To Kill Rasputin: The Life and Death of Grigori Rasputin (Revealing History) (38 page)

13 Yusupov,
ibid
., p.115.

14 Letter from Princess Irina Yusupova to Prince Felix Yusupov, 25 November 1916, Fond 1290, Russian State Archive of Early Acts, (RGADA), Moscow.

15 Letter from Prince Felix Yusupov to Princess Irina Yusupova, 27 November 1916, Fond 411, State Historical Museum (GIM), Moscow.

16
The Murder of Rasputin,
V.M. Purishkevich, translated from the original Russian by Bella Costello, ed. Michael Shaw (Ardis Publishers, Ann Arbor, 1985), annex: correspondence between Maklakov and Paris publisher of 1923.

17 A pood weighs about 36lbs, i. e., well over 16 kilos.

18 See note 16 above.

19
Ibid
.

20
Ibid
.

C
HAPTER
N
INE
: A R
OOM IN THE
B
ASEMENT

1   Police Department Report, 17 December 1917, CUL.

2   The author of the memorandum is unknown, although Stopford is the most likely. His book, published in 1919, did not appear under his own name, and if he was the author of the memorandum, he would not want his name to link the two publications.

3   ‘The True and Authentic Story of the Murder of Grigori Rasputin, As Recounted to Me on 6th June 1917, At Yalta by the Perpetrator’,
The Russian Diary of an Englishman
, Anon. (the Hon. Albert Stopford), (Heinemann, 1919), p.83.

4   Report of the Autopsy of Grigori Rasputin, Professor Kossorotov, 20 December 1916, Museum of Political History, St Petersburg.

5  
Rasputin, The Man Behind the Myth
, Maria Rasputina & Patte Barham, p.231ff. According to Barham, a servant of Yusupov’s was one of the sources for what happened in the basement dining room. In an interview with the author on 21 February 2005, Maria Rasputina’s granddaughter, Laurence Huot-Soloviev, expressed the view that Barham had somewhat embellished her grandmother’s account.

6  
Ibid
.

7  
Ibid
., and
My Father
, Maria Rasputina (Cassell & Co, 1934), p.111.

8  
Ibid
.

9   See note 4 above.

10
Rasputin, the Last Word
, Edvard Radzinski (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000), p.477.

11
Ibid
., p.482.

12
Ibid
., p.480.

13 See note 4 above.

14
Ibid
.

15
Rasputin, the Last Word
, Edvard Radzinski (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000), p.482.

16 Professor Derrick Pounder, Senior Home Office Pathologist and Head of Forensic Medicine, University of Dundee, was commissioned by the author in February 2005 to carry out a review of the ballistics evidence and concluded the forehead wound was caused by an unjacketed bullet. The Browning pistol fires only jacketed bullets.

17 A revised edition,
Rasputin: The History of the Crime
, was published by Yauza, Moscow, in 2004.

18
Ibid.
, chapter 18.

19
A Watchman Makes His Rounds
, Sir Samuel Hoare (unpublished 1959 memoir of Hoare’s time in Russia), p.72, Templewood Papers, Part II, File 1 (34), CUL.

20
The Fourth Seal
, Sir Samuel Hoare (Heinemann, 1930), p.156.

C
HAPTER
T
EN
: O
NCE
U
PON A
T
IME

1  
Dnevnik
,V.M. Purishkevich (National Reklama, 1923), p.62.

2  
Ibid
., p.63.

3  
Ibid
., p.65.

4  
Rasputin
, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.133.

5  
Ibid
., p.134.

6  
Ibid
., p.138ff.

7  
Dnevnik
,V.M. Purishkevich (National Reklama, 1923), p.80ff.

8  
Rasputin
, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.134/135.

9  
Dnevnik
,V.M. Purishkevich (National Reklama, 1923), p.62/63.

10
Rasputin
, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.135.

11
Dnevnik
,V.M. Purishkevich (National Reklama, 1923), p.65.

12
Rasputin
, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.148.

13
Ibid
., p.149.

14
Dnevnik
,V.M. Purishkevich (National Reklama, 1923), p.70–74.

15
Rasputin
, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.149.

16
Dnevnik
,V.M. Purishkevich (National Reklama, 1923), p.70–74.

17
Ibid
.

18
Rasputin
, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.150.

19
Dnevnik
, V.M. Purishkevich (National Reklama, 1923), p.75. For Yusupov’s June 1917 account see
The Russian Diary of an Englishman
, Anon. (the Hon. Albert Stopford), (Heinemann, 1919), p.83.

