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Letter
to President Clinton
June 14, 1999
The Honorable William J. Clinton
President of the United States of America
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500
June 14, 1999
Dear Mr. President:
I am following up on the meeting we had on June 7th in discussing the enormous
contributions of the Chinese American scientists and engineers made in
the defense of this nation, but little has been publicized. Per your
request, I’m citing a few examples to illustrate the point.
Chinese Americans have had a long history of participating
and often playing key roles, in the design, development,
and deployment of tactical and strategic defense
systems. There are about 150,000 Chinese American
scientists and engineers and of course they are
not all in the defense industry. In most of the
scientific or engineering establishments, related
to national defense, about 10 to 15 percent of
the technical staff are Chinese Americans, who
are normally the ones involved with the critical
technical details of the projects. As almost any
defense industry insider would verify, the contributions
of Chinese American scientists and engineers to
advances in defense systems have been and will
continue to be indispensable. Indeed, in many instances,
the innovations and contributions of Chinese Americans
have allowed the United States to retain preeminence
in high technology weaponry.
In the early days of the cold war, many Chinese
students came to this country as refugees from
the Chinese Communist revolution. Due to the language
barrier, most of them studied physical sciences
and many of them went on to play pioneering roles
in establishing the foundation of our missile program.
Dr. Shao-chi Lin of then AVCO Research Laboratory
and Professor H. K. Cheng of University of Southern
California established the physics of hypersonic
flow, which enabled the successful re-entry of
the ICBM’s and spacecraft into the atmosphere.
Another fundamental contribution came from Mr.
Andrew Chi of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight
Center. Mr. Chi developed the Cesium-133 atomic
clock, which is the heart of the GPS (Global Positioning
System.) GPS is being widely used, both for military
and commercial purposes such as guiding our tanks
during the Desert Storm campaign and directing
drivers in Hertz rent-a-cars. The work of stratified
flow in hydraulics, established by Professor Ted
Wu at Cal Tech, has contributed critically to our
underwater warfare program.
The contribution of the Chinese-American scientists
and engineers in more recent times, can be best
exemplified by a letter from the commander of the
U.S. Air Combat Command, commenting on the work
of Ted Wong, President of the Missile System Group,
Hughes Aircraft Company from 1985 through 1992.
The letter stated “...Your career has advanced
aerial warfare by an order of magnitude. We’re
the world’s best combat air force, because
of the contribution of Ted Wong and I can see and
measure these contributions eventually in the air
and on the flight line of Air Combat Command around
the world. ...” One might easily recognize
the critical role of our air superiority played
in the Desert Storm campaign, and now in the Kosovo
conflict.
Chinese American scientists and engineers are
contributing toward our future weapon system as
well. One example is the work of Professor Chih-ming
Ho of UCLA, a pioneer in applying MEMS (Micro Electromechanical
System) technology to the development of “smart
wing” for our future fighter aircraft design.
Professor Ho is also applying MEMS to develop a
smart micro-bat for reconnaissance purpose.
I hope the above examples will give you some ideas
about the contributions the Chinese American scientists
and engineers that have been making toward our
national defense. I’m sure we can find many
more examples if we spend the time and efforts.
If you have any question, you can reach me at 310
375-2348 or at CHSie@aol.com.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to recognize
the contributions of few Chinese American scientists
and engineers; I’ve always considered this
group, as a whole, to be the unsung heroes in the
defense of our nation.
Sincerely yours,
Charles Sie
Vice Chair, Committee of 100
26561 Silver Spur Road
Palos Verdes, CA 90275
cc: John D. Podesta, Chief of Staff
Marybeth Cahill, Office of Public Liaison
Neal Lane, National Science Advisor
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