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First Name: Boris

Last Name: Pash

Birthplace: San Francisco, CA, USA

Gender: Male

Branch: Army (1784 - present)



Middle Name: Theodore



Date of Birth: 20 June 1901

Date of Death: 11 May 1995

Rank: Colonel

Years Served:
Boris Theodore Pash

   
Engagements:
•  World War II (1941 - 1945)

Biography:

Boris Theodore Pash
Colonel, U.S. Army

Boris Theodore Pash was born on 20 June 1901 in San Francisco, CA. The son of a Russian Orthodox priest, Pash moved with his family to Russia at a young age. With the coming of the Russian Revolution, he joined the White Russian forces fighting against the Communist revolutionaries. Eventually returning to the U.S., he settled in Los Angeles where he became a high school teacher.

A reserve officer in the U.S. Army, he was called to active service shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War and was assigned to duty with Military Intelligence. When war was declared, Lieutenant Colonel Pash was assigned as Chief of Security for the Manhattan Project, serving until 1943. During this time, he began investigating possible security breaches of the Radiation Laboratory at the University of California Berkeley and, in the process, singled out Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer. His investigation later played a key role in the 1953 investigation of Oppenheimer's ties to Communism.

In 1943, Pash was sent to Europe where he was assigned as the military officer in charge of the ALSOS Mission, the American mission to capture Nazi atomic weapon scientists and laboratories, and served near the front of the Allied advance until war's end. In 1948, he was assigned to duty with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) where he worked until 1951.

He retired from the Army at the rank of Colonel in 1957.

Death and Burial

Colonel Boris Theodore Pash died on 11 May 1995 in Greenbrae, CA. He is buried at the Serbian Cemetery in Colma, CA.



Honoree ID: 2941   Created by: MHOH

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