from the archives of life magazine comes a perplexing mystery something which abe news called a cloak-and-dagger air when his body was found in a ditch at philadelphia international airport the police the coroner's office were handed one of the strangest death-puzzles on record

said a life magazine in their february nineteen fifty three edition the clues were something out of detective fiction. Rubin's pockets contained an

empty 38-caliber cartridge shell, a photograph of a plane with a Nazi swastika on its

tail, and a snapshot of Rodin's statue The Thinker. Also taped to the man's stomach was a coded

message containing the words Dulles and Conan.

Experts are still trying to crack both the code and the mystery.

Well, the two words were, apparently, believed to be a reference to the new Secretary of State,

John Foster Dulles, and the new High Commissioner of Germany, Dr James Bryant-Conant,

Harvard University President and recently appointed Commissioner.

On the back of the Nazi plane written in ink are the words, France, Fields, Panama.

And in the photograph a group of unknown men are standing around the stationary plain.

Rubin was buried in an orthodox Jewish ceremony.

Was he a secret Nazi hunter?

When newspapers said Rubin had died of cyanide poisoning,

but since his body was sitting bolt upright and no vials or containers were found nearby,

murder seemed a strong possibility.

The Times news of January the 22nd said,

The coroner had made the comment that if the cyanide was self-administered,

the body would not have been in its orderly position,

were the youth's thick lens glasses undisturbed.

He also pointed out that cyanide kills quickly,

and no vial or other container was found at the scene.

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