Thread of the Silkworm

Thread of the Silkworm by Iris Chang, Basic Books, 1996. 

Deporting Genius

Chang tells the story of a rocket scientist, Tsien Hsue-Shen, who was born in China in 1911 and educated in the United States. He left China in 1935 to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During World War II, he worked with Hungarian engineer Theodore von Kármán at the California Institute of Technology and helped found the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. During the 1950s, the United States feared he might be a Red Chinese spy, so they deported him back to Communist China. Back in China, he created their rocket program, in particular, the Silkworm missile.