Szuprowicz became an orphan at birth when his mother died from an infection following cesarean delivery. Her family kidnapped him and accused the father of poisoning his wife with the aid of a lover, a pharmacist. When a post-mortem confirmed their innocence, the baby was retrieved from a backward village in Lithuania. Bohdan grew up in a military compound where his father served as an artillery officer.
He became a true “child of war” when the Germans bombed the military bases of his native Grodno on the first day of WWII. The family evacuated with military convoys that were strafed by German aircraft and harassed by pro-Soviet terrorists until they reached the relative safety of Romania.
During his formative years Bohdan grew up on the beaches of Cote d’Azur inVichy France. He gained notoriety at that time as an unruly child who tore down Hitlerite posters promoting collaboration. When the Germans occupied the entire country after allied invasion of North Africa, the family escaped across the Pyrenees into Spain, where they were arrested and interrogated by Franco’s pro-Nazi security services. Eventually they reached Lisbon and boarded a flying boat clipper for a night flight across the German-controlled Bay of Biscay to Ireland. After a brief internment in England as foreign aliens the family was able to rejoin the father already serving in allied forces in the UK.
As a teenager Szuprowicz attended several schools in Scotland where he matriculated and was invited to a reception in honor of His Royal Highness Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. His political statement at the time was to tear down a Soviet flag displayed on Princes Street during the first Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama, in protest of postwar treatment of Poland by the allies.
He engaged in farming with his father in East Anglia, but was soon on the move to London where he worked his way through the university. He also traveled in Europe to visit U. S. -backed Free Europe institutions engaged in Cold War propaganda and observed the Arab independence uprisings in Tangier and Morocco.
In 1957 he left for Canada, where he worked in the aircraft industry. Soon after the Russians launched the Sputnik satellite, he was recruited by Boeing in Seattle. Later he joined General Dynamics and IBM, whence he moved to the Center for Economic and Industrial Research Inc. headqua