NY NY - Juliet Stuart Poyntz, 50, New York, June 1937

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Juliet Stuart Poyntz
Missing since June, 1937 from New York City, New York
Classification: Missing

Vital Statistics
Date Of Birth: November 26, 1886
Age at Time of Disappearance: 50 years old

Circumstances of Disappearance
Juliet Stuart Poyntz was one of the founding members of the American Communist Party and was for many years at the center of its internal workings and factional struggles.

A graduate of Barnard College and Columbia University, she traveled all over the world promoting Communism until she dropped out of the American Communist Party in 1934 in order to work as an agent for the OGPU, the secret police agency of the Soviet Union and predecessor of the KGB.
She received intensive training in espionage and returned to the United States. In 1936, she was recalled to Moscow for debriefing and to receive further instructions. But while she was there, she became disillusioned after witnessing first hand the purges that Stalin had instigated against old line Bolsheviks,followers of Lenin and anyone who might opose him in the future. She had been interrogated herself and her loyalty questioned.

She had barely managed to allay suspicion before returning to the United States. Badly shaken, she quit her espionage work and openly denounced Communism. She told people she was thinking about writing her memoirs. She was last seen around June 4 or 5, 1937.

In Early December 1937, her lawyer reported her missing to the New York City Police Department. In her apartment at the American Women's Association Clubhouse at 353 West 57th St., she left behind all of her belongings and her passport. She also left behind a bank account containing $10,500 which had not been touched since she was last seen.

It is widely believed that she was abducted and murdered on orders of Soviet Intelligence. She was declared legally dead on October 26, 1944.

Investigators
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact: New York City Police Department Missing Person's Squad 212-473-2042 .

Source Information:
the Bernard College Archives
Spys and Spymasters of Espionage Website
The Charley Project
The Doe Network: Case File 1495DFNY

Link:
 
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...On one evening in early June of 1937, Juliet Stuart Poyntz walked out of her room at the American Woman’s Association Clubhouse at 353 West 57th Street. She was never seen or heard from again. The New York Times, which carried a few stories several months later related to her disappearance, reported that her room looked just as if she had expected to return that same night; she had not taken any extra clothing with her, and all her luggage remained in the room.

It is virtually certain that Poyntz was murdered by the OGPU. The Soviet secret police was prompt in eliminating anyone who knew too much about its workings, especially if that person had shown signs of disillusionment and even intended to reveal its activities to the public. Several rather comprehensive accounts exist of Poyntz’s death, all of them based on the story told by Benjamin Gitlow. According to his version, the OGPU used Poyntz’s former lover, a man named Shachno Epstein, the associate editor of the Yiddish daily newspaper Freiheit and an OGPU agent himself, to lure Poyntz out for a walk in Central Park. “They met at Columbus Circle and proceeded to walk through Central Park,” Gitlow writes. “ [...] Shachno took her by the arm and led her up a side path, where a large black limousine hugged the edge of the walk. [...] Two men jumped out, grabbed Miss Poyntz, shoved her into the car and sped away.” As the assassins supposedly reported later, they took Poyntz to the woods near the Roosevelt estate in Dutchess County, and killed and buried her there. “The body was covered with lime and dirt. On top were placed dead leaves and branches which the three killers trampled down with their feet.”

However, Gitlow’s description of the abduction and murder, like the rest of his book, The Whole of Their Lives (1948), is saturated with flowery and overly dramatic details which make it seem less than perfectly credible. His trustworthiness is further undermined by his obvious lack of knowledge about the basic structure of secret police work. In light of such inaccuracies, we have reason to doubt his account of Juliet Stuart Poyntz’s abduction and murder, especially the details, and therefore the subsequent accounts based upon it, e.g., On a Field of Red (1981) and Women in Espionage (1993).

Nonetheless, New York Times articles from the years immediately after Poyntz’s disappearance at least support Gitlow’s claim that Poyntz was murdered by agents of the OGPU. According to the articles, Carlo Tresca, anarchist and leader of New York’s anti-fascists, voluntarily appeared before Francis A. Mahony, acting chief of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney General’s office, then before a federal grand jury, in order to provide information in support of his claim that Poyntz “was ‘lured or kidnapped’ to Soviet Russia because she broke with her associates and ‘knew too much’.”

The newspaper never reveals the name of Poyntz’s abductor, which Tresca gave to the legal authorities, but the description which Tresca shared with the correspondents sounds similar to that of Shachno Epstein: the agent is described as having “been an editor of a Communist foreign-language newspaper in this city,” “an intimate friend of Miss Poyntz,” in “the service of the [Russian] secret police,” and a person in whom Poyntz “had absolute confidence.” Tresca knew Poyntz well, and had connections with other OGPU agents in the U.S., and therefore was likely to know or suspect the truth about Poyntz’s disappearance, or at least about the identity of the person used as a lure in her abduction. Therefore, it is grimly unsurprising to read in the Times that Tresca himself was murdered in January 1943.

