Free The Romanovs: The Final Chapter by Robert K. Massie

hunter, had admired Rossel’s hunting rifle and the large moose head mounted on the wall. He had listened to Rossel’s description of the attractive business opportunities awaiting Americans in this part of the Urals. Then, as he had promised Margaret Tutwiler he would, the secretary had asked about seeing the site of the Ipatiev House. Yes, of course, Rossel had responded, and as you are interested in the Romanovs, why not also come and see their bones? Baker had asked if he might bring another person.
    In the morning, Baker and Tutwiler accompanied Rossel to the Ipatiev site. “There was snow on the ground, red and white carnations lay at the foot of the concrete cross, and people were coming and lighting candles,” Tutwiler remembered two years later. Baker went up to the cross, leaned over, and touched it with a gloved hand. Then the party drove to the two-story morgue where the bones were kept. Alexander Avdonin was there, and Rossel introduced him. The visitors watched a demonstration of computer superimposition and thenlooked at the skeletal remains. At one point, Baker picked up one of Nicholas II’s bones. The singular nature of the situation was not lost on him. Early in 1994, sitting in his Washington law office, he recalled his feelings: “There was a real sense of history in that room. When we—the Bush administration—came into office, we were still confronted with a threat to our very existence from the Soviet Union and its ability to destroy the United States in a nuclear war. I remember how chary we were of the Soviets even as late as May and June of 1989. So, a scant three years later, here was an American secretary of state, standing there in what had been one of the most closed cities of the Soviet Union, just back from the nuclear site at Chelyabinsk, looking at the bones of the tsar. It was a striking example of how far things had come.”
    Tutwiler remembered another moment from that unusual day. In the morgue, she and Secretary Baker were told that the tsar’s son and one of his daughters were missing from the skeletons laid on tables before them. “Is it Anastasia?” Tutwiler asked. Someone—she does not know which of the Russians present—answered decisively, “Anastasia is in this room!”
    While Baker was still in the morgue, Rossel asked a favor. He said that scientists in Ekaterinburg were certain the bones belonged to the Romanovs, but they knew that in order to have this finding accepted in the West, they needed the endorsement of Western forensic experts. “Do you have anyone who could assist us?” Rossel asked. Baker replied that, when he returned to Washington, he would see what he could do. The American reporters accompanying the secretary wrote down this statement, and the following day it appeared in many newspapers.
    Baker was as good as his word. Passing through Moscow, he instructed the U.S. Embassy to establish direct contact with the Ekaterinburg authorities. Returning to Washington, he told the assistant secretary of state for European affairs, “See what we can do to help.” Tutwiler remained involved, and cables stressing that “the secretary is very interested in this” flowed from her office. The two primary U.S. government forensic and pathological laboratories, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology based at Walter Reed Army Medical Center,and the FBI, were asked to participate. The AFIP had extensive experience in identifying bones unearthed after many years. Samples of the bones and teeth of American servicemen killed in Vietnam that could not be identified in Hawaii by standard anthropological, dental, and radiological methods were sent to AFIP for DNA analysis. Similarly, the FBI laboratory stands behind federal, state, and local police authorities as an ultimate resource for identifying criminals, victims, and missing persons. With the agreement of the secretary of defense and the director of the FBI, both laboratories agreed to help.
    A joint team,