20
Rasputin
, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.153.

21
Dnevnik
,V.M. Purishkevich (National Reklama, 1923), p.79.

22
Ibid
., p.81.

23
Rasputin
, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.157/158.

24 Irina Yusupov v MGM 1933, Fanny Holtzman Papers, Series A, Sub-series 1, Box 16, Folders 5-10, American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio; Felix Yusupov v CBS 1965, Series A, Sub-series 1, Box 15, Folders 5-12, American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio. See also The
Times
Law Reports, Friday 17 August 1934, Vol. 1, p.581ff.

25 ‘The Assassination of Rasputin’,
Source Records of the Great War,
Stanislaus Lazovert, Vol.V, ed. Charles F. Horne (National Alumni, 1923), p.86.

26
Ibid
.

27
Ibid
., p.87.

28
Lost Splendour
, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1953), p.228.

29 ‘The Assassination of Rasputin’, Stanislaus Lazovert, p.88.

30
Dnevnik
,V.M. Purishkevich (National Reklama, 1923), p.80ff.

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN
: E
ND OF THE
R
OAD

1   Report of Autopsy on the Body of Grigori Rasputin by Professor Kossorotov, 20 December 1916, Museum of Political History, St Petersburg.

2  
My Father, Maria
Rasputina (Cassell & Co, 1934), p.111.

3  
The Yusupov Palace
, Galina Sveshnikova, p.75.

4   Report by Professor Derrick Pounder, Senior Home Office Pathologist and Head of Forensic Medicine, University of Dundee, August 2004, commissioned by the author.

5  
Dnevnik
, V.M. Purishkevich (National Reklama, 1923), p.21.

6   See note 1 above.

7   Statement by Stepan Beletski to Provisional Government Extraordinary Commission 1917, Fond 1467, Schedule 1, Case 567, GARF, Moscow.

8  
Rasputin
, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.163.

9  
Dnevnik
, V.M. Purishkevich (National Reklama, 1923), p.70ff.

10 Report The Opinion of the Specialists, 18-30 June 1993, by V.V. Zharov, Igor Panov and Valery Vasilevsky of the Moscow Forensic Medical Analysis Bureau (unpublished review of the 1916 autopsy undertaken by Professor Kossorotov).

11 Interview of Vladimir Zharov by Richard Cullen and Ilya Gavrilov,
Who Killed Rasputin
?, Timewatch, broadcast BBC 2, Friday 1 October 2004, 8.00p.m.

12 See note 1 above.

13 This conclusion, articulated by Richard Cullen in the BBC Timewatch episode
Who Killed Rasputin?
(see broadcast details in note 11 above), is the most plausible explanation.

14 Report by Professor Derrick Pounder, Senior Home Office Pathologist and Head of Forensic Medicine, University of Dundee, February 2005, commissioned by the author.

15
Ibid
.

16
Ibid
.

17
Ibid
.

18
Ibid
.

19 See note 10 above.

20 On Rayner’s death in 1961, Rose Jones gave a brief account of his life to the
Nuneaton Observer
(10 March 1961). The story was featured under the headline ‘Was in Palace When Rasputin was Killed’.

21 Diary of William J. Compton, 1916; also, General Index of Personnel from World War 1, William John Compton #9440, Red Cross Archive, London.

22 Scale recalls the events surrounding the Romanian oil fields operation in a letter to General C. Ismay dated 19 September 1940 (Scale Papers).

23 Letter from Capt. Stephen Alley to Capt. J.D. Scale, 7 January 1917 (Alley Papers).

24 To the Chief of the Public Security Department, Petrograd, 22 February 1917, Fond 102, Schedule 357, Case 115, GARF, Moscow.

25 See note 7 above.

26
Rasputin: A History of the Crime
, Oleg Shishkin, chapter 21ff.

27 ‘Britain “helped Rasputin’s killers”’ by Phil Tomaselli,
BBC History Magazine
, April 2003, p.6.

28 Interview with Mark Lane, grandson of William Compton, 5 February 2005.

29 Entry 148, Register of Births in the Registration District of Upton-on-Severn, in the Sub-district of Kempsey in the County of Worcester, William John Compton, 27 January 1881.

