Personal freedom, independence of views, systematic work, responsibility reflect the essence of the life philosophy of the famous American historian, author of several fundamental studies on the history of Russia and the USSR, Richard Pipes. These life values became the main ones for him from the time when, in 1939, he, a sixteen-year-old Jewish youth miraculously escaped with his parents from Nazi-occupied Poland, avoiding the fate of many of his relatives and friends who burned in the flames of the Holocaust. Scientific career at Harvard University, to which the author of the memoir devoted half a century, service in the US National Security Council, morals, practices and collisions in the highest bureaucratic environment and in the scientific community of the United States, personal impressions from communication with iconic figures of the American and Soviet socio-political landscape, views on many key events in the history of Russia, the USSR, and American-Soviet relations formed the basis of this dignified and calm wisdom biography Richard Pipes.