The Romanovs: The Final Chapter (38 page)

Richard Schweitzer responded to the Russian Nobility Association’s intrusion into his wife’s lawsuit by saying that “the issue was not one of the comparative merits of respective scientific facilities. The real issue is whether or not the Russian Nobility Association has any standing whatsoever to participate in any way in selection of a scientific facility. There is no evidence before the court of any such standing.” He pointed out that the association had not filed a certificate of its officers or certified resolution of its directors or trustees consenting to the Charlottesville court taking jurisdiction over its activities in these proceedings. Privately, Schweitzer believed that the officers and membership of the Russian Nobility Association had no idea what was going on. He also was convinced that somebody else was paying the association’s legal bills.
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Schweitzer launched a barrage of documents. He said that he never sought
exclusive
authority from the court for
access
to the tissue. He doubted that there was any danger of serious erosion to the tissue samples; he had been told that scientists needed only the tiniest slice, 24/10,000 of an inch thick, from each of the one-inch preserved units. On November 16, he told the court that he would not oppose tests by Dr. King at Berkeley; he would only oppose testing
exclusively
by Dr. King. On another tack, he said that the Russian Nobility Association should not be given standing in the case because Anastasia Manahan never claimed membership in the Russian nobility; she had always said that she was a member of the Russian Imperial family. Privately, both Schweitzers were contemptuous of Alexis Scherbatow for signing himself “Prince” in his sworn affidavit. “When he became an American citizen, he swore to give up foreign titles,” Schweitzer said. “I find it hard to accept the oath of one who claims a foreign title in an affidavit under oath, if that same person has, on naturalization, forsworn all foreign titles and allegiances. Either one oath or the other has dubious validity.” Schweitzer also poured scorn on William Maples: “Maples’ affidavit is not a credible basis [for selecting a laboratory to do the testing],” he told the court. “He has categorically asserted on public television that Grand Duchess Anastasia could not have survived. He is not a disinterested scientist. Maples is an anthropologist, not a geneticist. He states no expertise qualifying him to set criteria for genetic work.”

Richard Schweitzer was not the only one immediately critical of Dr. Maples’ affidavit. When Mary-Claire King read the affidavit a few days after it was filed, she too was upset. On November 19, she telephoned Peter Gill in England, disassociated herself from Maples’ remarks about Gill’s incompetence, and told him that she would be pleased to work in collaboration with him on the Anastasia Manahan tissue. Later that day, she spoke by telephone with Marina and Richard Schweitzer. By fax that day to King, Schweitzer attempted to spell out his and his wife’s position: they were issuing a privately funded commission to Dr. Gill with no control: “no strings, no spin.” Gill’s report, whatever its conclusions about Mrs. Manahan’s claim to
be Anastasia, would go directly to the court and the hospital, not to the Schweitzers. As for a role for Dr. King, Schweitzer told her, “It is not our wish to exclude you from participation with Peter Gill in what should be a purely scientific, totally disinterested series of procedures and conclusions.” Indeed, Schweitzer offered to include King in his own petition to the court. “Unfortunately,” he told her, “your name has been brought into court by a New York genealogical society which has attempted to have the court prevent access sought by us for Dr. Gill. In our view, this is really a law firm action by Andrews & Kurth on behalf of undisclosed parties which have been in the background since March or April 1993.”

During their conversation, King asked Schweitzer to speak to Lindsey Crawford to see whether there was a way that she and Dr. Gill could work in collaboration or, at least, in parallel. The following day, Schweitzer passed this message to Crawford, proposing that Dr. King be included in his wife’s petition and that Andrews & Kurth withdraw from the case. For two weeks, Schweitzer heard nothing; then, on December 4, he learned that Andrews & Kurth had no intention of withdrawing; on December 6, he was told that Thomas Kline was complaining that Schweitzer was interfering with “his” expert. Schweitzer immediately telephoned Kline, who backed down and admitted that Dr. King did not belong to him and that Schweitzer’s contacts with her were entirely proper.

Subsequently, however, Crawford wrote to Schweitzer asking for copies of “all six of the facsimile transmissions to Dr. King.” A week later, Crawford wrote again, sternly demanding that the six fax transmissions be sent to her “upon receipt of this letter. This incident,” she continued, “emphasizes the need to centralize through me all communications concerning or in any way related to the Proceeding.” Schweitzer sent copies of his faxes to Judge Swett but never to Lindsey Crawford.

