Nicholas and Alexandra

Acknowledgments

IN WRITING this book I worked in and drew material from the New York Public Library, the Butler Library of Columbia University, and the Beinecke Rare Book Library of Yale University. I am grateful to the staffs of these institutions for their courtesy and efficiency. I especially appreciate the assistance of Miss Margery Wynne for making available the unique collection of Romanov albums and papers at the Beinecke Library. Without the help of Mr. Richard Orlando, who painstakingly traced numerous volumes, my research would have been thinner and more difficult.

I am greatly indebted to Mr. Dimitry Lehovich and to Professor. Robert Williams of Williams College, each of whom read the entire manuscript and offered numerous helpful suggestions. Neither is responsible for any errors of fact or judgment which may appear in the book. On specific points, I drew on the knowledge of Father James Griffiths of the Orthodox Church, Mrs. Svetlana Umrichin, and Mrs. Evgenia Lehovich. These three also gave their constant encouragement to the project as a whole.

My understanding of the medical problems of hemophilia has been guided by a succession of interviews and conversations with Dr. Kenneth Brinkhous, Dr. Martin Rosenthal, the late Dr. Leandro Tocantins, Dr. Oscar Lucas, Dr. David Agle and Dr. Ake Mattson. For specific questions relating to this book, and for their devoted support over the years, I am profoundly grateful to Dr. Leroy Engel and Dr. Herbert Newman.

Among those who by word and deed gave me steady encouragement during the many long months of writing were Suzanne and Maurice Rohrbach, the late N. Hardin Massie, Simon Michael Bessie, Alfred Knopf, Jr., Robert Lantz, and Janet Dowling, who, along with Terry Conover, typed the manuscript. My children have sustained me with their unfailing optimism and with dozens of cheerful drawings.

The contribution made by my wife, Suzanne, is immeasurable. Along with her own career in journalism, she produced a constant flow of research for this book. At nights and on weekends, she read and edited every line. Her ideas and suggestions, carefully recorded by me on hundreds of hours of tape, provided a constant environment of creative stimulus. Without this help, the book would never have been written. Now that it is finished, it is hers as much as mine.

ROBERT K. MASSIE