To prevent getting lost, the elevator goes directly to the safety island to report Liu Yadong A
Source: Science and Technology Spring and Autumn Comprehensive Network
Qian Xuesen was born in Shanghai in 1911, studied in the Department of Mechanical Engineering of National Jiaotong University, was admitted to Tsinghua University in 1934, went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1935 to study in the Department of Aeronautics, the following year to the California Institute of Technology, and obtained a doctorate in aeronautics and mathematics, and became a university teacher in the college after graduation.
In 1949, when the founding of the People's Republic of China, Qian Xuesen was already a famous professor and director of the Center of the California Institute of Technology in the United States.
The first nuclear weapons came from the Manhattan Project in the United States, which invested more than $2 billion and gathered more than 100,000 high-tech talents from all over the world to participate in the research and development, which took a total of six years to finally create the world's first atomic bomb in 1945. During the Cold War, nuclear weapons became an important tool for political wrestling and deterrence between the United States and the Soviet Union, and also aggravated world instability. If New China wants to achieve economic development in a stable situation, it urgently needs a large number of scientists in this field to return to China to participate in construction.
On August 28, 1950, Qian Xuesen bid farewell to his mentor von Kármán, although his mentor von Kármán tried his best to keep him, but he politely refused.
Von Kármán may not have understood the excitement of his wanderer who was far away and desperate to return to the bosom of his homeland.
Soon after, he had bought a flight from Ottawa, Canada, to Hong Kong, China.
After buying his plane ticket, he went home to pack his books, manuscripts and notebooks, and asked the packing company to pack a total of eight large suitcases.
But just five days before his flight took off, Qian Xuesen received an official letter "prohibiting leaving the United States". The reason is that Qian Xuesen knows the secrets of the US nuclear bomb project.
This official letter from Vice Admiral of the US Navy Kimbell poured on Qian Xuesen's head like a basin of cold water, making his hot heart immediately half cold.
Qian Xuesen had no choice but to refund the ticket, ready to retrieve the 8 large suitcases he wanted to check, and find another way.
However, his suitcase was seized by customs, and his suitcase was used to make a big fuss: Qian Xuesen's luggage contained classified U.S. documents.
In fact, Qian Xuesen's luggage was only a few books and his personal notes. The FBI took all Qian Xuesen's notes on microfilm, and a total of more than 12,000 photos were taken. Even, the U.S. Immigration Bureau sent two agents to arrest Qian Xuesen on trumped-up charges.
Qian Xuesen was inexplicably detained for fifteen days. The spirit and body were devastated, and in just fifteen days, the weight dropped by more than 20 pounds, and he couldn't even speak. Soon, news of Qian Xuesen's detention spread throughout the United States and China. Qian Xuesen's teachers and classmates were deeply sympathetic to his plight, and at the same time condemned the unreasonable behavior of the US government. The mainland government issued a public statement condemning the actions of the United States.
Although thanks to the efforts of the California Institute of Technology, Qian Xuesen paid a bail of $15,000 and was released from prison. But Qian Xuesen was still under house arrest in disguise, he was stipulated to live only in Los Angeles, and there were agents watching him near his residence, his phone calls were monitored, his letters were dismantled, and someone followed him when he went out, making it impossible for Qian Xuesen to live a normal life.
has lived such a depressing life for 5 years, which is also the darkest moment of Qian Xuesen's life. He had no other way but to pass the time by reading books and newspapers.
One day five years later, one day in May 1955, Qian Xuesen accidentally saw a familiar name in a Chinese newspaper: Chen Shutong.
At that time, Chen Shutong also participated in the CPPCC meeting, and he was also a good friend of Qian Xuesen's father Qian Junfu. Qian Xuesen thought of asking him for help.
Qian Xuesen rekindled his hope of returning to China. He immediately wrote a letter to Chen Shutong asking for help.
However, after the letter for help was written, he became worried again, how could this letter be sent under the nose of the spies? And Qian Xuesen did not know Chen Shutong's mailing address.
