Welcome back all CHP listeners, this is Lossel Montgomery, welcoming you back to part two of this overview of the life of Dr. Chin'sya son, one of the greatest scientists who was right there at the dawn of the aeronautics age.

We ended last time in the year 1950. Chin was living the American dream, and not even 40 years old yet. He was at the top of his game and one of the most respected and admired men of his time.

But on June 6th of that year, the federal Bureau of Investigation knocked on Chin'sya son's door in his office at Caltech and asked him the fearful question, quote,

are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party of the United States? End quote. And back then, as the red scare was starting to ramp up to the froth that Joe McCarthy would whip it up to, when you got asked that question, there was always somewhat of a presumption of guilt.

Yeah, those meetings and people's living rooms back in the late 1930s that Chin attended with Frank Molina and others. The FBI agents were saying they had evidence that he was there and had attended these meetings, which were sponsored by the Professional Unit 122 of the Pasadena Communist Party.

There was no denying he was there. Chin's perfect little world was uprooted, upended, and smashed up pieces right then and there.

Yeah, he had attended those meetings and maybe he sympathized with the downtrodden and oppressed, which may have been just his humanity bleeding through and not any political belief.

Well, that may pass muster today, but 1950 with Mao Zedong, bunking down every night in Zhongnan High and the US government cursing its luck for backing the wrong horse in that race.

If there were suspected communists behind every bush in the United States, they were going to be exposed and dealt with one by one.

Despite everything that Chin had done for the US with respect to his research and discoveries, the first thing the FBI saw too, and as they did with Jay Robert Oppenheimer, was the revocation of his security clearance.

Henceforth, he was prohibited from working on any classified projects for the military, which, aside from teaching, was pretty much all he was doing.

Just the prima fascia way of looking at it, Chin and his wife too, Jiang Ying, would be the least likely candidates to be communists or even communist sympathizers.

Both of them came from very well-heeled backgrounds that would put them squarely in harm's way once any of Chairman Mao's witch hunts began.

Who knows what ran through Chin's mind following this knock on the door from the FBI.

Whatever the case may have been, two weeks later, he resigned from his position at Caltech and informed everyone he was going to return to China.

Sounds like some snap decision made in response to such monumental and damning accusations.

No one knows for sure why he made such a sudden and shocking decision, merely mentioning that he was going to go back to China.

In the eyes of the FBI, it was akin to assigned affidavit stating he was a communist, and starting in 1950, being a communist, was right up there with being a hardened criminal.

As soon as the FBI learned, Chin was planning to return to China, they moved fast, knowing now with absolute certainty that he was a communist.

No one was advising Chin what to say, every denial, every contradiction in his statements, everything was interpreted to mean he was trying to cover his tracks, and now that he was caught, he was running to Chairman Mao to go spill all the secrets, he was privy to since he began as a student at MIT back in 1935.

Von Carmen, who perhaps knew Chin as much or more than anyone in America, had said, quote,

Chin didn't believe that he should have to prove to the authorities that he wasn't a communist.

...