-
An American in Vilnius
It was an age of suspicion. It was a time within the Soviet Union that all foreigners, especially an English-speaking foreigner and more so an “American” came under immediate suspicion by the NKVD. Americans and those who knew or had relatives in the West had to be shunned, after all, the USSR was surrounded by…
-
A Phone Call from Paris
“A teacher may forget a student; but a student will never forget a teacher.” I found that to be true over the years, for many of my former Soviet students have continued to keep in touch with me thanks to the Internet. One such student, who was on staff at the BBC in London, serving…
-
Time does not ease the pain
She sat there in the living room of our Southfield, Michigan, home her eyes glued to the book. Not once as she was reading did she glance at her husband, who was sitting directly across from her. I had left to make some tea and when I returned with a cup and saucer she was…
-
Tears of joy
It would be my first of seven talks in California that I would give on The Cold War and my recently published book, “The Repatriate: Love Basketball and the KGB”. Our first stop was Mission Hills, a serene senior citizens community that has a notable museum, the Ararat Eskijian, on its spacious and plush site.…
-
A Visit to American House
During one of my many visits to Moscow I had met and befriended a Michigan State University language professor who, after listening to my story, asked whether he could be of any assistance to me. I asked if possible, would he contact my parents and tell them that I am in good health and in…
-
Voting: USA vs. USSR
I was 31-years-old before I could vote in an U.S. Presidential election. The year was 1960, and the major candidates were Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy, and having seen and heard the Vice President in Moscow during the summer of 1959, I came away very impressed with him. Nixon had…
-
A Slave to Nightmares
Read more about Tom’s return to the US in A Person of Interest Part 1 and Part 2 Inside the walls of the days and nights of my past I became a slave to my nightmares. I had been in the shadows of the KGB for so many years their ghosts became real and they…
-
A Person of Interest…Part 2
This is Part 2 of A Person of Interest. Read Part 1 here. Do you not think that a man or woman who was born, raised and educated in the United States and disappeared for thirteen years behind the Iron Curtain, and then suddenly appeared in the United State would not raise J. Edgar Hoover’s…
-
Valley of Death
I have walked in the valley of death….and I have seen the face of evil. Born an American, I lived in Stalin’s Russia for thirteen years. Humiliated because of my past and impoverished by a system that suppressed private enterprise and individuality, and considered “a tool of the capitalist”, I quickly found there were no green…