It seems plausible to this researcher that, when Poyntz was about to give compromising information about them, the OGPU got rid of her, and when Tresca, in turn, exposed the OGPU murderers of Juliet Stuart Poyntz and the details of their plot, the OGPU eliminated him as well.Of all Poyntz’s colleagues in the Communist underworld, undoubtedly the most famous was Whittaker Chambers, who would later shake the nation with his public allegations against Alger Hiss. The murder of Juliet Stuart Poyntz apparently made a deep impression on Chambers just as he was contemplating a break with the Communist Party. In his classic memoir, Witness (1952), Chambers writes that after learning of Poyntz’s murder and several other similar cases, he determined to arrange his flight from the Party with great care, “using against the conspiracy all the conspiratorial method it had taught me.”

On October 26, 1944, over seven years after her disappearance, Poyntz was declared legally dead by Surrogate Judge James A. Foley in New York City. Letters of administration on Poyntz’s $10,500 estate were awarded to her sister, Eulalie Poyntz McClelland of Frederickstown, Ohio, as sole next of kin.

Juliet Stuart Poyntz was a suffragist, a feminist, a trade unionist, a socialist, and a Communist. Her passion for justice led her to renounce the ideology to which that passion had earlier led her--Stalinist Communism. However, it proved impossible for her to extricate herself from the grip of the Stalinist OGPU, who were not as concerned with justice as they were with self-preservation and revenge--which meant ruthlessly punishing those who had expressed dissatisfaction with them and their methods. In the larger historical scheme of things, Juliet Stuart Poyntz was but one of many victims of the Stalinist purges of the 1930’s that liquidated thousands in Russia and around the world, including one of Barnard’s own.

SOURCES:
•Cave Brown, Anthony, and Charles Brown MacDonald. On a Field of Red: The Communist International and the Coming of World War II. New York: Putnam, 1981;
•Chambers, Whittaker. Witness. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1952;
•Gitlow, Benjamin. The Whole of Their Lives: Communism in America--A Personal History and Intimate Portrayal of its Leaders. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1971 (originally published 1948);
•Mahoney, M.H. Women in Espionage: A Biographical Dictionary. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1993;
The New York Times, 1937-1949 [many articles];
•Poyntz, Juliet Stuart. “Industrial Peace and War.” The Nation, February 15, 1919, pp. 246-247;
•Poyntz, Juliet Stuart.“The World and the Practical Man.” The Nation, August 17, 1921, p. 164;
•The Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature, v. 5 (1919-1921);
•Sione, Patrizia, ed. “Relief Work.” The Triangle Factory Fire. Last updated March 3, 2002. Retrieved March 14, 2002 from the World Wide Web: <http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/narrative5.html>;
•Weinstein, Allen. Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case. New York: Knopf, 1978;
Application for Examination for Admission to Barnard College, submitted by Juliet Stuart Points, September 1903;
•The Barnard Bulletin, January 4, April 4, and May 2, 1904; December 18, 1912; The Mortarboard 1905-1908; ALS, Juliet Stuart Points to Sophie Parsons Woodman, n.d. [ca. 1906]; Woodman, Sophie Parsons, ed. 1907 Class Book, 1907-1912; Points, Juliet Stuart. “Valedictory.” In Woodman, Sophie Parsons, ed. Commencement Week Speeches: Barnard College Class of 1907; Poyntz, Juliet Stuart. “Suffragism and Feminism at Barnard.” The Barnard Bear, April 1914, pp. 3-4; Report and Register of the Associate Alumnae of Barnard College, 1910-1915;
•Woodman, Sophie Parsons, ed., 1907 Class Book, 1912-1917 (Barnard College Archives)

by Irina Vodonos

Link:
http://www.barnard.columbia.edu/archives/persons.html#Juliet
 
I have always found this case to be a fascinating one. It may never be solved, but there is so much international intrigue in it. Would make a great story. This June marks the 70th anniversary of Juliet Stuart Poyntz's mysterious disappearance.
 
You're right, Juliet's story has all it takes to make a great novel!!

Her close friend Shachno Epstein was, in my estimation, the key to Juliet's disappearance. I doubt that he actually killed her, but I can easily see him luring her into a situation where OGPU would take care of her demise. If Epstein was part of the secret police, his loyalty to OGPU would be much stronger than his loyalty to Juliet.

I agree with you that Gitlow's account of Juliet's abduction/murder are rather fanciful and I don't put much credibility in what Gitlow said.

It seems plausible to me that Juliet had become disillusioned and was planning to tell what she knew about OGPU. As you have pointed out, she was a feminist (in an age of male domination in business and society), a trade unionist (at a time when women weren't even supposed to know about such things), a socialist, and a Communist - an unsually free thinking woman for her day.

Very interesting.
 
