Saville Sax (July 26, 1924 – September 25, 1980) was the
Harvard College
Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...
roommate of
Theodore Hall
Theodore Alvin Hall (October 20, 1925 – November 1, 1999) was an American physicist and an atomic spy for the Soviet Union, who, during his work on United States efforts to develop the first and second atomic bombs during World War II ( ...
who recruited Hall for the Soviets and acted as a courier to move the
atomic secrets from
Los Alamos to the Soviets.
Biography
Saville Sax was born in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
on July 26, 1924, and went by the name of Savvy Sax. He was the son of Bernard Sax (1896–1936) and Bluma Sax (1895–1986). Bluma and Bernard were both born in Russia, of
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...
ish ancestry. In 1930 they were living in Manhattan with their grandfather Jacob Sax (1874–?). Saville was introduced to Soviet agents by his mother, Bluma, who worked for a Communist front organization called Russian War Relief. Sax went by the cover name "Oldster," and periodically traveled to New Mexico to collect information from Hall. Saville had a son,
Boria Sax
Boria Sax (born 1949) is an American author and lecturer and a teacher at Mercy College.
Boria Sax is probably best known for his writing on human-animal relations, where he has developed a style that combines scholarship with narrative and lyr ...
, a daughter, Sarah Sax, and a sister, Anne Saville Arenberg (1925-1967). After drifting from job to job, Saville ended up teaching "values clarification" in a
Great Society
The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States launched by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964–65. The term was first coined during a 1964 commencement address by President Lyndon B. Johnson at the University ...
funded education program called
NEXTEP, when he was "something of an adult hippie, disheveled in his personal habits and given to
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...
and other hallucinogenic drugs" and "openly boasted of his role in the
tomicspying."
Neil Sheehan
Cornelius Mahoney Sheehan (October 27, 1936 – January 7, 2021) was an American journalist. As a reporter for ''The New York Times'' in 1971, Sheehan obtained the classified ''Pentagon Papers'' from Daniel Ellsberg. His series of articles reve ...
, ''A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon'' (New York: Random House, 2009), 110. He died on September 25, 1980, in
Edwardsville, Illinois
Edwardsville is a city in and the county seat of Madison County, Illinois, and is a suburb of St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri ...
.
References
External links
*
*Family of Spies" by Bluma Sax's grandson Boria Sax at www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/venona/fami_sax.html
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sax, Saville
1924 births
1980 deaths
Espionage in the United States
People from New York City
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
American spies for the Soviet Union
Harvard College alumni
Nuclear weapons program of the Soviet Union