A CU Boulder professor vanished without a trace in 1969 sparking a Cold War mystery. The case is still cold—but clues abound in History Colorado’s archives.
The morning of Saturday, March 15, 1969 was a warm one in Boulder, Colorado—fifty-two degrees, breaking a weeklong streak of freezing weather. In the University Hill neighborhood, the sun rose and illuminated the home of CU Boulder Russian History Professor Thomas Riha. Inside, his table was set neatly for a breakfast that would never happen. Thomas’s phone began to ring. It would ring all day. Thomas Riha would never answer that phone again.
This is the tumultuous true story of a missing professor, a mysterious woman, a controlling FBI director, and their tangled webs of national and international intrigue. Cyanide poisonings, profound grief, a US intelligence communication crisis, and a Senate investigation lay ahead, but on the quiet morning of March 15, no one fathomed this would become an infamous Colorado cold case.
The History Student…