Richard Turen
It was 7:15 on a bright, sunny morning in mid-May, 1971. I was sipping a barely acceptable latte in the Grand Dining Room of the Metropol Hotel in Moscow. I recall that I was considering whether or not to venture up to the breakfast caviar bar set up in the rear of the multi-chandeliered ballroom when one of my students came running into the room, yelling.
"Richard, did you hear what happened to Bruce?"
It was our first full day in Moscow. I had arrived the night before accompanied by 22 students who were finishing their year at a boarding school in Virginia on a trip that had begun in London. I was teaching kids who were bright but not well suited to public school rules of behavior. Taking them abroad on an end-of-year study trip was not an entirely rational act. I was accompanied by our science teacher, who happened to be a weight lifter. We were discussing the day's touring when we were interrupted.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Two cops came into his room and took him away. He's missing. It was the middle of the night," the student replied.
I hurried to the front desk, telling my associate that he was in charge of the day's activities.
Bruce was forcibly taken from his room at the Metropol. He was, according to the front desk manager, examined by a doctor and rushed out the rear door of the hotel "against his will" by two policemen to a waiting car. No one knew where he was.
I kept firing questions; the manager, a regal sort, appeared. He explained that Bruce had called the front desk at 3 a.m. complaining of being really sick -- headache, nausea, the entire gamut. Security called the police, who decided to take him away. No one had the slightest idea where he was.
I cashed in my dollars for a truckload of rubles at the front desk and hurried to the nearest central police station. No one knew anything about an American student being spirited by force out of his room at the Metropol. And no one spoke a word of English.
I took a taxi to the American Embassy. They were confident he would return to the hotel later that day. They said they would immediately investigate and get back to me.
They never did.
The Metropol has a long, complex history. It was a center for culture and business deals but also for dissolution, spies, revolutionaries and foreigners. It was the first hotel in Moscow to have telephones and hot water in the rooms.
When I checked in with my students, we were not given room keys. You got those from one of the four unsmiling matrons sitting at desks across from the elevator on each floor. By handling all room keys, they could observe and write down who entered and exited every room. The doors were all within their vision.
Foreigners were assigned exclusively to those hotels that could fully monitor all comings and goings. But no one could tell me anything about Bruce's kidnapping.
None of the other students knew anything. His roommate was sleeping until there was "loud pounding on the door." He did not know anything other than that Bruce was not feeling well.
My mind was racing. There were parents in Northern Virginia who had entrusted their child's travel to Russia to my care. I had no idea where their son was. Should I call them and tell them that?
To be continued in my next column ...