That's fascinating.<p>The article points out that nobody made a movie about this guy. That's mostly because a movie about someone who's an expert at building organizations is boring.
Nobody ever made a biopic about Charles Wilson, head of defense production at General Motors during WWII, and later US Secretary of Defense. Hyman Rickover, who headed the 1950s effort to build nuclear submarines and warships, only has a low budget 2021 documentary. Malcom McLean, who converted the world to containerized shipping and made low-cost imports possible, never got a movie.<p>Those three people each changed the world more than any celebrity. They're well known in business history. MBAs study them. There are biographies. But no movie.
There are biopic films about people who founded or transformed businesses like Steve Jobs, Roy Kroc, Mark Zuckerberg, the founders of Blackberry, etc. Might not be everyone's cup of tea but I wouldn't describe that genre as boring. Probably the bigger issue is getting people to see a biopic about someone who isn't already a household name.
If anyone wants to listen to it:<p><a href="https://player.instaread.co/player?article=the-missile-genius-america-lostand-china-gained&publication=usni.org&article_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.usni.org%2Fmagazines%2Fnaval-history%2F2025%2Fdecember%2Fmissile-genius-america-lost-and-china-gained" rel="nofollow">https://player.instaread.co/player?article=the-missile-geniu...</a>
What became JPL had numerous colorful characters who had trouble with the security apparatus not least<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons</a><p>who invented modern composite solid rockets and was also a collaborator of Aleister Crowley and L. Ron Hubbard.
An error rate of 0 is unachievable. Given that, it’s a question of your tolerance for error and the consequences of the opposite kind of error. Given the numbers of people involved in the exchange the comparative value must have been quite clear to both parties.<p>The Chinese outcome was not nearly so certain even in 1990, half a century after the events in question. The counterfactual that China could not have indigenously achieved this also seems unlikely.<p>After all, the thesis is that Chinese leaders were so organizationally intelligent that they recognized key players that could implement century-long organizational methodology improvements. Given that they could get that far, it seems unlikely that they could not take the next step: that of recreating/finding a Qian Xuesen within their own country; like we found Oppenheimer.<p>Overall, this seems like a strategic choice that played off roughly at the risk control level it was aimed at. You cannot judge decisions solely by outcomes.
Definitely a famous story that gets retold and almost mythologized in China. When I taught over there, several different middle school students independently told me about this story.
Qian is a typical opportunist, who had been contacting ccp since 1930s. He was already away from military and academia for years, while pouring huge sum of money into his immigration case. After deported from US, his job in China was mostly management.