by Cook, Andrew
TO KILL
RASPUTIN
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF GRIGORI RASPUTIN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrew Cook worked for many years as a foreign affairs and defence specialist, and the contacts he made enabled him to navigate and gain access to classified intelligence services archives. He is only the fifth historian to be given special permission under the 1992 ‘Waldegrave Initiative’ by the Cabinet Office to examine closed MI5 documents that will never be released. He was the historical consultant for the recent BBC Timewatch documentary on Rasputin, but the key discoveries came after the screening and appear for the first time in To Kill Rasputin. He is author of critically acclaimed Prince Eddy: The King Britain Never Had, Ace of Spies: The True Story of Sidney Reilly and M: MI5’s First Spymaster. He is a regular contributor on espionage history to The Guardian, The Times and History Today. He lives in Bedfordshire.
TO KILL
RASPUTIN
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF GRIGORI RASPUTIN
ANDREW COOK
Cover illustration: Rasputin, 1916. Courtesy of the Museum of Political History, St Petersburg.
First published in 2006
The History Press
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This ebook edition first published in 2011
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© Andrew Cook, 2010, 2011
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Note on Dates
Preface
Principal Characters
1 Manhunt
2 Finger of Suspicion
3 Body of Evidence
4 The Spies Who Came into the Cold
5 Dark Forces
6 On the Brink
7 War Games
8 Cards on the Table
9 A Room in the Basement
10 Once Upon a Time
11 End of the Road
12 Aftermath
Appendices
Abbreviations Used in Notes and Bibliography
Notes
Bibliography
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the following people for their invaluable help:
In particular I am indebted to Betty Aikenhead and Muriel Harding-Newman (the daughters of John Scale); Edward Harding-Newman (John Scale’s grandson); Sandra Noble (Stephen Alley’s granddaughter); Michael Alley (Stephen Alley’s second cousin); Dr John Alley (from the American branch of the Alley family); Charles Alley (from the South African branch of the Alley family); Gordon Rayner (Oswald Rayner’s nephew); Caroline Rayner (Oswald Rayner’s daughter); Myra Whelch (Oswald Rayner’s first cousin once removed); Michael Winwood (Oswald Rayner’s first cousin twice removed); Dmitri Kennaway (stepson of Joyce Frankel, Oswald Rayner’s sister); Laurence Huot-Soloviev (great-granddaughter of Grigori Rasputin); 3rd Earl Lloyd George of Dwyfor (grandson of David Lloyd George); Mark Lane (grandson of William Compton); Svetlana Hodakovskaya (Senior Scientist, Museum of Political History, St Petersburg); Professor Derrick Pounder (Senior Home Office Forensic Pathologist and Head of Forensic Medicine, University of Dundee); Professor Vladimir V. Zharov (Senior Forensic Pathologist, Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, Moscow) and to HM Government. As a result of an approach to the Cabinet Office, the Government agreed to provide me with a briefing on the British Intelligence Mission in Petrograd for the purpose of this book.
John Francis and John Power of Francis & Francis Investigations have played a key role in tracing the surviving relatives and associates of the British officers involved in the plot and indeed many other key individuals whose parents, grandparents and great-grandparents played a part in the story.
I am also grateful to Bill Adams; Professor Christopher Andrew (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge); Dr Michael Attias; Jordan Auslander; Dmitri Belanovski; Vanessa Bell (Assistant Archivist, News International Ltd); Gill Bennett (Chief Historian, Foreign & Commonwealth Office); Robin Darwall-Smith (University College Archivist, Oxford); Howard Davies (The National Archives); Corinne Fawcett (University of Nottingham Archives); Susheel Gill; Stephen Griffith; Dr Nicholas Hiley (University of Kent); Rachel Hosker (Archivist, University of Glasgow); Professor A.V. Hoffbrand (Royal Free Hospital, London); Igor Kozyrin (Military Medical Archive, St Petersburg); Professor Christine Lee (Royal Free Hospital, London); Alexi Litvin (State Archive of the Russian Federation, GARF, Moscow); Natasha Nikolaeva; David Penn FSA (Keeper of the Department of Exhibits & Firearms, Imperial War Museum, London); Sarah Prescott (Archives Assistant, King’s College, London); Kevin Proffitt (Senior Archivist, American Jewish Archives); Clare Rider (Inner Temple Archives); Michael Rosetti (Archives of the New York State Supreme Court);Graham Salt; Laura Scannel (Bar Council Archive); Simon Sebag Montefiore; Professor Robert Service (St Antony’s College, Oxford); Oleg Shishkin; Galina Sveshnikova (Yusupov Palace, St Petersburg); Mari Takayanagi (Archivist, House of Lords Record Office) and John Wells (Department of Manuscripts, Cambridge University Library).
Furthermore, I would like to thank Bill Locke at Lion Television (Executive Producer of the BBC Timewatch film Who Killed Rasputin?) whose unstinting support and encouragement enabled me to take this project forward. I am also indebted to John Farren (Editor of the BBC Timewatch series) for commissioning this story and thus enabling the new evidence surrounding Rasputin’s murder to be presented to a wider public. Thanks must also go to all those involved in the production of Who Killed Rasputin?, in particular to Michael Wadding, Lisa Charles and Richard Cullen, for their part in making it such a powerful and thought-provoking film.
