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Qian Xuesen originally booked a flight back to China, but now he can only cancel the phone number. The arrest warrant from the Immigration and Naturalization Bureau accused Qian Xuesen of violating the US Immigration Act, believing that he was one of the members of an organization, society or group that subverted the U.S. government through force, violence.
Specifically, the United States suspects that Qian Xuesen, then tenured professor of , and director of the Guggenheim Jet Propulsion Center, was a member of the "One Two Two" communist group in Pasadena, California, which was listed as a subversive organization by National Security Department .
FBI conducted a months-long investigation into whether Qian Xuesen was a Communist Party member, but there was no conclusive evidence. Qian Xuesen also repeatedly emphasized that although some of his friends showed leftist tendencies, he was not a Communist Party member at any time.
Nevertheless, Qian Xuesen was transferred to the Department of Justice Prison on Temino Island south of Los Angeles. Qian Xuesen was released from prison only after Qian Xuesen's students paid a high bail of $15,000 for him. That day, Qian Xuesen's wife, Jiang Ying, drove to the prison to pick him up home. Jiang Ying later recalled the scene at that time and said, "When I went to pick him up, he didn't say a word. What did you ask him, he nodded and shook his head. I understood, he lost his voice and could not speak! Within 15 days, his weight lost 15 kilograms."
The US Immigration and Naturalization Bureau and the FBI finally determined that Qian Xuesen "was a member of the Communist Party of America" and had to be deported. However, when the Immigration Bureau issued an expulsion order to Qian Xuesen, a difficult problem was placed in front of , the US State Department : Who would like to send Qian Xuesen, the world's top rocket technology expert, to Red China? Doesn’t expelling Qian Xuesen mean fulfilling his dream of returning to China?
" New York Times " report revealed the conflict in the United States. The newspaper reported: "Qian Xuesen - a famous rocket expert at the California Institute of Technology, was ordered to be deported back to China in Los Angeles, but at the same time he was ordered not to leave the United States because his departure was not conducive to the highest interests of the United States."
The United States, which was trapped in conflict, could only choose to suspend the implementation of the deportation order, limiting Qian Xuesen to register with the immigration department every month, and also stipulated that he could only operate in Los Angeles. His phone and letters were monitored and dismantled, and someone was followed on the street. This means that Qian Xuesen is under house arrest. A scientist, facing the changing world pattern, is inevitably ruthlessly involved in the whirlpool of ideological prejudice and political vortex. This is a personal misfortune and a misfortune of the times.
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Qian Xuesen went to the United States in 1935 and studied under the mechanics master Von Carmen. When he was studying for his doctorate, he joined the Rocket Research Group of the California Institute of Technology. Since 1940, the Rocket Research Project has been listed as a highly military secret by the US government. Qian Xuesen was forced to withdraw from the Rocket Research Team because he was not a US citizen.
It was not until the end of 1941, after the outbreak of the Pearl Harbor incident, that Qian Xuesen was qualified to participate in the confidential research program in the United States based on the alliance between China and the United States and the United States. In December 1942, under the recommendation of his teacher von Carmen, after the security review of the US Military Police Command, Qian Xuesen obtained a confidentiality license. Since then, he has been deeply involved in all military confidential research, and can freely enter and exit the Pentagon , and has successively undertaken many research tasks of the US military.
At the end of 1943, von Carmen, Qian Xuesen and others jointly proposed the US long-range rocket missile research plan. In January 1944, facing the aggressive progress of the German rocket plan, the U.S. Army Ordnance Agency requested the California Institute of Technology to develop rockets that can be used for actual combat as soon as possible. Qian Xuesen is the only one who is responsible for the rocket propulsion work. Subsequently, Qian Xuesen and more than a dozen Chinese and foreign scientists, including Qian Weichang , Guo Yonghuai , and Guo Yonghuai , and successively designed the initial American rockets such as "Private A", "Female Soldier Corporal" and "Corporal", and successfully conducted launch tests.
With Qian Xuesen's genius and efforts, the research on the American Rockets, which was originally far behind Germany, finally reached a very mature stage. Qian Xuesen thus established himself as a "theoretical designer" of the early American Rockets. His teacher von Carmen praised him for being "a great genius in the field of Rockets' technology."
v Karmen, Qian Xuesen's mentor
However, after the end of World War II , an iron curtain fell between the east and the west. Cold War exacerbated the uneasiness and tension in the international situation. The hostility of the American people towards Communist Party reached its peak, and " McCarthyism " was prevalent. Despite the lack of evidence, the US military quickly revoked Qian Xuesen's qualification for confidential research. This means that Qian Xuesen is no longer able to engage in rocket research in the United States.
