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On 27 October, 1966 China tested a nuclear warhead by placing it on a missile and firing it 800 kilometres into the deserts of Xinjiang province. The warhead exploded as planned but the event is widely acknowledged as the most dangerous nuclear test in history. The man behind the Chinese missile programme is Tsien Hsue-shen, a Chinese-born engineer who trained in the US on the early rocket programme. In 1955, he was accused of being a communist and deported to China where he began the rocket programme that put the first Chinese satellite in orbit in 1970. Thread of the Silkworm (Basic Books, $27.50, ISBN 0 465 08716 7) by Iris Chang is his biography. Unfortunately, the book has a fatal flaw: since his expulsion, Tsien has consistently refused interviews with Western journalists. He made no exception far Chang who wrote the biography without his help.