[WMarshal]

"(1) the Russian rockets were all derived from the German V2 technology
(2) von Braun said he could have launched a satellite as early as 1955, if he was given the US Gov't's full support ... but that didn't happen, he was always opposed by SAC's Curtis LeMay until Sputnik

Are you too slow to not see how your points 1 and 2 contradict one another? NASA in the 50s was practically a German POW camp.

[Sirius Lee]

NASA in the 50s was practically a German POW camp.

So was the CIA. One could make the argument based on its behavior over the decades that the latter's mission remains the implementation of a global 4th reich.

[canuck_conservative]

go back to worshipping your warmongering Tsar

[Paul R.]

There is no contradiction. The Russians nabbed quite a bit of tech and more German scientists than the US did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Osoaviakhim

The real difference was that the US did not press the space race for several years.