The secret plot to save the Tsar

Publishers Weekly

Russian history is replete with mysterious political deaths, none more compelling and long-lasting than the assassinations of Nicholas II's family. Recent DNA evidence purported to prove conclusively that the last of the czar's family was indeed killed by the Bolsheviks in July 1918, but McNeal doesn't buy it. A longtime historical researcher who has contributed to both the BBC and the Discovery Channel, McNeal amasses a pile of circumstantial evidence in her attempt to question this account. Basing some of her information on recently declassified files, she shows how Allied, German and Bolshevik officials formulated plans to save the Romanovs, who were held in captivity before they were executed. But McNeal is on shakier ground when she disputes the widely believed deaths of the Romanovs mainly on the basis of second-hand accounts, some internal inconsistencies and wild speculation-such as when Pres. Franklin Roosevelt remarked that he had a controversial historical assassination that he wanted solved-because the DNA tests still represent the most scientific information available in this case. As McNeal herself admits, "[B]ut what can be asserted with certainty is that the true historical account has yet to be completely constructed." As a result, the book is unlikely to engage readers beyond those already enthralled by the Romanov case. (Nov.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Did the last Romanov tsar and tsarina and their royal brood fall to Bolshevik bullets? History books say yes. This drab tale says no-or, well, maybe not. It is incontrovertibly true that Red soldiers held the tsar and his family prisoner in a provincial town in the Urals, admits historical researcher and political consultant McNeal. It is also true that various military elements, including White Russian anti-Bolsheviks and Czech, British, and even American expeditionary forces, had it in mind to liberate the royals while purging Siberia of Communists. The standard histories say that the Bolsheviks, made nervous by the advance of these counter-revolutionary forces, executed the royals and dumped their remains in the forest outside Ekaterinburg, where, in 1979, a crew of Soviet archaeologists turned up bones later identified as those of the tsar, his wife, their sons and daughters, and even the family dog. McNeal disputes the validity of the archaeologists' findings and subsequent DNA tests. Instead, among other richly speculative scenarios, she posits that agents of the British and American governments, working through members of the Russian Orthodox clergy and representatives of the Leninist government, managed to free the tsar and spirit him and his family off to internal exile, leaving it to the Bolsheviks to put out the cover story that the family had been executed-and allowing them the possibility of producing the royal family should there have been a massive public outcry against the supposed murder. Among the evidence McNeal produces is this tidbit: "The Marchioness of Milford Haven, one of the Tsarina's sisters, wrote that the Dowager Empress had told her that the family was hiddenin the far north of Russia, which could only be reached in summer." The other bits and pieces of evidence are about as definitive, none of them the necessary smoking gun. An unconvincing effort, of interest to those who've seen Anastasia walking alongside Elvis on the streets of Paris.