Richard Pipes, Reagan Aide And Historian, Dies At 94
(JTA) — Richard Pipes, the author of a monumental series of historical works on Russia and a top advisor to the Reagan administration, died in Cambridge at the age of 94.
His son Daniel confirmed the death, the New York Times reported.
Pipes, who spent his entire academic career at Harvard, took his place in the front rank of Russian historians with the publication of “Russia Under the Old Regime” in 1974. But he achieved much wider renown as a public intellectual deeply skeptical about the American policy of détente with the Soviet Union.
A moralist shaped by his experiences as a Jew who had fled the Nazi occupation of Poland, Pipes presented the Bolshevik Party in Russia — one of the movements that vied for control of the vast country following the 1917 communist revolution that brought down the Czar’s rule — as a conspiratorial, deeply unpopular clique rather than the spearhead of a mass movement.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30