
Qian Xuesen dies at 98; Co-Founder of JPL and China's space program (2009) - yapcguy
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-me-qian-xuesen1-2009nov01,0,2865408.story
======
HistoryInAction
Linus Pauling quit Caltech over this, having fought to the highest levels of
the government to allow Tsien to visit his dying (father? grandfather?) in
China.

The man was accused of being a Communist so harshly, he decided he'd rather
actually be one and returned home regardless of the US refusal to grant him a
visa to make it a round-trip.

What a waste.

re:
[http://books.google.com/books?id=NrG7fgW0ybEC&lpg=PA112&ots=...](http://books.google.com/books?id=NrG7fgW0ybEC&lpg=PA112&ots=2ftc1TuHSh&dq=pauling%20tsien&pg=PA112#v=onepage&q=pauling%20tsien&f=false)

and
[http://archives.caltech.edu/news/tsien.html](http://archives.caltech.edu/news/tsien.html)

------
mythealias
In his [autobiography][1] von Karman has a whole chapter (or two) dedicated to
justifying why deporting Tsien just based on suspicion was a bad decision.

[1]: [http://www.amazon.com/The-Wind-Beyond-Theodore-
Pathfinder/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Wind-Beyond-Theodore-
Pathfinder/dp/0316907537)

~~~
yapcguy
Imagine, in your twilight years, being able to watch the culmination of your
life's work.

 _" The elderly Qian was able to watch China's first manned space mission on
television from his hospital bed."_
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_Xuesen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_Xuesen)

Whatever the politics, he was recognized by his peers as being a genius, a
great rocket scientist, and that will be his legacy.

------
gwern
I would not forget that he was co-founder of China's missile program too. And
given how many Chinese-Americans turn out to be passing secrets to China, it's
pretty disingenuous to go 'oh, he only worked for them because the US
mistreated him!' He would be far from the first person whose loyalties turned
out to lie where you would expect them to lie.

    
    
        Let them go home? This issue has come up before. The Feds locked up H. S. Tsien [Qian Xuesen] back in the 50s because they thought he was pro-Chinese and would aid the Chinese rocket program. When they finally let him go, that’s exactly what he did.
    
        There have been many cases in which key individuals have been allowed to go home and fight with their homies, due to chivalry or some other form of stupidity. in 1861, the Feds let many officers go home and fight for the Confederacy. Radomir Putnik, chief of the Serbian general staff, was taking the waters in Austria when the First World War broke out. They let him go home – were they ever sorry! Gernot Zippe, an Austrian POW in a Siberian camp, built a workable centrifuge for separating isotopes. Yet, to my lasting surprise, the Soviets let him go in 1956. He became the Johnny Appleseed of nuclear proliferation [along with Eisenhower - Atoms for Peace].
    

[https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/who-can-you-
trust/](https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/who-can-you-trust/)

~~~
yeukhon
Oh yes, as a Chinese let me remind you that from news we have learned that
there isn't just Chinese American accused to betray the US government, but
other ethnic groups too. So, maybe all of us are guilty then.

What kind of stupid idiot you are, by your stupid accusation.

Because of your stupid reasoning, let me construct some ideas:

By your reasoning, we should stop hiring Chinese and Russians because they are
known to be hacker-active states. I should be thankful that I received a
security internship back in summer and my employer should be glad I had a
great chance of being a Chinese spy, injecting backdoor, because I care about
my origin and I read Chinese newspaper in addition to New York Time because I
happen to like NYT.

And so when certain ethnic groups celebrating their ethnic holiday (Mexican,
African Americans), we should be careful because they have a spiritual
attachment to their origin (or their parents' origin) that they are also
likely to be spy or going to be working for their mother country.

Sure we can't assume they won't. I mean I see American born kids turn into
terrorists and there are people who just decide they have enough of US
government and run to another country (right, you know, those run to North
Korean).

We should also note that UK immigrants might have a tendency to take back US
as UK's colonies, and Canadian should be careful of US immigrants because
there is some people who believe US should own Canada too.

Right?

~~~
gwern
> Oh yes, as a Chinese let me remind you that from news we have learned that
> there isn't just Chinese American accused to betray the US government, but
> other ethnic groups too. So, maybe all of us are guilty then.

No. Different groups have different risks. That is the point. Someone
ethnically Chinese born and raised in China has a different risk of being a
spy for China than a white Mormon who has never set foot outside North
America.

> What kind of stupid idiot you are, by your stupid accusation. Because of
> your stupid reasoning, let me construct some ideas:...Right?

No. Please read what I have read, and not what you think I have read. Your
absolutist reasoning, without any probabilities but with tons of exaggeration,
is not applicable to what I have said.

------
Create
"Scientists study the world as it is, engineers create the world that never
has been." Theodore von Kármán

~~~
PavlovsCat
"Too often is the inventor the faustian idealist, who wants to improve the
world, but fails at the hard realities. If he wants to realize his ideas, he
has to cooperate with powers which have a better sense of reality than him.
Today such powers are, without making a value statement, primarily military
and managers. [..] From my experience the chances of an individiual to defend
themselves against such pacts are rather low."

\-- Konrad Zuse

------
xcyu
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_Xuesen#Return_to_China](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_Xuesen#Return_to_China)

He seemed to have had a very interesting political career in china as well.

------
dferlemann
Back I was in China, I remember reading news that appears Chinese government
was really happy Dr Qian was forced to return. Dr. Qian is really high profile
in the sense of academic achievement. I don't think there is high enough
salary to attract him back to China with his own free will. It got me
thinking. Speculatively, is it possible that Chinese government made a deal
with US government secretly to get him back? There are a lot of deals between
two governments...

~~~
aptwebapps
I can't imagine what that deal would have looked like but I guess if they were
clever enough they could have caused him to fall under suspicion pretty
easily.

~~~
dferlemann
I'm thinking more in the form of technological trade.

------
monsterix
So was he really a spy, or the suspicions were unfounded? If latter, then the
cost of losing his talent and subsequent achievements to another nation seem
quite high.

~~~
jjoonathan
> his brilliant career in the United States came to a screeching halt in 1950,
> when the FBI accused him of being a member of a subversive organization

Yep, looks like the FBI created the problem they were ineptly trying to
prevent.

~~~
shiven
And everyone needs to ask how many deserving scientists are being mistreated
in a similar manner by being labeled as bogeymen with _du jour_ -isms of our
time.

~~~
yetanotherphd
James Watson for starters