Picture: Qian Xuesen's letter
Qian Xuesen thought of sending the letter to his father first, and then sent the letter to Chen Shutong for help through his father's hand.
However, if he sends a letter directly to the country, it will definitely arouse the suspicion of the spies, and the spies will definitely focus on checking, and then not only will the letter not be sent, but it will also cause other trouble.
So, Qian Xuesen asked Jiang Ying to change the font, wrote a letter to his sister Jiang Hua in Belgium with his left hand, sandwiched the letter for help between Jiang Ying's letter to Jiang Hua, walked to the mailbox near a coffee shop, and handed the letter to the mailbox while the spy was not paying attention.
Fortunately, Jiang Hua received the letter and understood what her sister Jiang Ying meant, she quickly sent Qian Xuesen's letter of help to Chen Shutong to Qian Xuesen's father Qian Junfu, after Qian Junfu received the letter, he knew his son's situation and anxiously handed the letter to Chen Shutong.
After Chen Shutong received the letter, he learned of Qian Xuesen's situation, and the United States did not release all Chinese students who were willing to return to China as it claimed, such as Qian Xuesen was detained in Los Angeles. So he immediately forwarded the letter to Zhou Enlai.
When Zhou Enlai learned of Qian Xuesen's situation, he was also very worried, and he forwarded the letter to Wang Bingnan, the Chinese representative who was in Geneva, Switzerland, for negotiations at the ambassadorial level between China and the United States.
Wang Bingnan duly exposed the lies of the United States on the spot during the negotiations. Although in the face of Wang Bingnan's debunking, the United States did not respond immediately.
Later, because the United States suffered a defeat on the Korean battlefield, 11 pilots were captured. During the negotiations, Zhou Enlai proposed to exchange 11 pilots for Qian Xuesen, and the United States had to agree to the exchange.
Finally, on August 4, 1955, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service informed Qian Xuesen that he could return to China.
Qian Xuesen, who received this notice, was very excited, and in addition to Qian Xuesen, in this negotiation, 94 scientists studying in the United States were all given the freedom to return to China.
However, on the eve of returning to China on September 17, 1955, before leaving the ship, Qian Xuesen received a mysterious telegram: Be careful on the road and do not get off the ship halfway.
This telegram was not signed by the sender at that time, and Qian Xuesen analyzed that it should have been sent by his father. It may be that the United States is worried that it will be bad on the way, and it is better to stay on board until the end for safety. After more than 20 days of sailing, Qian Xuesen finally arrived in Hong Kong safely. And the steamer docked several times on the way, and he did not disembark.
On the way back to the motherland, everything was fine, and Qian Xuesen's family was escorted to Beijing smoothly on October 28, and then accepted the invitation to a grand state banquet. In the following years, Mr. Qian Xuesen successively served as the director of the Department of Modern Mechanics of the University of Science and Technology of China and the deputy director of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, cultivating a large number of talents for the country, and participated in the development of short-range missiles, medium- and short-range missiles and China's first artificial earth satellite.
With the continuous efforts of Qian Xuesen and others, on October 16, 1964, China's first atomic bomb was successfully exploded, three years later, China's first hydrogen bomb air explosion test was successful, and six years later, China's first artificial satellite was successfully launched.
After returning to China, Qian Xuesen rushed to his father's house to report his safety as soon as possible, and then mentioned the telegram to his father during a meal with his family, and his father Qian Junfu was surprised, he didn't even know the news of Qian Xuesen's return to China, how could he send a telegram to him? At that time, Qian Xuesen didn't think much about it, he only felt that his father had forgotten about it because he was old, and guessed that it was sent by a good friend.
The answer to this question was that Qian Xuesen, who was chatting with a friend in his later years, accidentally learned that the telegram came from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and it was Premier Zhou who was worried about his safety at that time and asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to send it. The telegram was not made public until 2011, the 100th anniversary of Qian Xuesen's birth.