Борис Паш: Американ сардары мен барлаушының өмірі мен қызметі

United States Army officer (1900–1995)

Boris Theodore Pash (born Boris Fyodorovich Pashkovsky; Борис Фёдорович Пашковский; 20 June 1900 – 11 May 1995) was a United States Army military intelligence officer. He commanded the Alsos Mission during World War II and retired with the rank of colonel.

Boris Fedorovich Pashkovsky was born in San Francisco, California, on 20 June 1900. His father was recalled to Russia in 1906, and the entire family returned to Russia in 1912. His mother was Serbian American Ella Dabovich, sister of Sebastian Dabovich, a monk who also lived in America and was canonized after death as an Orthodox saint. In 1916–1917, both father and son joined the ranks of the Russian army as it fought against Germany and the Austro Hungarian Empire in World War I: Theodore – as a military chaplain, and 16 year old Boris – as an artillery private. During the Russian Revolution, he served in the White navy in the Black Sea from 1918 to 1920 against the Bolsheviks. During this time he continued his education, receiving a Master of Science in Education from the University of Southern California in 1939. During this mission, he had a heated run in in Italy with Moe Berg, a former Major League Baseball catcher turned spy.

After the war, Pash served in various military intelligence positions. He served under General Douglas MacArthur in Japan in 1946 and 1947. Thanks to his efforts, the Soviet attempt to gain a foothold in Japan through a local Orthodox Church failed. Instead, Pash organized for the Bishop Benjamin (Basalyga) to arrive in early January 1947 to take the reins, and thus the North American Metropolia, rather than the then Soviet controlled Moscow Patriarchate, secured influence in the region. As a result of this combination, Pash had a public clash with the Soviet General Kuzma Derevyanko. On 9 January, two days after the first sermon of the new bishop, a reception was held at the Dutch embassy at which Pash met his longtime acquaintance, Lieutenant General Derevyanko, who represented the USSR in the Allied Council for Japan. The rival picks of the Russian emigrant and the Soviet commander were well known; in addition, they sometimes played against one another in chess. Shaking the Russian American's hand that winter day, Derevyanko publicly declared: "My good friend, Colonel Pash, once again checkmated me. Of course, as you can imagine, I'm talking about chess." Boris retorted: "I assure you, gentlemen, that in all other cases it was out of business." From 1948 to 1951, he served as a military representative to the Central Intelligence Agency. In retirement, Pash published The Alsos Mission, a book recounting his wartime experiences in Europe, in 1980. He was inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame in 1988. He visited Russia after the August Putsch for the first time since he left the country with the remains of Wrangel's fleet in 1920, being one of the few White Russian veterans to live to see the end of Communist Party rule in Russia. Pash died on 11 May 1995 in Greenbrae, California at the age of 94, and was buried in the Serbian Cemetery in Colma, California. He was survived by his wife Gladys and son Edgar. His papers are in the Hoover Institute at Stanford University.

Pash was played by Casey Affleck in Christopher Nolan's 2023 film Oppenheimer.