F-2010-01317 INITIAL REQUEST

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 05543665
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: March 9, 2023
• Document Release Date: December 8, 2021
• Case Number: F-2011-02160
• Publication Date: June 11, 2010

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Michelle Goldberg
(b)(6)
June 3,2010
Information and Privacy Coordinator
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, DC 20505
FOIA REQUEST
Dear FOIA Officer:
Pursuant to the federal Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. � 552.1 request access to and copies of all
records that mention the late Indra Devi. aka Eugenia Peterson (She also went by the names Engenia
Vassilievna and Eugenia Strakaty). I'm particularly seeking documents related to her relationship with
Madame Chiang Kai-Shek during World War II; her communications with the Soviet government and with
India's ambassador to the USSR, K. P. S. Mellon, in 1960; and all documents pertaining to her
communications with the Panamanian Colonel Roberto Diaz Herrera in 1986.
The files will be used as research for a book I'm writing about Indra Devi that will be published by Knopf
in 2013.
Originally a Russian izenr ndra Devi was born as Eugenia Peterson in Riga, Latvia in 1899. She was
yoga teacher, but was also involved with politicians and political intrigue all over the woild.
Devi arrived in San Francisco on a boat from Shanghai in 1947, where she had been teaching yoga in
Madame Chiang Kai-Shek's home during World VVar II. (Before that, she had lived in India, where she
married Jan Strakaty, the Czech commercial attach�n Bombay, in 1930. They separated in 1946 and he
died in 1948.)
On March 14, 1953 she married an Americian doctor from Germany, Sigfrid Knauer. Shortly thereafter, she
became a citizen, and had her name legally changed from Eugenia Strakaty to Indra Devi. Knauer and Devi
lived in Los Angeles throughout the 1950s and 1960s, though they also maintained a residence in Tecate,
Mexico, starting in 1962.1n 1960, Devi traveled to Moscow and met with the Soviet Politburo at the
request of K.P.S. Melion. India's atnbassador to 12ussia, to on me them to allow yoga practice M the
USSR. In 1986, she briefly moved to Panama to become the spirittial counselor to the Panamanian Colonel
Roberto Diaz Herrera, who was attempting to overthmw Manuel on a.
Devi died in 2002. I'm attaching a copy of her New York Times obituary. It can also be found online at this
address:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/30/wor1d/indra-dev i-102-dies-taught-yoga-to-stars-and-leaders.html.
I agree to pa} reasonable duplication fees for the processing of this request in an amount not to exceed
$1000. However, please notify me prior to your incurring any expenses in excess of that amount.
If my request is denied in whole or part, I ask that you justify all deletions by reference to specific
exemptions of the act. I will also expect you to release all segregable portions of otherwise exempt
material. I, of course, reserve the right to appeal your decision to withhold any information or to deny a
waiver of fees.
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As I am making this request as an author and this information is of timely value, I would appreciate your
communicating with me by telephone, rather than by mail, if you have questions regarding this request.
I look forward to your reply within 20 business days, as the statute requires.
Thank you for your assistance.
Sincerely,
(b)(6)
Michelle Goldberg\
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I ndra Dev
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02, Dies; Taught Yoga to es.com/2002/04/30Avorld/indra-devi-102-dies...
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April 30, 2002
Indra levi, 102, Dies; Taught Yoga to Stars and Leaders
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Indra Devi, the daughter of European nobility who introduced the ancient discipline of yoga to the Kremlin leadership,
Hollywood stars like Gloria Swanson and even students in India, died on Thursday in Buenos Aires. She was 102.
In Buenos Aires, where she had lived for several years, she formed a yoga foundation that was named after her.
Known to her followers as Malan, v�hich means mother, she .kvas a student of Sri Tirumalai Krislinamacharya, the lege darY
guru who gained IN 011d NS ide anention for Hopping his heartbeat for [WO minutes. At a time iAhen yoga was Hmost an
exclusively nmseuline pur nit he WaS his first female student.
