JPL Mourns Passing of Former Director Lew Allen Jr.

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91109. TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Jane Platt 818-354-0880
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Jane.platt@Jpl.nasa.gov

News release: 2010-004 Jan. 5, 2010

JPL Mourns Passing of Former Director Lew Allen Jr.

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-004&cid=release_2010-004

A former director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Lew Allen Jr., passed away
Monday night, Jan. 4, at the age of 84, in Potomac Falls, Va. He led the laboratory from
1982 till 1990, during a period that included the launches of the Galileo mission to
Jupiter, Magellan to Venus and the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, as well as Voyager 2's
Uranus and Neptune flybys.

Allen was born Dec. 30, 1925, in Miami. He studied at the United States Military
Academy at West Point, N.Y., and had a distinguished career in the U.S. Army and the
Air Force, where he remained until 1982, achieving the rank of four-star general and
serving as Chief of Staff of the Air Force.

In 1954, while still an Air Force officer assigned to the Los Alamos National Laboratory
in New Mexico, Allen completed his doctorate in nuclear physics. He specialized in the
potentially damaging effects of high-altitude nuclear explosions on the ground and on
spacecraft.

After leaving Los Alamos in 1961, Allen served in various scientific posts within the
Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force.
Allen became director of the National Security Agency in 1973. Allen was also a member
of the National Academy of Engineering and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Burial is planned for Arlington National Cemetery, but funeral arrangements have not
been made yet.

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