A special thank you also goes to Margaret Ashby; Sophie Bradshaw; Alison Cook; Julia Dvinskaya; Elaine Enstone; Monica Finch; Carolyn Jardine; Denise Khan; Ingrid Lock; Patrick Ooi; Janie New; Hannah Renier; Beryl Rook; Bob Sheth; Andy Watts; Caroline Zahen; and to RP Translate who facilitated the translation of source material into English. Finally, my thanks go to my publisher Jonathan Reeve for his support throughout this project.
NOTE ON DATES
The New Style (Gregorian) calendar, which had been in use in continental Europe and in Britain since 1582, did not replace the Old Style (Julian) calendar in Russia until 1918, when thirteen days were omitted. In this book, dates are given in Old Style in respect of events before 1918 and in New Style for events afterwards. However, British diplomats and officials in Russia used New Style before the change. When two systems are running concurrently in respect to documentary sources, confusion can gain the upper hand. In order to assist the reader, dual dates have therefore been used in certain parts of this book.
PREFACE
When the idea of writing a revised second edition of my biography of ‘Ace of Spies’ Sidney
Reilly was first suggested to me by my publisher Jonathan Reeve, I saw it as an ideal opportunity to follow up several unresolved lines of enquiry that were still outstanding at the time the first edition went to press in 2002.
One of these concerned John Scale, the man who had recruited Reilly to the Secret Intelligence Service, and whose hidden hand had guided his first mission in Russia in April 1918. I knew that Scale had died in 1949, but had so far been unable to trace his family. I was convinced that he was the key not only to Sidney Reilly’s Russian mission but to a host of other espionage conundrums that followed the Russian Revolution.
Eventually, in early 2003, after much painstaking research, his daughter Muriel Harding-Newman was located in Scotland. Meeting her persuaded me that the murder of Grigori Rasputin in 1916 was not quite as straightforward as it at first seemed. The traditional account, as told in the 1927 book Rasputin by his self-confessed assassin Prince Felix Yusupov, reads like an over-dramatised gothic horror story. Rasputin is first poisoned, then shot and finally drowned in the River Neva by five disaffected aristocrats, led by Yusupov. The conspirators’ motives are, according to this account, driven by concern about Rasputin’s influence over Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra. Although this account has been questioned over the years by historians, credible alternative theories had thus far been thin on the ground.
However, according to Muriel Harding-Newman, her father had been instrumental in the murder plot. She also had in her possession an Aladdin’s Cave of intelligence material that had belonged to him, including a list of all British intelligence officers who were stationed in Petrograd at the time of Rasputin’s death. Once back at home I took the time to read again my copy of Yusupov’s book. Over the next few months I managed to trace the families of a number of other British intelligence officers on Scale’s list and read the diplomatic and intelligence reports that were being exchanged between London and Petrograd in 1916. These made stark reading, and reminded me just how close Britain came to defeat at this, the darkest hour of the war, haunted by the spectre that Russia was about to conclude a separate peace with Germany and withdraw from the conflict. Time and again the name of Rasputin cropped up in the reports.
In Russia, archive records indicated that three investigations into his death had been inconclusive due to the fact that they had never been completed and, as a consequence, no one had ever been charged or faced cross-examination in a court of law. Two investigations at the time of his death were run concurrently by the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice. These had been halted when it became evident that members of the Tsar’s own family were involved in the plot. After the fall of the monarchy in March 1917, the new Provisional Government set up an ‘Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry for the Investigation of Illegal Acts by Ministers and Other Responsible Persons’. Among the many issues it sought to investigate were Rasputin’s influence and the circumstances surrounding his death. This was to be the responsibility of the Commission’s Thirteenth Section. The enquiry was still ongoing when the Bolsheviks seized power and closed down the Commission.
Rasputin’s dramatic death has, to a great degree, obscured other questions about his life. Why, for example, does the story about a peasant from a distant Siberian village becoming the all-powerful favourite of the last Russian Emperor excite us more than almost any other episode in Russian history? Why are there more lies and concealment than truth in the story of his murder? What is hidden under the contradictions of his life that have been woven from the real facts, rumours, mysticism, myths and pure invention? Was Rasputin a victim or an immoral charlatan? An evil demon that brought down the royal family, or somebody who could have been its saviour?
These were some of the questions foremost in my mind when I set out to reinvestigate the circumstances behind his death. The results of that search eventually led to the commissioning of the BBC Timewatch film Who Killed Rasputin?, for which I acted as Historical Consultant, and ultimately to the publication of this book, which draws on significant new discoveries made since the film was broadcast.
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS
Stephen Alley Member of the British Intelligence Mission in Petrograd.
Alexander Balk Governor of Petrograd.
Sir George Buchanan British Ambassador to Petrograd.
Byzhinski Prince Yusupov’s butler.
Mansfield Cumming Known as ‘C’, Head of MI1c, the British Secret Service.
