Disappearance

Its not clear to anyone, even those that knew Juliet Stuart Poyntz, what day she went missing. It is alleged that it was sometime between June 3 and June 5. Poyntz suffered from lupus, which could be fatal. She filled a prescription for her illness allegedly on June 3, but never returned to pick it up. Some of the telephone operators at the American Woman’s Association clubhouse where Poyntz lived claimed it was not until after June 5 that anyone noticed she was gone. After about two weeks, she failed to pay her rent and the property manager Mr. Thackerberry contacted her emergency contact Marie B. MacDonald who then called her friend and lawyer Elias Lieberman.

Neither Lieberman nor MacDonald would alert the police, allegedly because Poyntz was a spy and did not need police looking for her. It was not until December 17, 1937, 7 months later, when Arthur Irwin of the New York World Telegram announced her disappearance in the newspaper.

In the article Irwin claimed that Poyntz might have upset the Soviet Union or that the Nazis might have had her killed. The following day, Irwin published another article expanding on his theory that the Nazis might have wanted her dead. Poyntz’s estranged husband Glaser, died in 1935, since the two never divorced she was entitled to his estate. Glaser was the son of one of the families whose chemical company became part of the I.G. Farben conglomeration, she was entitled to a significant inheritance. Elias Lieberman was helping Poyntz to claim that inheritance when she went missing.

It happened that only the week before Poyntz’s disappearance was announced, Mr. and Mrs. Donald Robinson, later revealed to be Arthur and Ruth Rubens, were arrested in Moscow. Ruth Rubens was an American citizen, Arthur Rubens was a Latvian, both had been active members of the Communist Party. The Soviets arrested them under suspicion of spying.

1937 was a bad year for those in the Soviet underground. It was the year of Stalin’s Great Purge in which he and several other leaders under his direction orchestrated the assassination or detention of people whose political loyalties were suspected. The year before, many Soviet leaders and political rivals were tried in the Show Trials, found guilty, and executed. People began to wonder if the Rubens and Poyntz had been caught up in the purge.