Meanwhile, Mary-Claire King was putting her own views in writing. On December 7, 1993, she wrote and notarized an affidavit contradicting what Dr. Maples had said about Dr. Gill’s competence. Although her affidavit had been summoned by Andrews & Kurth and was written ostensibly in support of the Russian Nobility Association,
King took a separate course. “I have been working for the past seven months on the identification of the skeletal remains of the nine individuals believed to include Tsar Nicholas II and members of his family,” she said. “I have also received blood and tissue samples from descendants of Tsar Nicholas and his wife, Alexandra.
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I am in the process of preparing a report on my findings. I am familiar with DNA research into the remains from Ekaterinburg being conducted by Dr. Peter Gill. If there is sufficient mtDNA bearing material, it would be ideal to have two qualified laboratories carry out the mtDNA testing and compare their results. I have spoken with Dr. Gill and would like the opportunity to work collaboratively with him in the analysis of the samples.”

Because Dr. King’s affidavit overturned much of the scientific argumentation on which Andrews & Kurth had based its case, it was withheld by that law firm and not submitted to the court or read by opposing attorneys until three months later.

Meanwhile, the number of parties attempting to participate in Richard Schweitzer’s lawsuit was growing. On November 10, a fifty-six-year-old woman from Mullan, Idaho, Ellen Margarete Therese Adam Kalling, born in Germany on October 23, 1937, and still a German citizen, petitioned to intervene. She was, she swore, “the long-lost daughter” of Grand Duchess Anastasia and Prince Henry of Reuss. She said that in January 1993, only ten months before, she had changed her legal name to Anastasia Romanov. Her argument was “If Mrs. Manahan is proven to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov, then I, Anastasia Romanov, as her daughter, am a member of the Imperial family of Russia.” Therefore, she told the court, she alone had a right to her mother’s tissue, and she alone would decide whether, where, and by whom the tissue would be tested.

Mrs. Kailing-Romanov explained that her mother, later Mrs. Manahan, did not raise her because relatives believed that the grand
duchess was incompetent after the murder of her family. Mrs. Kailing-Romanov said that she had been saved from a concentration camp and placed in a German family: “I was told in 1964 … that I was a princess.” She came to the United States in 1968, married an American, and had children. “The truth of my identity was kept from me until June 10, 1990,… [when] I was told that I was the daughter of Anastasia Romanov by Mother Alexandra, abbess of the Orthodox Monastery of the Transfiguration in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania. When I did see the pictures in Peter Kurth’s book, I knew this was my story.… Actually, Lovell in his book gave me the right informations [
sic
],… Now the picture was compleat [
sic
] and fitting.… The last information came from the book of Edvard Radzinsky.”

To strengthen her case, Mrs. Kailing-Romanov contacted a Charlottesville company called Locators Inc., whose stationery promises “Missing Persons Located—Fast Action—Amazing Results.” The company’s finders fee contract stated that if it was determined that the claimant was entitled to share in the estate of Nicholas Romanov, Alexandra Romanov, and Anastasia Romanov, then Locators Inc. would receive 33 percent of the claimant’s share of the estate. Further, “in the event it is determined that claimant is a lawful heir of Tsar Nicholas II and this in turn results in establishing claimant in a position of governmental authority in Russia,” additional compensation would come in the form of payment of Russian government bonds issued in 1916, “together with accrued interest, as the first official act under claimant’s government.” Mrs. Kailing-Romanov decided that she did not trust Locators Inc. and did not sign the contract.

Subsequently, Mrs. Kailing-Romanov made other declarations to the court: “I am just overcoming arsenic poisoning. My income is below the poverty line.” She asked that all court dates be fixed in advance because “the petitioner does not fly, she only travels by train or by car. The petitioner lives in Idaho, more than 2,000 miles away, and it takes by train more than three days to get to Charlottesville, Virginia. The office of the Tsar is given by God over which the earthly has no power. I, Anastasia Romanov, have a son and he continues the line.”

To Richard Schweitzer, it seemed that the Russian Nobility Association and Mrs. Kailing-Romanov were turning his wife’s lawsuit
into a circus. Declaring that Mrs. Kailing-Romanov’s pleading was “too incoherent to merit response,” he suggested the court determine “the competence of the petitioner to represent her own or any other interests” and asked for immediate denial of her petition to intervene. Again, as it had done with the Russian Nobility Association’s petition, Martha Jefferson Hospital, hoping to litigate the tissue matter only once, took the opposite course and asked that Mrs. Kailing-Romanov be admitted as an intervenor.

On December 7, to Richard Schweitzer’s dismay, Judge Swett announced that both the Russian Nobility Association and Mrs. Kailing-Romanov were permitted to intervene in the suit.

Lt. Col. Michael Goleniewski, the Polish CIA agent who claimed to be Tsarevich Alexis
.