Cold War Secrets

Eileen Welsome

Description

Thomas Riha vanished on March 15, 1969, sparking a mystery that lives on 50 years later. A native of Prague, Czechoslovakia, Riha was a popular teacher at the University of Colorado at Boulder and a handsome man, with thick, graying hair and a wry smile. After his disappearance, the FBI and the CIA told local law enforcement and university officials that Riha was alive and well and had left Boulder to get away from his wife. But, as Eileen Welsome convincingly argues, Riha was not alive and well at all. A woman named Galya Tannenbaum, she concludes, had murdered him. Galya-a mother of four, a talented artist, and an FBI informant-allegedly went on to murder two more people in Denver as the trail to find Riha ran cold. Her weapon of choice? Cyanide. Galya was a chameleon, able to deceive businessmen and experienced investigators alike. But she had an Achilles' heel: she couldn't spell. She consistently misspelled words, such as "concider" and "extreemly." For the first time, Galya's signature misspellings are linked to documents once thought to be written by Riha and two other murder victims, as Welsome reexamines the facts and evidence of the case. She argues that these misspellings prove that Galya forged the documents and committed other murders. Her conclusion is buttressed by a wealth of additional information from police reports, depositions, and court testimony. Presenting a compelling cast of characters in an era of intrigue and with astounding attention to detail, Eileen Welsome demonstrates why Galya Tannenbaum's alleged crimes continue to fascinate-even as her motivations remain mysterious.

Sujets

• USA
• Cold War
• True crime
• États-Unis

Informations

• Publié par: The Kent State University Press
• Date de parution: 11 mai 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781631014550
• Langue: English

