members Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, Klaus Fuchs, David Greenglass, Morton Sobell and others were arrested for passing secret information to the Soviet Union. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were tried and executed. Others received long prison sentences.

It was a period of intense surveys by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, which doubled in size for the purpose of hunting down communists and communist sympathizers. It acquired the name McCarthyism, as the thrust of the effort took the form of a highly publicized personal hunt for communists by Wisconsin’s Senator Joseph McCarthy and his staff. The vendetta up-ended the lives of an estimated 10,000 people, resulting in their firing from their jobs, ending productive careers, and blacklisting to prevent future employment. 

Some actions got considerable public attention. A hearing before the Atomic Energy Commission in 1954 to strip J. Robert Oppenheimer, who headed the Manhattan Project, of his security clearance, got enormous publicity, as Lewis Strauss, head of the commission and Edward Teller paired to recommend the action. The testimony was that Oppenheimer was a security risk because of a long-past and inconsequential connection with communist sympathizers. It was Teller’s Judas moment, a fall from grace in the scientific community, as it was known that there were strong disagreements between Teller and Oppenheimer regarding the hydrogen bomb. 

But the story of Qian Xuesen is fully as interesting and perhaps carries greater weight as it points to the folly of precipitous, heavy-handed and prejudicial actions on the part of the government, and how in the long term it can lead to unexpected, and from some standpoints, undesirable consequences.

Qian Xuesen, better known in the United Sates as Hsue-Shen Tsien, or Dr. Tsien, was born in China in 1911. At the age of 23 he traveled to America to study aeronautics at MIT. A year later he transferred to Cal Tech to pursue his doctorate studies under Theodore von Karman. In von Karman’s words, Dr. Tsien was an undisputed genius in the fields of missiles and rockets. During world War II, with two others, he founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where initial developments produced the Private, Corporal and WAC Corporal missiles. Dr. Tsien produced papers on esoteric subjects such as shell buckling, essential for structural analysis of future missiles and space launch vehicles. One paper defined an approach to a reusable spaceplane, which many years later constituted part of the inspiration for the Space Shuttle.

Dr. Tsien married famed opera singer Jiang Ying. Two children were born in the United States. In 1949 Tsien applied for U.S. citizenship.

As post-war consultants to the US Army, Dr. Tsien and von Karman traveled to Europe after the war to assess wartime advances in aerodynamics and to interview Wernher von Braun and other German rocket scientists and engineers. Their recommendations led to eventual establishment of a substantial group of rocket specialists, including von Braun, at the  Army’s Redstone Arsenal in Alabama, where Redstone and Jupiter Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBM) were developed, and which evolved into NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center where development of Saturn V was centered during the 1960’s, and later, the Space Shuttle.

In Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s novel, “2010,” the ill-fated space ship Tsien was named after Dr.Tsien. An asteroid, 3763 Qian Xuesen is named after him.

The full story will likely never be revealed, but in 1950 Dr. Tsien found himself caught up in the massive net that the FBI had cast to round up communists. He became a suspect based on someone finding his name in a communist leaning paper published in 1938. The summation is that the United States ended up deporting one of its most formidable geniuses.

In 1950, according to the most credible history of occurrences, Dr. Tsien booked travel for himself and his family to visit his parents in China. The FBI arrested him as a spy as they were leaving. Among claims were that he had “crates” packed with technical and classified information to take with him. None of this has ever been confirmed. One story had it that a top secret document was found on his person that was later admitted to be nothing more than logarithmic tables.

Dr. Tsien was imprisoned, stripped of his security clearance, and later put under house arrest where he remained for five years, struggling to regain his former status, together with restoration of his security clearance. Finally he gave up, deciding to return to China. Behind the scene negotiations took place with China, where he was desperately wanted, resulting in a swap that involved release of several pilots who were captured and imprisoned during the Korean War. Dr. Tsien had considerable support by colleagues during his struggle for vindication, but to no avail. Undersecretary Dan Kimball characterized the deportation as “The stupidest thing this country ever did. Dr. Tsien is no more a communist than I am.” In 1955 Dr. Tsien and his family were deported.

China, far behind the United States and the Soviet Union in missile technology, awarded Dr. Tsien the responsibility for developing a robust missile capability. He began by establishing the Institute of Mechanics, to train the technologists needed to implement the envisioned missile and rocket capability. The Fifth Academy of the National Defense Ministry was founded October 8,1956 and Dr. Tsien was named its Director. Construction of China’s first missile base was begun in April of 1958 and was placed in service in October of that year. The Soviet Union was on friendly terms with China at that time and supplied short range missiles and technology for the initial test programs. China began development of its own medium range ballistic missile in 1960. In 1964 China detonated its first nuclear device.

Dr. Tsien’s work led to development of the Long March series of launch vehicles which facilitated China’s entry into competition with other nations….the United States, Europe, and Russia for launching commercial satellites. Dr. Tsien witnessed China’s independent entry into manned space flight. China had not been  invited to participate in the International Space Station. Based on Tsien’s pioneering work, China now has the heft and resources to go it alone and could easily surpass other nations in future space ventures.

Dr.Tsien retained warm feelings for the American people. As for the government, that was another matter. Cal Tech gave Dr. Tsien its Distinguished Alumni award in 2001. Aviation Week named him its Man of the Year in 2007. He was highly honored in China.

At General Dynamics Astronautics Division, where I worked as a rocket engineer, there was a man of Chinese origin in the program offices named L.T. Cheung who was a close acquaintance of Dr. Tsien. We simply addressed him as “L.T.” About two years after Dr. Tsien was deported, L.T. received a Christmas card. Its cover featured a simple floral design. Inside there was a one-line message:

“This flower blooms in adversity.”