30 Entry 330, Register of Deaths in the Registration District of Abingdon in the County of Berkshire, 6 March 1961, Oswald Rayner, Barrister at Law (retired).

31 Interview with Gordon Rayner, nephew of Oswald Rayner, 13 March 2004, Birmingham;interview with Myra Whelch and Michael Winwood, first cousins of Oswald Rayner, 6 November 2004, Birmingham.

32
Rasputin
, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.180ff.

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE
: A
FTERMATH

1  
Rasputin, the Last Word
, Edvard Radzinski (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000), p.492ff

2  
Ibid
., p.495

3  
Ibid
.

4   See note 31, chapter 11 notes.

5   Ransome is best known today for his bestselling children’s book
Swallows and Amazons
. His MI5 file, # PF R.301 Vols 1 & 2, was released to the National Archive in February 2005, TNA KV2/1903–1904.

6   Augustus Agar won the VC for sinking the Soviet cruiser
Oleg
in June 1919. He was commanding a skimmer motor launch torpedo boat (CMB 4) that had been pioneered by SIS. For a full account of this mission see
Baltic Episode
, Augustus Agar, 1963.

7   Entry 263, Register of Deaths in the Registration District of Battle in the county of East Sussex, John Dymoke Scale, 22 April 1949.

8  
En Exil
, Prince Yusupov (Plon, 1954), p.76.

9   Irina Yusupov v MGM, see note 24 in chapter 10 notes.

10
Ibid
.

11
En Exil
, Prince Yusupov (Plon, 1954), p.102ff.

12
Ibid
.

13 Little if anything has been known about Sukhotin. In Yusupov’s book his Christian name is never mentioned. In the course of researching this book, the military service file for Sergei Sukhotin was found, and reveals he joined the 4th Life Guards in 1911 after graduating from the Naval Corps in 1906. Sukhotin was also a distant relative of the composer Tchaikovsky, whose great-niece Galina von Meck recalls that he was sentenced to ten years in a Soviet labour camp in 1919 (see
I Remember Them
, Galina von Meck, p.183ff). Fond 400, Schedule 9, Case 34159, Pages 644-646, Russian State Military History Archive (RGVIA), Moscow.

14 This seems unlikely, as although Rasputin was not fatally poisoned, he certainly showed symptoms of having consumed a non-fatal dose, i. E. hyper-salivation, irritated throat etc. (see notes 15/16, chapter 10). The story of Lazovert’s death-bed confession is at best anecdotal and is more than likely motivated by his son wishing to dissociate him from the murder.

15
If Britain Had Fallen
, Norman Longmate, p.117ff.

16
Ibid
.

17 TNA KV 2/1684–1685.

18 Memorandum ‘British Intelligence Mission’ by Lt-Col. Sir Samuel Hoare to C, 29 January 1917, Papers of the British Intelligence Mission, Petrograd, Templewood Papers, Part II, File 1 (52), CUL. This document remains closed and will be reviewed again by the Cabinet Office in 2011.

19 Alley refers to these meetings in his notes for January/February 1918 (Alley Papers).

20 Typed aide memoire (Alley Papers).

21 Hoare was clearly unaware of what was going on, which is reflected in his communications with C, particularly one telegram dated 2 January 1917 where he effectively asks C if he knows any more than himself; Papers of the British Intelligence Mission, Petrograd, Part II, File I (50), CUL.

22 House of Commons Debates 1920 (Hansard), Vol. 133, col. 1008-13, 1048;Vol. 134, col. 542;Vol. 135, col. 518-24.

23
MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations
, Stephen Dorril (Fourth Estate, 2000), p.611.

24
Ibid
.

25 In 1956, according to Foreign Office Minister of State Anthony Nutting, Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden declared that he wanted Egyptian President Nasser murdered. Eden apparently approached MI6, not through the then ‘C’ Sir John Sinclair, but via Joint Intelligence Committee Chairman Patrick Dean and MI6’s Middle East specialist George Young.
The Perfect English Spy: Sir Dick White and the Secret War
, Tom Bower (Heinemann, 1995), p.195;
Through the Looking Glass
, Anthony Verrier (Jonathan Cape, 1983), p.143 & 159.

26 In Dorril, p.611, SOE Operational Head Sir Colin Gubbins is quoted as telling a minister that there is ‘really no need for him to know about such things’ as assassination.