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

by Cook, Andrew

  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.

  CHAPTER TWELVE: AFTERMATH

  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.

  27 Professor John Lewis Gaddis, senior fellow of the Hoover Institution, as quoted in Dorril, p.xiii.

  28 Alex Danchev, Professor of International Relations at the University of Nottingham, as quoted in Dorril, p.xiv.

  29 Alley’s second cousin, Michael Alley, expressed the view within the family that he ‘got into trouble in Murmansk’ (interview with author, 15 March 2005). Alley’s papers certainly give strong indications that he was involved in a special assignment in Murmansk at this time, which may ultimately have resulted in failure. This is an area the author intends to research further in due course.

  30 See note 31, chapter 11 notes.

  31 See note 20, chapter 11 notes.

  32 Certificate of Decree Nisi Absolute (Divorce), No.18 of 1940, High Court of Justice, Principal Registry of the Family Division.

  33 Entry 330, Register Deaths in the Registration District of Abingdon in the County of Berkshire, Oswald Theodore Rayner, 6 March 1961.

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