Just at this time, the Korean War broke out and the confrontation between China and the United States intensified. The United States has adopted a hostile policy towards China and listed Chinese students in the United States as key survey targets, especially scientific research talents like Qian Xuesen who have confidentiality qualifications. The United States cannot allow these scientific and technological talents studying in the United States to return to China, so it tries every means to intervene and obstruct. At that time, many scientists studying in the United States who chose to return to China became subjects of the United States like Qian Xuesen.
As the other side of the game, China has been paying attention to the progress of Qian Xuesen's case. The turn of things happened at the Geneva conference in 1954. Premier Zhou, who attended the meeting, raised the issue of civilians returning to the motherland to the United States. The United States was also eager to return prisoners of war detained by China. Therefore, the two sides negotiated and held ambassador-level talks. At that time, a group of U.S. military personnel and spies captured during the Korean War were imprisoned in China, and these people became bargaining chips for China to negotiate with the United States.
In June 1955, US President Eisenhower told Secretary of State Dulles: "I think we should let all Chinese go back."
Dulles replied: "There are two people, and the Ministry of Defense is skeptical of them because they all have very high confidential information." The two people Dulles said that must be treated exceptionally, one is David Wang, who is engaged in the research of the Naike Rockets, and the other is Qian Xuesen.
And Eisenhower said: "This should not be an obstacle. The information they have is no longer as valuable as we think."
This shows that the United States has loosened the issue of Qian Xuesen returning to China. They evaluated that Qian Xuesen was "refrigerated" for five years, and his knowledge system has become outdated. Letting him return to China will not pose a great threat to the United States.
On August 1, 1955, the first meeting of the ambassador-level talks between China and the United States was held in Geneva . Three days later, when 11 captured U.S. Air Force personnel arrived in Hong Kong to prepare to return to the United States, the U.S. Department of Justice officially agreed to Qian Xuesen to return to China. When the news came out, the US media quoted an official in the Pentagon: "For 11 American prisoners of war to exchange Qian Xuesen, it is like 11 civilians to exchange 4 armored divisions."
03
September 16, 1955, the day before Qian Xuesen left the United States, several FBI personnel gave him a final inquiry. When asked if he was full of hatred towards the United States, Qian Xuesen replied: "I am not full of hatred and disgust towards the United States, I am just a victim of the environment." Immediately afterwards, he added that he has many friends in the United States, "I never change my friendship with these people and my friendship with the American people because of my adversity."
The next afternoon, under the surveillance of FBI personnel, Qian Xuesen and his family boarded the "President of Cleveland" ship. The dock was filled with friends who were saying goodbye and reporters who came to interview. A reporter asked the question asked by the FBI, do you hate the United States? Qian Xuesen replied: "I don't hate the American people. When you are bitten by a dog, you can't hate that dog, you can only hate the owner of the dog."
After about three weeks of sea navigation, on October 8, Qian Xuesen's family landed in Hong Kong and then entered mainland China through the Shenzhen Pass. Qian Xuesen waited for this day for a full five years.He said that he had imagined this day in his dreams, and now it has finally become a reality.
On October 8, 1956, on the first anniversary of Qian Xuesen's return to China, China's first rocket and missile research institution, the Fifth Research Institute of the Ministry of National Defense, was established. On the day of its establishment, Qian Xuesen taught the "Introduction to Missiles" to 156 college students who had just been assigned, and began to cultivate the first batch of rocket and missile technical talents in New China.
As the technical coach, Qian Xuesen led scientific and technological personnel to overcome many difficulties, participated in organizing and commanding all major tests of missiles, rockets, satellites, and and achieved success. Some people say that due to Qian Xuesen's return to China, the launch of Chinese missiles and atomic bombs has advanced for at least 20 years. Qian Xuesen is therefore known as the "father of China's spaceflight".
After ten years of hard work, on October 27, 1966, China's first missile, nuclear weapon, exploded successfully. This marks that China has mastered the ability to use missiles as a carrier to transport atomic bombs to designated locations through independent research and development.
China's first atomic bomb exploded successfully
1999, Qian Xuesen was awarded the "Two Bombs and One Satellite Medal" by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the State Council, and the Central Military Commission. On October 31, 2009, Qian Xuesen died in Beijing at the age of 98.
References:
Ye Yonglie: "Biography of Qian Xuesen", China Youth Press, 2015
Zhang Xianmin: "Chronicle of Qian Xuesen's Return to China", published in "Research on Qian Xuesen" (Volume 1), Shanghai Jiaotong University Press, 2016
Zhang Xianmin: "Negotiation of Qian Xuesen's Return to China and the Return of China between China and the U.S. in the 1950s", Journal of Shanghai Administrative College, 2017
Qian Xuemin: "20 Years of Qian Xuesen in the United States (1935-1955)", Journal of Xi'an Jiaotong University (Social Science Edition), 2006
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