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Was America's Top Rocketeer a Communist Spy? The FBI Thought So

Posted by Unknown on from the spying-as-a-hobby dept.

New submitter IMissAlexChilton (3748631) writes Frank Malina masterfully led the World War II effort to build U.S. rockets for jet-assisted takeoff and guided missiles. As described in IEEE Spectrum, Malina's motley crew of engineers and enthusiasts (including occultist Jack Parsons) founded the Jet Propulsion Lab and made critical breakthroughs in solid fuels, hypergolics, and high-altitude sounding rockets, laying the groundwork for NASA's future successes. And yet, under suspicion by the Feds at the war's end, Malina gave up his research career, and his team's efforts sank into obscurity. Taking his place: the former Nazi Wernher von Braun. Read "Frank Malina: America's Forgotten Rocketeer". Includes cool vintage footage of early JPL rocket tests.

17 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. White Werhner von Braun may be many things... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A Nazi he was not.

    Go read up on the history of Germany's rocket scientists. The majority were a buncha eggheads who thought it was cool they'd found someone willing to fund them, right up until they found themselves with guns pointed at their heads and explanations of what would happen to them or their families if they didn't succeed.

    While it's s sad Frank Malina lost out on continued innovation in the JPL, put the blame where it belongs: The Feds and the Congresscritters who were so caught up in their witch hunts that they drove away the very brilliance that might've helped us not only take the space race to another level, but perhaps also avoid the stagnation imbued during the late saturn v and shuttle era.

    Imagine if Skylab had stayed in orbit and been used as the basis of an ISS 20 years earlier.

    The possibilities were endless. But as usual jackbooted thugs and politicos ruined them for their own careers.

    1. Re:White Werhner von Braun may be many things... by Nutria · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The majority were a buncha eggheads who thought it was cool they'd found someone willing to fund them,

      And willingly worked 12,000 "undesirables" to death.

      put the blame where it belongs

      Square on Frank Malina's shoulders for wanting to do something else.

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    2. Re:White Werhner von Braun may be many things... by Kaenneth · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It inspired Fear, and a weapon of terror against civilian targets was the real requirement.

    3. Re:White Werhner von Braun may be many things... by readin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Of course you need to remember that the US government was infiltrated with communist spies and sympathizers. You only need to look at Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, Harry Hopkins and the Rosenbergs.

      Good luck getting Communism Deniers to admit this. I would be happy if we can get them to admit that Russian Communism was just as evil as Nazism.

      --
      I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
    4. Re:White Werhner von Braun may be many things... by Nyder · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Of course you need to remember that the US government was infiltrated with communist spies and sympathizers. You only need to look at Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, Harry Hopkins and the Rosenbergs.

      You know, it's sort of like terrorists today. We might have a few here (and we do, Boston marathon bombing) but see, most of us are NOT terrorist, but the way out government acts, there is terrorists under every bed. Not unlike how they acted in the "communist" scare days.

      The problem? Our government, the USA doesn't care if it fucks over all it's law abiding citizens trying to stamp out a few "undesirables". They didn't care back then, they don't give a fuck today. That is the problem. They create these monsters why how they act, then want to punish us for it?

      --
      Be seeing you...
    5. Re:White Werhner von Braun may be many things... by Charliemopps · · Score: 3, Insightful

      We weren't there. Was he picking them like Schindlers List? Trying to save his engineering colleagues? Or was he hating on Jews? I dunno, the mans dead and history books are notoriously inaccurate with details like this. I'll let God judge him... if there is no afterlife then this arguments an exercise in futility.

    6. Re:White Werhner von Braun may be many things... by LWATCDR · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You left out the third option. Was he just trying to stay alive and ignoring the conditions around him. It is very easy for humans to do that.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  2. Lessons for today's world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I wonder how many innocent people today have had themselves and their careers ruined by the NSA/GCHQ/TLA and how as a result we have all suffered by not benefiting from their work.

    1. Re:Lessons for today's world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yep replace paranoia over communism with paranoia over terrorism and we have the NEW USA.

    2. Re:Lessons for today's world by ToasterMonkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I wonder how many innocent people today have had themselves and their careers ruined by the NSA/GCHQ/TLA and how as a result we have all suffered by not benefiting from their work.

      In an environment where you can be punished for your beliefs, is intelligence really the evil?

      It's not the information that's to blame, it's what people do with it, and the worse people are, the less they'll need.
      Think of the worst people throughout history, and imagine them making less informed decisions.

      McCarthyism, Salem witch trials, Inquisitions

      See, the problem wasn't solid information regarding who's a communist, who's a witch, or who's Muslim, the problem was the people punishing you if they thought you smelled like one.

    3. Re:Lessons for today's world by AK+Marc · · Score: 1, Insightful

      You are aware that the implementation of communism is a breach of fundamental human rights?

      Any one party system is a breach of fundamental rights.

      I don't remember "property" in the "Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" quote. Are you arguing that you have the right to property?

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    4. Re:Lessons for today's world by readin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You are aware that the implementation of communism is a breach of fundamental human rights?

      Any one party system is a breach of fundamental rights. I don't remember "property" in the "Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" quote. Are you arguing that you have the right to property?

      The philosopher they were channeling had said life, liberty, body and property. Also the forerunner to the Declaration of Independence was the Virginia Declaration of rights which said "That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."

      Later of course property was included as fundamental in the Fifth Amendment which said "No person shall...be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" and again in the Fourteenth Amendment which says "...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

      Property is so fundamental that it was one of the earliest rights recognized. The Magna Carta says, "No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land."

      So yes, we all do have the right to property. It is fundamental.

      --
      I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
    5. Re:Lessons for today's world by AK+Marc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Doing what you want and telling others they can't do what they want because you claim the land under them, or the clothes on their back doesn't sound like "liberty" either.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    6. Re:Lessons for today's world by AK+Marc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You have a right to *your* posessions, but not a fundamental right to own any possessions. Once you have them, they are yours, but that's different than saying you have the right to the.

      Just because I have the right to procrate, doesn't mean I will have children provided to me (by the government or private enterprise), should I demand them. Property is the same. You don't have a right to "have" property, but once you have it, it is yours.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
  3. Re:He isn't the only one by The+Evil+Atheist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm pretty sure China's "father of rockets" lived sometime during the Song Dynasty.

    --
    Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
  4. Re:Van Braun built weapons for Nazis by Concerned+Onlooker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "So no, it's not at all accurate to speculate that Von Braun was a Nazi or into that whole ideology."

    No, he was just a guy who used up the lives of prisoners to meet his ends. He may not have been an ideologue, but he was a sociopath.

    --
    http://www.rootstrikers.org/
  5. Re:Van Braun built weapons for Nazis by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Insightful

    f he faced a choice between following his dreams and not killing people I'd have to say the latter is the far better choice.

    It's very easy to say that when faced with threats against yourself or your family. We'd all like to believe that we'd do the right thing in the face of overwhelming adversity, but frankly you have no way of knowing what you'd do until it happens.

    It is however easy to judge from behind the safety of a keyboard.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.