Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Peer de Silva was born on July 26, 1917, in San Francisco to John de Silva and Andrea Abrahamsen.  After finishing high school at the age of 14 he attended the San Diego Army and Navy Academy before gaining an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.  Following his graduation from West Point in 1941 Peer was assigned to the Quartermaster Corps at Fort Ord, California.  After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor he was recruited by Major General Leslie Groves for the Manhattan Project, the secret effort to develop an atomic bomb.  Peer became the project security officer at Los Alamos, New Mexico, and in the summer of 1945 oversaw the transfer of the two atomic bombs used against Japan to Tinian Island in the Pacific.  With the end of World War II he was assigned to the Army’s Strategic Services Unit (SSU), a precursor to the CIA, and embarked on a long career as an intelligence officer.  Peer left the Army in 1953 and over the next decade served as CIA Chief of Station in Austria, South Korea and South Vietnam.  In 1957 he married Marilyn Spurr and the couple had six children (three sons and three daughters).  While assigned to Saigon, South Vietnam, Peer was badly injured in March 1965 by a Viet Cong bomb detonated outside his office window.  After recovering from his injuries he served in San Francisco, Washington, DC, and Australia before retiring from the CIA in January 1973.  Peer and Marilyn settled in Great Falls, Virginia, where he wrote a book about his experiences with the CIA titled “Sub Rosa: The CIA and Uses of Intelligence”.  During his long career he received the Army’s Legion of Merit and Distinguished Service Medal as well as the CIA Intelligence Service Medallion.  Peer died on August 12, 1978, and is buried in Section G of Culpeper National Cemetery.    

Peer Desilva is listed as a Notable burial at https://www.cem.va.gov/cems/nchp/culpeper.asp.

He was born in San Francisco on July 26, 1917. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1941 and followed with intelligence training. He was a security officer for the Manhattan Project, responsible for the transfer of atomic weapons abroad. After World War II, he was assigned to the Army's Strategic Services Unit, precursor to the CIA, and began a long career in Cold War intelligence. He was honorably discharged as a lieutenant colonel in 1953. He served as a station chief at numerous locations throughout his career, including Saigon in 1963. Injuries sustained from a 1965 car bomb forced a reassignment to Washington, DC. He retired from the CIA in 1972 and authored a book about his career, posthumously published in 1978. He died August 13, 1978.

https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/profile/peer-de-silva/

*The preceding content is not intended as a comprehensive biography, but it highlights their significance as a result of military or civilian distinction, lasting achievements, or association with impactful national events.


Atomic bomb test at Trinity Site in New Mexico on July 16, 1945.

This is a picture of the atomic bomb test in Mew Mexico on July 16, 1945.

This is a picture of Peer de Silva at West Point.

PEER DESILVA

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