RUSSIA: Whose Body?

The Princess Xenia of Russia, second cousin once removed of the late Tsar Nicholas II, is better known in Manhattan as rich Mrs. William B. Leeds. Three months ago she brought to the U. S. as her guest a famed & mysterious young woman, “Mme. Tchaikovsky” (TIME, Feb. 20), who claims to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, fourth and youngest daughter of Nicholas the Last.

Overwhelming eye witness & circumstantial evidence supports the general belief that Anastasia was murdered with the Tsar & Family, at Ekaterinburg, East Russia, on July 16, 1918.

But last week the New York World published what its editors believe to be a recent letter from Mrs. Leeds to the Grand Duke Andrew. Excerpt: “I often played with Anastasia, who was about my own age, and Mme. Tchaikovsky has absolutely astounded me by recalling where we had played, what we had played and other incidents. I do not have the slightest doubt now about her identity, and I am willing to spend all the money I have to prove her claim.”

Another kinsman of the Romanovs, Duke George of Leuchtenberg, said not long ago despairingly of Mme. Tchaikovsky: “If she is not Anastasia who has returned in the flesh it is most certainly her spirit that has come back in a different body. And the worst of it is we can’t find out whose body it is.”

Persons who approve the definition of Napoleon that history is a tissue of lies agreed upon, were annoyed that agreement has been delayed so long over “Anastasia.”