Interesting find in a reading ... McCarthyism accelerated China's missile race ...

[zbdent]

From a reading (will give the source afterward):

Born in 1911, (Dr.) Tsien (Hsue-shen) won a scholarship that brought him from China to the United States in 1935, where he became student and later colleague of the brilliant Hungarian aerodynamicist Theodore von Karman. Later, as first Goddard Professor at the California Institute of Technology, he helped establish the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory -- the direct ancestor of Pasadena's famed Jet Propulsion Laboratory. As The New York Times (October 28, 1966) commented (P"Peking Rocket Chief Was Trained in U.S.") just after China conducted a guided-missle nuclear weapons test over its own territory, "Tsien's life is an irony of Cold War history."

With top-secret clearance, he contributed greatly to American rocket research in the 19502, but during the hysteria of the McCarthy era was arrested on trumped-up security charges when he attempted to pay a visit to his native China. After many hearings and a prolonged period of arrest, he was finally deported to his homeland -- with all his unrivaled knowledge and expertise. As many of his distinguished colleagues affirmed, it was one of the most stupid (as well as most disgraceful) things the United States ever did.

After his expulsion, according to Zhuang Fenggan, Deputy Director, Science and Technology Committee, China National Space Administration, Tsien "started the rocket business from nothing ... Without him, China would have suffered a twenty-year lag in technology." And a corresponding delay, perhaps, in the theployment of the deadly "Silkworm" antiship missile and the "Long March" satellite launcher.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Source (highlight between the periods to see):
.

Arthur C. Clarke, 3001 The Final Odyssey, paperback edition (1997) fourth edition, pp 262-263

.

[Joanne98]

1. So McCarthy lost China. HA HA!