Like two of his other students, B.K.S. Ayengar and K. Pattabhi Jois, both men, she took his essential teachings and built a
style of yoga accessible to Westerners. It was characterized by gentleness.
"She herself became a kind of seminal figure," said Phil Catalto, a senior editor of Yoga Journal. "She was an ambassador of
yoga."
She was born Eugenie Peterson in Riga, Latvia, on May 12, 1899. Her father was a Swedish bank director, and her mother
was a Russian noblewoman. She attended drama school in Moscow as a girl, and escaped to Berlin with her mother when
the Communists came to power in 1917.
In Berlin, she became an actress and dancer. Her fascination with India began at IS, when she read a book by the poet
Rabindranath Tagore, then some books on yoga. In 1927, she sailed for India.
Under the stage name Indra Devi, she became a rising star in Indian films. In 1930, she married Jan Strakaty, commercial
attach�o the Czechoslovak Consulate in Bombay. Through him, she met the Maharaja and Maharini of Mysore, who
maintained a yoga school in their palace where Sri Krishnamacharya taught.
She asked the master for a lesson. He refused, on the grounds that she was a Westerner and a woman. But she persuaded the
royal couple to prevail upon the guru, and he reluctantly consented, said Fernando Pages Ruiz, a freelance writer who
interviewed her.
Rather than the cursory lessons he had at first Mtended, Sri Krishnamacharya ta
husband WaS to be transferred to aina, betrained her to be a yoga teacher.
ht her for aye
'hen he learned that her
In Shanghai, she taught what was thought to be the first yoga class in modern China, Mr. Ruiz said. Her husband, she said in
a 1996 interview in Yoga Journal, was "dead set against" her yoga courses. It was also the time of the Japanese occupation.
For a time she held five classes of 25 students a day in the bedroom of Madame Chiang Kaishek, wife of the nationalist
leader and a new yoga enthusiast.
After the war, she returned to India and wrote her first book, believed to be the first hook on yoga written by a Weste er to
be published in India. She also became known as the first Westerner to teach yoga there.
Her husband, meanwhile, had been ordered back to Czechoslovakia, where he died in 1946.
She returned to Shanghai to recover their belongings and was unsure whether to go to India or the United States. She bought
tickets for both destinations and resolved to take whichever ship sailed first. America won.
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02, Dies; Taught Yoga to buns c110-1 IpCdlaPJ - �vww.nytimes.com/2002/04/30/world/indra-devi-102-dies...
She found her way to Hollywood, arriving in January 1947. She discovered ready students among movie stars, who found
yoga's breathing and relaxation techniques useful to their work. Her students included Miss Swanson, to whom she dedicated
one of her 12 books, Robert Ryan, Greta Garbo, Jennifer Jones and the violinist Yehudi Menuhin.
She taught yoga for at Elizabeth Arden's spas in Maine and Arizona, but refused to join the staff.
In 1953, she married Dr. Siegrid Knauer, who preferred preventive medicine to antibiotics. After becoming an American
citizen, she legally changed her name to Indra Devi.
Dr. Knauer bought her a 24-room estate in Tecate, Mexico, at which to give training courses for yoga teachers. He died in
1977.
In 1960, India's ambassador to Moscow arranged for her to meet the top Soviet leaders, including Aleksei Kosy gin, the
premier, Andrei Gromyko, the foreign minister, and Anastas Mikoyan, chairman of the Supreme Soviet. After she spoke to
them of the benefits of yoga, it was legalized in Russia.
In 1966, she became capfivated by the teachings of the guru Satya Sai Baba. This rtilted inew fo of yoga t
called Sal Yoga.
She traveled and taught around the world. In 1982, she visited Argentina, where her popularity snowballed after a single
television appearance. She formed a foundation to spread her yoga methods. At the time of her death, it operated six studios.
"She was like a national treasure." Mr. Ruiz said, "It wasn't just yoga, she was known by the population at large."
She had no children by either marriage. A woman at her foundation who identified herself only as Anna said that she had an
adopted daughter named Rosita.
Photo: Indra Devi was known as the first Westerner to teach yoga in India. (Reuters)
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