Grand Duchess Elizaveta Fyodorovna Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich’s surrogate mother.
David Lloyd George Britain’s Secretary of State for War after Kitchener’s death in June 1916.
Maria (Mounya) Golovina Mutual friend of Rasputin and Prince Yusupov.
Sir Samuel Hoare Head of the British Intelligence Mission in Petrograd.
Bishop Iliodor See Sergei Trufanov.
Lord Kitchener Britain’s Secretary of State for War 1914–16.
Vera Koralli Celebrated Russian ballerina and mistress of Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich.
Professor Kossorotov Russian pathologist who undertook the original post mortem of Rasputin’s body.
Stanislaus Lazovert The medical doctor of Purish-kevich’s military detachment, recruited by Purishkevich to drive on the night of Rasputin’s murder.
Robert H. Bruce Lockhart British consular officer in Moscow.
A.A. Makarov Minister of Justice, formerly Minister of the Interior.
Ivan Manasevich Manuilov Jewish journalist, spy and double agent, ‘secretary’ to Rasputin.
Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich Princess Irina Yusupova’s father and Prince Yusupov’s father-in-law. Also a relative of Dmitri Pavlovich.
Ivan Nefedov Prince Yusupov’s batman.
Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaivich Tsar Nicholas’s uncle and Supreme Commander of the Russian Armies until relieved of his post.
Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich Tsar Nicholas’s second cousin and one-time protégé; friend of Prince Yusupov who was present at the murder of Rasputin.
Lt-Col. Popel Officer of the Detached Gendarme Corps and General Popov’s right-hand man.
General Popov Commander-in-Chief of the Corps of Gendarmes and chief investigator of Rasputin’s disappearance.
Alexander Protopopov Russian Minister of the Interior.
Vladimir Purishkevich Monarchist and well-known Member of the Duma. An enemy of Rasputin and present at his murder.
Maria Rasputina Rasputin’s elder daughter.
Varvara Rasputina Rasputin’s younger daughter.
Oswald Rayner Member of the British Intelligence Mission in Petrograd.
Mikhail Rodzyanko Speaker of the Third and Fourth Dumas.
John Scale Member of the British Intelligence Mission in Petrograd.
Aron Simanovich Rasputin’s close friend, secretary and agent.
Hon. Albert Stopford British businessman and diplomat.
Sergei Sukhotin Military lieutenant and friend of Yusupov. Present on the night of the murder.
Sergei Trufanov Also known as Bishop Iliodor. Notorious Orthodox preacher, anti-Semite and former friend of Rasputin who stole letters from the monk’s home in Siberia.
Alexis Vasiliev Chief of Police in Petrograd.
Anna Vyrubova Lady-in-waiting and close friend of the Tsarina.
Robert Wilton The Times’s correspondent in Petrograd at the time of the murder.
Grand Duchess Xenia Princess Irina Yusupova’s mother and Prince Yusupov’s mother-in-law.
Prince Felix Yusupov Also Count Sumarokov-Elston, Russian aristocrat and self-confessed assassin of Rasputin.
Princess Irina Yusupova Prince Yusupov’s wife.
ONE
MANHUNT
Gorokhovaya Street was a sober sort of place – indeed, a household name for high-minded respectability because of its police station; the regulation coat worn by plainclothes men was popularly called a gorokhovayo.1 It was only a mile from the private palaces and vast public spaces of the fashionable centre of Pet
rograd (Russia’s capital city St Petersburg, until the war made German-sounding names anathema). If you lived there you were prosperous enough. The residential block at number 64, a warren of high-ceilinged apartments with a huge carriage entrance, was well supplied with heat and light, which was more than could be said for a lot of dwellings in Petrograd in the freezing winter of 1916. The war at this stage had left even the middle classes short of essential supplies and most heads of household were struggling to provide their families with coal, lamp oil, food and clothing.
The head of the household at Apartment 20, 64 Gorokhovaya Street was Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, the tall, bearded spiritual advisor to Her Majesty the Tsarina, and he was a good provider. The flat was solidly furnished and even had a telephone. Rasputin himself had a motor car at his command. Wherever he went he was received with awe, and his supporters (though not his opponents) were convinced that he was a starets or holy man. Early on this Saturday morning, 17 December 1916, with the city still dark and blanketed with snow, the maid Katya Petyorkina was already up, had lit the lamps and was busying herself with the stove and the samovar when somebody knocked at the door.
The two visitors were officers of the Okhrana, the political police. The Okhrana was just one of nine separate forces working for the Tsar through Minister of the Interior Alexander Protopopov and Chief of Police Alexis Vasiliev, but it was the most feared. The Tsar, and the Tsarina in particular, insisted that the starets be protected, for they clung to him for emotional support as they struggled with their young son’s bouts of ill-ness. The boy had haemophilia, an incurable disease inherited through the female line by some of the descendants of Britain’s Queen Victoria. The Tsarina, who was Victoria’s granddaughter, had acted as a carrier of the disease, and now lived in superstitious dread that if anything befell Rasputin her son’s life would be at risk.