Juliet Stuart Poyntz

Juliet Stuart Poyntz circa 1918
Born
Juliet Stuart Points

November 25, 1886
Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.
Disappeared June 3, 1937
New York City, New York, U.S.
Status Missing for 83 years, 10 months and 7 days
Died presumably June 3, 1937 (age 50)
Education Barnard College (BA)
Columbia University (MA)
Alma mater Barnard College
Occupation suffragist, feminist, trade unionist, socialist, communist, political activist, spy
Years active 1909–1937
Employer various including Barnard College and Communist Party USA
Agent GRU
Known for unexplained disappearance
Political party Socialist Party of America, Communist Party USA
Spouse(s) Friedrich Franz Ludwig Glaser
Relatives Eulalie Poyntz McClelland (sister)

LINK:

Juliet Stuart Poyntz - Wikipedia
 
Juliet Stuart Poyntz
juliet_stuart_poyntz_1.jpg
juliet_stuart_poyntz_2.jpg
juliet_stuart_poyntz_3.jpg

Poyntz, circa 1906 (thirty-one years prior to her disappearance); Poyntz, in 1934; Poyntz, circa 1937
  • Missing Since 06/01/1937
  • Missing From Manhattan, New York
  • Classification Endangered Missing
  • Sex Female
  • Race White
  • Date of Birth 11/26/1886 (134)
  • Age 50 years old
  • Height and Weight Unknown
  • Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Poyntz's last name may be spelled "Points." Her former married name is Glaser.
Details of Disappearance

Poyntz was last seen in the New York City borough of Manhattan sometime during June 1937, possibly June 4 or 5. She left her room in the American Woman’s Association Clubhouse in the 300 block of west 57th Street and vanished. She was not reported missing until December of that year.

Poyntz left behind all her personal belongings, including her clothing, luggage, passport, unfinished manuscripts, and a savings account containing $10,500 which has not been touched since her disappearance. Authorities judged from the appearance of her room that she planned to return within a short time.

Poyntz is a former history professor at Barnard College and was one of the founding members of the American Communist Party, which came into existence between 1919 and 1921. She was listed in the New York Police Department files as one of the top ten principal Communist leaders in the United States. She ran for public office several times as Communist candidate but was never elected.

Poyntz dropped out of the Communist Party in 1934 to work for the OGPU, the Russian secret police and predecessor to the KGB. She was assigned to gather information about chemistry and physics from the United States.

She traveled to Moscow, Russia in 1936 for additional instructions but became disillusioned with Joseph Stalin's regime and was unwilling to spy for the OGPU anymore. She told friends she planned write her memoirs and expose the Communist Party.

It is believed that Poyntz was murdered by the OGPU to silence her. Several people confessed to killing her after her disappearance, but no one was ever charged. She was declared legally dead in October 1944 and her estate was given to her sister, her sole surviving relative.

Investigating Agency
  • New York Police Department 212-473-2042
Source Information
 
Paul Crouch, a former Miami-based Communist, tasked with luring atomic scientists into the Communist Party ranks (brings to mind the case of Harvey Gene Whitacre of Albuquerque, NM), stated that her body was put into the East River in New York. East River is connected to Long Island Sound. The other article states police found a decomposed body of a woman in Long Island Sound that had been in the water for two months. Poyntz disappeared in June. The body was found in August, 1937.

I wonder if there was any follow up on that woman's body.

The two other articles are also related to her death. Benjamin Gitlow, former general secretary of the Communist Party in America, said Poyntz had been lured to Central Park where two Russian secret agents hustled her into a limo and took her to Westchester County, NY where she was murdered. Her weighted body was later thrown into the East River, Gitlow said.
 

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This June will mark the 85 year anniversary of her disappearance.
 
Elias Lieberman, Poyntz' attorney, wrote a 62 page manuscript, "The Mysterious Disappearance of Juliet or A Lady Communist Vanishes", which is on file with Cornell University.

18

Also, an article appeared in the Tuesday, 10 May 1949 St. Louis Post-Dispatch on page 2, in which police speculated as to whether a woman's body that had been found in Long Island Sound two months after Poyntz disappeared was her body or that of another woman.

Historical Newspapers from 1700s-2000s - Newspapers.com

10 May 1949, Page 2 - St. Louis Post-Dispatch at Newspapers.com
 

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On a sweltering June evening in 1937, American Juliet Stuart Poyntz left her boardinghouse in Manhattan and walked toward Central Park, three short blocks away. She was never seen or heard from again. Seven months passed before a formal missing person’s report was made, since Poyntz worked for the Soviet secret police and her friends were scared to alert authorities. Her disappearance coincided with Josef Stalin’s purges of his political enemies in the Soviet Union and it was feared that Poyntz was a casualty of Soviet brutality...

LINK:

 

This unidentified woman was excluded as being Alice Parsons, also missing since June of 1937. I can't find anything about this woman ever being identified or exhumed and compared with Juliet. FWIW, articles suggest the unidentified woman had her wisdom teeth and silver fillings and was over the age of 18.


 
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