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 ...

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""T ...

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 ly ...

, 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 Universit ...

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 rev ...

, ''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. As of the 2020 census, the population was 26,808. The city was named in honor of Ninian Edwards, then Governor of the Illinois Territory. ...

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