RUSSIAN FLEES TO ROME

Southland Times, Issue 23437, 18 February 1938, Page 5

RUSSIAN FLEES TO ROME

DIPLOMAT’S ACCOUNT OF OGPU “TERROR”

ROME, February 16.

The newspaper Giornale d’ltalia announces that M. Theodore Butenko, secretary to the Soviet Legation in Bucharest, who has been missing for 10 days, is now in Rome. He fled from Bolshevik horrors. M. Butenko declares that he was subjected to incessant watching by the OGPU (Soviet secret police) in Bucharest. A trap was laid to kidnap him, so he lay in hiding till he escaped across the frontier.

M. Butenko said that a stranger arrived at the legation on February 3 and that next day the stranger, accompanied by two obvious agents of the OGPU, asked him to accompany them on a motor ride outside the city. “I realized that they intended to ‘take me for a ride,’ and therefore decided to try to escape,” he said. “I hid in the city until February 10 when I crossed the border to Rome. I have been under the protection of the fascist police. I shall devote all my strength in the future to fighting the terrible world danger of Communism.” M. Butenko said his wife and little daughter were in Leningrad but were not. allowed to join him in spite of- repeated requests. “They are probably arrested by now,” he said. “God knows what will happen to them.”

A message from Moscow says that officials describe M. Butenko’s interview as a forgery or one extracted by torture. An official statement issued at Bucharest states that inquiries have established that M. Butenko was not a victim of any attempt against his life. He left Rumania entirely of his own free will. DEATH OF TROTSKY’S ELDER SON FAMILY’S TRAGIC LIFE (Received February 17, 6.30 p.m.) PARIS, February 17. Leon Trotsky, aged 32, elder son of the exiled Bolshevik leader, died after an operation. M. Trotsky sen. had two sons and two daughters. One daughter died in a Soviet prison and the other committed suicide in Berlin. The younger son, an engineer, was arrested in Russia last year on a charge of criminal negligence in his work at a machine plant at Krasnoyarsk. It is reported that he is ill in prison.