Extrait

COLD WAR SECRETS
TRUE CRIME HISTORY
Twilight of Innocence: The Disappearance of Beverly Potts · James Jessen Badal
Tracks to Murder · Jonathan Goodman
Terrorism for Self-Glorification: The Herostratos Syndrome · Albert Borowitz
Ripperology: A Study of the World’s First Serial Killer and a Literary Phenomenon · Robin Odell
The Good-bye Door: The Incredible True Story of America’s First Female Serial Killer to Die in the Chair · Diana Britt Franklin
Murder on Several Occasions · Jonathan Goodman
The Murder of Mary Bean and Other Stories · Elizabeth A. De Wolfe
Lethal Witness: Sir Bernard Spilsbury, Honorary Pathologist · Andrew Rose
Murder of a Journalist: The True Story of the Death of Donald Ring Mellett · Thomas Crowl
Musical Mysteries: From Mozart to John Lennon · Albert Borowitz
The Adventuress: Murder, Blackmail, and Confidence Games in the Gilded Age · Virginia A. McConnell
Queen Victoria’s Stalker: The Strange Case of the Boy Jones · Jan Bondeson
Born to Lose: Stanley B. Hoss and the Crime Spree That Gripped a Nation · James G. Hollock
Murder and Martial Justice: Spying and Retribution in World War II America · Meredith Lentz Adams
The Christmas Murders: Classic Stories of True Crime · Jonathan Goodman
The Supernatural Murders: Classic Stories of True Crime · Jonathan Goodman
Guilty by Popular Demand: A True Story of Small-Town Injustice · Bill Osinski
Nameless Indignities: Unraveling the Mystery of One of Illinois’s Most Infamous Crimes · Susan Elmore
Hauptmann’s Ladder: A Step-by-Step Analysis of the Lindbergh Kidnapping · Richard T. Cahill Jr.
The Lincoln Assassination Riddle: Revisiting the Crime of the Nineteenth Century · Edited by Frank J. Williams and Michael Burkhimer
Death of an Assassin: The True Story of the German Murderer Who Died Defending Robert E. Lee · Ann Marie Ackermann
The Insanity Defense and the Mad Murderess of Shaker Heights: Examining the Trial of Mariann Colby · William L. Tabac
The Belle of Bedford Avenue: The Sensational Brooks-Burns Murder in Turn-of-the-Century New York · Virginia A. McConnell
Six Capsules: The Gilded Age Murder of Helen Potts · George R. Dekle Sr.
A Woman Condemned: The Tragic Case of Anna Antonio · James M. Greiner
Bigamy and Bloodshed: The Scandal of Emma Molloy and the Murder of Sarah Graham · Larry E. Wood
The Beauty Defense: Femmes Fatales on Trial · Laura James
The Potato Masher Murder: Death at the Hands of a Jealous Husband · Gary Sosniecki
I Have Struck Mrs. Cochran with a Stake: Sleepwalking, Insanity, and the Trial of Abraham Prescott · Leslie Lambert Rounds
The Uncommon Case of Daniel Brown: How a White Police Officer Was Convicted of Killing a Black Citizen, Baltimore, 1875 · Gordon H. Shufelt
Cold War Secrets: A Vanished Professor, a Suspected Killer, and Hoover’s FBI · Eileen Welsome
COLD WAR SECRETS
A VANISHED PROFESSOR, A SUSPECTED KILLER, AND HOOVER’S FBI
EILEEN WELSOME
  The Kent State University Press    KENT, OHIO
© 2021 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Catalog Number 2021005745
ISBN 978-1-60635-425-4
Manufactured in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced, in any manner whatsoever, without written permission from the Publisher, except in the case of short quotations in critical reviews or articles.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Welsome, Eileen, author.
Title: Cold War secrets: a vanished professor, a suspected killer, and Hoover’s FBI / Eileen Welsome.
Description: Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 2021. | Series: True crime history | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021005745 | ISBN 9781606354254 (paperback) | ISBN 9781631014550 (epub) | ISBN 9781631014567 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Riha, Thomas. | Missing persons--Investigation. | Tannenbaum, Galya, 1931-1971. | United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation--History. | Cold War.
Classification: LCC HV6762.U5 W45 2021 | DDC 363.2/336--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021005745
25 24 23 22 21   5 4 3 2 1
To Jim
Thomas Riha and Hana Hruskova before the wedding. (Courtesy Hana Riha)
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Prologue: The Smell of Ether
PART I: BEGINNINGS
     1  Crazy Billy
     2  Galya
     3  Thomas
     4  Behind the Iron Curtain
     5  Chicago
     6  Boulder
PART II: “ALIVE AND WELL”
     7  Neighborhood Watch
     8  Country Cousins and Socialites
     9  Gus
   10  Barbara
   11  “Bag of Snakes”
   12  Making Mud
   13  Sightings
PART III: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
   14  “H” Bomb
   15  The Huston Plan
   16  Thirty-Six Days
   17  The Trial
   18  The Smell of Almonds
PART IV: “WHAT WOULD THE RUSSIANS THINK?”
   19  Torpedoes and Submarines
   20  The Fink
   21  Misspellings and Murder
   22  The Informant and the “Useful Idiot”
Epilogue
Notes
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I first heard about Thomas Riha almost a decade ago from a friend and fellow journalist named Julie Hutchinson, who had written about the case for the Boulder Camera.
Julie pulled up a photograph of Riha on her cell phone. He was a handsome man with a head of thick, dark hair and a carnation in his lapel. “I was surprised nobody bothered to look for him after the Berlin Wall fell,” she said.
“I’m going to find him,” I responded spontaneously.
At a local history conference a couple of months later, I happened to meet Vonnie Perkins, the mother-in-law of Becky Perkins, Galya Tannenbaum’s youngest child.
Vonnie arranged an interview for me with Becky, who came to the meeting with documents and Galya’s jewelry box. When I opened the jewelry box, the theme song from Doctor Zhivago started to play. In one of the trays were several small-caliber bullets.
I picked them up and rolled them in my hand. They were real. I looked questioningly at Becky.
She shrugged noncommittally.
Initially, I thought Galya was an innocent woman who had been made a scapegoat by federal and local law enforcement officials. It didn’t seem plausible that a woman who was nearly forty years old, had four children, and no history of violent crimes would begin murdering people—with cyanide no less. But as I began reading the case files, many of which have been unavailable for decades, I realized that Galya was a darker and more complex person than I had imagined. I also realized that finding Thomas Riha—or his body—was going to be nearly impossible, but I was too deep into the story to quit.
Many other people shared their memories and insights with me, including Zdenek Cerveny and Jarmila Zakova, Thomas Riha’s nephew and niece, who both now live in Prague. Zdenek had just emigrated from Czechoslovakia to the United States when Riha disappeared and was plunged into the middle of the unfolding mystery. Jarmila remained in Prague and showed me the flimsy, blue airmail letters that Thomas had written to her in earlier years.
Although the Church Committee and former Colorado senator Gary Hart released a statement in the 1970s saying Riha was probably living in eastern Europe, Zdenek and Jarmila long ago gave up hope that Riha was alive and would one day coming knocking at their door.
I am also indebted to Hana Riha, Thomas’s ex-wife, who had looked forward to a happy marriage in Boulder only to flee her home forever on a cold spring night in March 1969. Hana spoke candidly of her brief marriage and loaned me many of the photographs used in this book.
I also owe a big thanks to Pete Ingwersen, one of Gustav Ingwersen’s grandchildren, who shared his memories of Gus and allowed me to use Gus’s photo in this book.
I also was fortunate enough to meet Fred Gillies a few weeks before he died. Fred covered the Riha story for the Denver Post for a decade. After his death, his nephew, Randy Gillies, loaned me a box of documents that Fred had kept on the case. Going through those records was an unforgettable experience: an investigative reporter picking up the trail of another investigative reporter. Fred had served in the military during World War II and he typed and dated most of his interviews. Reading his notes was almost like being present for those long-ago interviews.
I would not have been able to obtain information on Thomas Riha’s childhood or the background of his relatives without the assistance of David Kohout, a researcher and translator who lives in the Czech Republic. David and I went together to the Czech National Archives and to the Institute for Totalitarian Regimes in Prague. Afterward we photographed every home in Prague where members of the Kress and Riha families had lived.
Beth Rashbaum made invaluable suggestions early in the project, as did several readers later on. I am also indebted to the many academics who recalled what they know about Thomas Riha, particularly Joyce Lebra, who cotaught a history class with Thomas and fearlessly demanded that law enforcement officials investigate Riha’s sudden disappearance. Donald Fanger, Riha’s longtime friend, was also helpful, as were Richard Wortman, Jim Jankowski, Boyd Hill, Elisabeth Israels Perry, and Francis Randall and Oren Jarinkes.
Gerald Caplan, Hana’s divorce lawyer, and John Kokish, Galya’s defense lawyer, provided valuable insight. John Kokish is now deceased but his voluminous files on the case have been deposited with History Colorado and are available to the public. Robert Schwind and Dennis Blewitt, also lawyers, shared their impressions of Thomas Riha with me.
Law enforcement officials were also accommodating. From the Boulder Police Department, I received a stack of documents nearly a foot deep. The Denver Police Department’s Mary Dulacki promptly supplied me with the investigative files of Gustav Ingwersen and Barbara Egbert. Retired DPD detectives Tom Lohr, Phillip Villalovos, and Charlie McCormick, all of whom had been present for one or more interv