THE SUSPECTS PART 2. NAMES & Sherbakov found?

SUSPECTS NAMED

This blog has been a an experience, a long, long road to hoe. With diversions and rabbit holes we nevertheless have kept going and kept the focus. Who was the man on the beach on December 1st 1948? How did he die? Who killed him? 

Without wasting any further time, let's get on with the job:

WHO WAS HE?

Note 'facemask' shadowing around the nose and mouth in the center image. It is not a 'saddle nose' it is a shadow

          Note: For more information on images and lighting effects see this October 2019 post

In May 2017 we published a name, that name was Pavel Ivanovich Fedosimov, more to the point though, we published a photograph. I was able to obtain an original 'hard copy' photograph from a US based site. It showed Pavel Fedosimov at La Guardia airport in New York alongside Nikolai Novikov, Soviet Consul to the US.  'Pavel Fedosimov' was a known NKVD man, a colonel and has numerous cables accredited to him in the Venona files. He operated under the codename STEPAN.

Let me stress that Pavel Ivanovich Fedosimov is the name that the man in the photograph was given by the press agency and it is believed that this was a pseudonym. According to Vassiliev's notes, Pavel Fedosimov was recalled to Russia because he was suspected of being about to defect. He was due to board the POBEDA in New York on 31st July 1948 but none of the boarding documents were certificated, there is no proof that he was on board when the ship sailed. The headmaster of the Soviet school in New York, Michael Samarin, his wife and 3 children along with Oksana Kasenkina a teacher from the school, also booked to travel to Odessa, did not board and in fact asked for asylum, they all defected.

(The voyage of the Pobeda was marred as it approached Odessa, its final destination. There was a large explosion on board, 40 passengers and two crew were killed. On hearing of the incident, Stalin flew into a rage and blamed US spies for the disaster.)

The bottom line is that there was no proof that Fedosimov boarded the Pobeda, the photograph I have is the only photograph of this man known to be in existence. A person of this name was recorded as being a Soviet envoy at the UN for a number of years from the late 1940s through to 1965, however, no photographs exist of this man either. Clive Turner requested photographs and file details of Pavel Ivanovich Fedosimov from the CIA and the last response he had was 'We can neither confirm nor deny that Pavel Fedosimov had any dealings with the CIA'  

A comparison overlay video of the image you see here showed a marked resemblance to the Somerton Man.

In the absence of any photographs of this man after 1947 and any photographs of the man of the same name attached to the UN, I am led to believe that the man in this photograph was a Soviet defector and may well be the Somerton Man.

It was and probably still is common practice for Russian agents to use pseudonyms. In fact, later in this post we talk of a Bogdan Stashinky, he spoke of the list of pseudonyms he had for use in various locations.

HOW DID HE DIE?

As per the previous post and its comments, I believe that the man was assassinated, that a sophisticated 'vapour' gun was likely used to carry out the killing. 

Much discussion regarding the drug Digitalis, has resulted in an understanding that it was a drug if taken in a heavy dose can kill within seconds and this was substantiated with a copy of an autopsy report of a man who had ended his life in this way. We also know that Digitalis can be delivered by syringe and by default it could be delivered in a vapour form. This conforms to the opinions expressed at the 1949 autopsy and the Phillips document in 1994.

Importantly, no trace of the drug was found in the body, which is believed to have been a conscious decision by the assassin to deliberately cover up the nature of the death and make it look like a suicide. 

This was a stated method used by the NKVD, to use their phraseology, 'Anyone can commit murder but it takes an artist to commit a natural death'

WHO KILLED HIM?

A number of people would fall into the category of suspects with a suspect being someone who either carried out the deed or was involved in its planning.

This list is not exhaustive, it is focused on people who either had a history of such killings in their credits or who, by circumstance, could well have been involved in the event.

1. SHERBAKOV, arrived in Darwin around 26th November 1948 with the Russian delegation to the Lapstone conference due to start on December 1st 1948. Sherbakov was never seen or heard of again after his brief appearance in Darwin

UPDATE. Photograph of Sherbakov found:

An Olympic Boxer, extremely fit, born 1919. Ex Special Forces with experience in WW2.

2. BOGOTYREVA. A secretary to the delegation leader, a Miss Bogotyreva, Miss Bogotyreva was never heard of or seen again along with Sherbakov

3. PAVEL SUDOPLATOV, a senior NKVD man with a record of involvement in assassinations including that of LEON TROTSKY and the use of specialised poisons. Interestingly, Pavel worked in the same battle area as Feosimov in the years 42 to 35 and in a similar role. He worked closely with Mairanovski, (see the next point below), on the development of secret assassination weapons and planning. It was in this laboratory that the single barrel and later double-barrel vapour guns were developed and issued to various assassins. 

4. NIKOLAI EVGENEVIECH KHOKHLOV..
Defected to the US in 1954 amidst a fanfare of press
and public, Nikolai was a trained assassin, a Captain in the KGB at the time of his defection, he had been active within the NKVD through WW2 and the id to late 40s. Not much is known of his activities but he was a known Soviet agent with assassination skills. He himself was subject to an assassination attempt in 1957, it was the first time that the Soviets had used a radioactive substance, Thallium, for this purpose.

5. GRIGORY MAIRANOVSKY, head of Department No.1, he headed up the laboratory focused on the development of secret poisons for the NKVD. He was personally involved in the assassination of Isiah Oggins, a US-born soviet spy.

Mairanovsky tested his poisons on living subjects. It was this man who, in the late 1950s supplied Bodhan Stashinsky with the single barrel vapour gun that he used to assassinate Leb Revet in 1957 and the double barreled version of the same weapon with which assassinated Stepan Banderra in 1959.

(This story was used in the making of the James Bond Film, The Man With The Golden Gun. In that film, Bond was brainwashed into attempting to kill his boss using a secret gas gun.)

Stashinsky was later to tell his US saviours that the weapon he used to kill Revet was a single barrel 8 inch long cylinder. He had it rolled into a newspaper he was carrying, he pointed the weapon into Revet's face and 'pop', the man immediately keeled over.

An excerpt from the book 'The Man With The Poison Gun', describes the speed and ease with which the assassination was carried out:

There are two other possible suspects and as information comes to hand it will be published.

You will no doubt note that the Lapstone conference was due to start on Monday 30th November, that's the day that a man was seen on the beach at Somerton. The very next morning the Somerton Man was found dead.

The question of why was the man left on the beach, perhaps its answered by the timing coincidence with the Lapstone conference. A message was being sent.

Why are no other persons of note mentioned here? I think that Jess's involvement was incidental, I don't think she took part in the planning but I do think she may have seen him a day or before he died

I will be adding more information on each of the suspects over the coming days.