Background
Richard Pipes was born in Cieszyn, Poland to an assimilated Jewish family, under the name Ryszard Piepes (whose name had originally been spelled "Piepes"). His father Marek was a businessman and a Polish legionnaire. By Pipes's own account, during his childhood and youth, he never thought about the Soviet Union; the major cultural influences on him were Polish and German. The Pipes family fled occupied Poland in October 1939 and arrived in the United States in July 1940, after seven months passing through Italy. Pipes became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1943 while serving in the United States Army Air Corps. He was educated at Muskingum College, Cornell University, and Harvard University. He married Irene Eugenia Roth in 1946, and had two children with her. His son Daniel Pipes is a scholar of Middle Eastern affairs.
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