A Dictator, a Commune, and the U.S. Embassy: The Disappearance of Boris Weisfeiler
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When you're traveling abroad as a US citizen, you get familiar with the State Department, the government agency that handles passports, issues travel advisories, and operates United States embassies all over the world. It can be a slow moving process filled with hoops and red tape. But if there's some kind of issue while traveling, the State Department can be a real saving grace. lose your passport, get into a car accident, need help communicating with foreign law enforcement officials. Their job is to help. But what happens when an American citizen gets into trouble abroad and the State Department can't step in? Or won't? Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. I'm Carter Roy. You can find us here every Wednesday.
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When Boris Weisweiler calls his younger sister Olga in December 1984, he's excited. He's closing out another semester as a mathematician at Penn State. And the slight introverted professor is deeply looking forward to a break. He tells Olga that he's ready to get away from the cold winter weather. He has plans to go on a South American backpacking trip through the Chilean Andes Mountains, solo, no travel partners. Olga is not a fan of her brother hiking alone, but at 43, Boris is an accomplished mountaineer who loves conquering remote locations. He's done treks in Canada, Peru, Nepal, and in his home country, the Soviet Union. He prefers exploring alone. Earlier in the year, he accepted an invitation to lecture at a conference in China. He couldn't resist adding a backpacking excursion to the trip. He was assigned a guide, but Boris gave them the slip and disappeared into the wilderness. He emerged from his solo adventure a week later. So Olga knows better than to nag her brother. Once, she tried to caution him against the danger of wild animals.
But Boris brushed her off. He said, quote, animals aren't dangerous. People are. Boris flies out of New York City on December 24th, 1984, headed for Santiago, Chile. No one hears from him over the holidays, which makes perfect sense. Boris had planned to drop off the grid for a while. When classes resume at Penn State in January 1985, students gather in Boris' classrooms for his undergraduate algebra course and his graduate-level special topics seminar. But Boris doesn't show up to either. His colleagues are concerned about his absence, but wonder if he's just been delayed a few days. International travel can be complicated. They sit tight, hoping he'll show up. But he doesn't. So sometime around January 19th, members of the Math Department contact the local police and the State Department. Boris, their brilliant and beloved friend, is missing. And no one has any idea how long he's been in trouble. American investigators retrace Boris' last known movements.
They learn he arrived in Santiago on December 25th, 1984, and was granted a tourist visa upon landing. From Santiago, Boris got on a train headed south. He spent the night at a hotel in a small town. From there, he got on a bus to an even smaller town called Antuco, and that's where he began his hike, heading northward through isolated, unforgiving terrain. But that's as far as American officials can investigate. They don't have jurisdiction in Chile and have to rely on local authorities to keep up the search. This creates a logistical nightmare. The chains of command are unclear. Investigative processes and priorities are different. On the most basic level, communication is complicated by language barriers.
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