Another group vulnerable to accusations of espionage were Chinese intellectuals at the universities who were capable of designing technology vital to national security. As Communist China developed into a world power and technologically competent cold war opponent, many American officials failed to distinguish between Chinese Americans and foreign Chinese nationals, nor did they overcome the suspicion that members of both groups were passing secrets to the PRC. With new State Department regulations, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, and President Harry Truman’s proclamation of 1953, the American government assumed the power to stop the departure of foreigners whose knowledge might jeopardize national security. As a result, some 120 Chinese intellectuals were detained and not permitted to leave for years.

One of these was Dr. Tsien Hsue-shen, a top Chinese aerodynamicist who helped pioneer the American space program before becoming involved in one of the strangest episodes of cold war history. His story illustrates not only the capriciousness of the American government during the McCarthy era, but also the disastrous consequences for U.S. defense brought about by the frenzied witch hunts of the time.

Though much of Tsien’s later life is hidden in shadow, the story of his early days is relatively straightforward. In 1935, Tsien arrived in the United States on a Boxer Rebellion scholarship to study at MIT, and then later at Cal Tech. He rapidly ascended to the very top of his profession, making substantial contributions to both American science and national defense. He revolutionized the fields of fluid dynamics, the buckling of structures, rocketry, and engineering cybernetics, all of which helped the U.S. enter into the space age early. While still a graduate student at Cal Tech, he helped found the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, where he was intimately involved in designing some of America’s earliest missiles. Because his contributions during World War II were so valuable, the U.S. government repeatedly granted Tsien clearance to work on classified government projects, despite his legal status as a Chinese national. By the end of the war, Tsien had received numerous commendations and praise from the American military establishment.

In 1949, the year China fell to the Communists, Tsien must have decided that his future no longer lay with his homeland, but with the United States. He applied for U.S. citizenship and accepted a professorship at and directorship of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology. What he had not counted on, however, was America’s entrance into cold war hysteria. In 1950, the FBI accused him of being a former member of the American Communist Party, on the grounds that during the 1930s he had befriended a number of pro-Communist Cal Tech students.

Although Tsien fervently denied being a Communist, the U.S. government revoked his security clearance, something Tsien considered an unforgivable insult, especially after his record of substantial contribution to the U.S. war effort. A proud man, he impulsively decided to return to China. After informing Cal Tech that he was taking an indefinite leave of absence, he booked passage for himself and his family to mainland China. His real troubles began when a U.S. customs agent found thousands of pounds of scientific papers in his luggage. Believing he had nabbed a spy red-handed, the agent held a press conference to announce that he discovered secret “code books” in Tsien’s possession.

The Los Angeles media went wild, printing articles with headlines Such as “SECRET DATA SEIZED IN CHINA SHIPMENT.” The putative codebooks in Tsien’s luggage turned out to be logarithmic tables, and a subsequent government investigation disclosed that nothing at all in the shipment had been classified. But the newspapers did not run a retraction or even a follow-up story, leaving many readers believing that Tsien was indeed an agent for the PRC.

Within days of the seizure of his baggage, Tsien was arrested and locked in a cell in San Pedro for more than two weeks. Confused if not panicked, he lost twenty pounds. The renowned physicist Robert Oppenheimer offered his help, suggesting that Tsien move to Princeton University. That turned out not to be an option for Tsien. Upon his release, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, to the surprise of everyone, started deportation hearings against him, proceeding on the grounds that Tsien, a foreign national Communist, was an undesirable alien deportable by law.

The government kept Tsien in a state of limbo while trying to decide what to do with him. One faction—mainly defense officials—fought to keep him in the United States, arguing that his technical knowledge was too valuable to let fall into the hands of Communist China, while another—primarily immigration authorities—believed he should be packed off. Meanwhile, the government would not let Tsien leave the boundaries of Los Angeles until his case was resolved. For five years, from 1950 to 1955, he lived under constant FBI surveillance, with his phone bugged, his mail opened and read, his family followed in the streets. Finally, on September 17, 1955, the U.S. government deported Tsien and his family to mainland China.

Whether Tsien was a Communist in the United States cannot be determined, but the evidence suggests that he was not. His wife was the daughter of a top military strategist for Chiang Kai-shek, and survivors of the Cal Tech Communist cell to which Tsien had allegedly belonged insist he was not a member. After a five-year investigation, the INS failed to turn up any documentary proof of Tsien’s Communist involvement. As it later turned out, however, his political leanings had no bearing whatsoever on the final decision to deport him. Decades later, declassified State Department documents revealed that the United States and the PRC had negotiated a secret prisoner swap: Tsien Hsue-shen for a group of American POWs captured during the Korean War.

In the end, the case against Tsien hurt rather than helped U.S. national defense. By deporting him, the nation lost a first-class scientist who almost certainly would have been a valued adviser to the American lunar and missile programs. As early as 1949, Tsien had predicted that a trip to the moon would be possible within thirty years and that the journey could be accomplished in a week. Meanwhile, with Tsien’s return the PRC gained a man who helped launch a technological revolution in his homeland. As the director of the Fifth Academy of National Defense, China’s first missile institute, Tsien oversaw the development of China’s first generation of nuclear missiles, the Dongfeng “East Wind” series. He also proposed and guided the development of the first artificial Chinese satellite, a tracking and control telemetry network for ICBMs.

Perhaps Tsien’s attorney, Grant B. Cooper, best summed up the repercussions to the United States of its irrational persecution of Tsien: “That this government permitted this genius, this scientific genius, to be sent to Communist China to pick his brains is one of the tragedies of this century.”

(Chang 252-256)