“I was born American, raised American and will die an American, but in 1947, I became a Soviet.”
~ Tom Mooradian
A Hubbard Lake resident’s long-awaited sequel to a true story about returning to America after 13 years behind the Iron Curtain in Soviet Armenia, has been published posthumously.
Tom Mooradian’s “The Repatriate Returns: Home, Family and the FBI,” is a sequel to “The Repatriate: Love, Basketball and the KGB,” which he wrote nearly two decades ago.
The first memoir shares a coming-of-age story marked by forbidden love, betrayal, surveillance, addiction, and the gradual loss of identity, all while secretly dreaming of escape.
Mooradian and his wife, Janice (Taracks) of 50 years, moved to secluded Hubbard Lake in 2005 after raising two daughters, Jennifer and Bethany, and retiring from a successful career in journalism. He worked for several prominent Wayne County, Mich. publications.
Janice explained that she spent summers in Hubbard Lake as a child and together they found the solitude needed for him to write about his unique experiences behind the Iron Curtain, longing for home, family and America.
Before his passing on June 5, 2024, Mooradian completed most of his manuscript for the sequel and entrusted it to Janice and Bethany for the final editing. “Tom wrote with both candor and compassion. He was a wonderful man, and we had the best life ever.
“The Repatriate Returns is more than a continuation – it is his farewell gift to readers who journeyed with him through the pages of his first memoir.
“After the first (book’s) publication, Tom spoke at book talks across the United States. Often, people would ask him, “What happened next? What happened when you returned to America? Where did you meet your wife?”
“It was because of that encouragement, and sometimes cajoling from friends and family, that Tom began the sequel. We have completed it with the care and devotion we believe he would have wanted,” Janice said.
According to a 2008 interview with Mooradian and a subsequent article published in the Alcona County Review, he was born into the blue-collar immigrant community of southwest Detroit, Mich. in 1928, where he was raised by a father who was a die-hard member of the Soviet Party.
As an Armenian American, Mooradian grew up intrigued by the USSR. He graduated from high school in 1947 with high academic honors and multiple offers of athletic basketball scholarships.
He was 19 when his father encouraged him to join a group of repatriates returning to Armenia. Despite his brothers’ warnings that it would be a one-way journey with him possibly coming home in a box, Mooradian yearned for adventure and left with 151 other repatriates.
He soon realized his mistake. In his first book Mooradian wrote, “What I didn’t know, like many of us coming over, was that I was giving up my U.S. citizenship.”
Mooradian had lost his freedom.
For the next 13 years, he endured political repression, cultural upheaval and language barriers. In the hands of the NKVD, a predecessor of the KGB, he was interrogated and beaten to adapt or die. All the while, he longed to return home to Detroit, something he had nearly given up on after a decade under Stalin’s rule.
Still, his basketball prowess kept him alive, and he was on the national team, living in an upscale apartment. Mooradian also received a degree in education from the Institute of Physical Culture and Sports in Yerevan, Armenia.
He received occasional letters from home, coached youth and became a Soviet national basketball star, which led to connections with U.S. journalists and a chance meeting with Eleanor Roosevelt. These small things gave him hope he might see U.S. soil again.
After 13 years behind the Iron Curtain, the Soviets released him in 1960 without explanation.
His newly released sequel continues this remarkable story of identity, resilience and reconciliation, beginning as he returns to the US.
The book explores the American life he missed, the consequences of his years behind the Iron Curtain, his broken English, and the struggle to find work in a country where he is both celebrated and suspected and closely watched—even by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
His American dream seemed out of reach, but his optimism remained. He earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism from Wayne State University and, even returned to Armenia to visit with his wife and daughter.
His story is one of finding passion in his work, setting the record straight about gossiping rumors that he was ever a communist, discovering everlasting love, home, family and hope for the future despite the scars of exile, all combined with an endearing love letter to his wife and daughters.
The Repatriate: Love, Basketball and the KGB (2008) is available in new, used and Kindle editions on Amazon.com or at the Alcona County Library.
The Repatriate Returns: Home, Family and the FBI (August 2025) is available in paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon.com or at Parallel 45 Books and Gifts, 106 N. 2nd Ave., Alpena, (989) 278-8822.
