Editorial Note
About 4:20 p. m., on August 12, 1948, Mrs. Oksana Stepanovna Kasenkina jumped from a third floor window of the Consulate General of the Soviet Union at 7 East 61st Street in New York city where she was being held. Mrs. Kasenkina was removed to Roosevelt Hospital, having sustained serious injuries, including multiple fractures of the right leg and internal injuries.
[Page 1039]This incident and the developments connected with it were abundantly described in the public press, with particularly extensive coverage in the New York Times. Certain lengthy reports and transcripts by the New York city police, filed under 702.6111/8–1648 but not reprinted here, supply direct evidence on this and associated events:
- 1.
- Report from the Commanding Officer, Detective Bureau, Manhattan West, dated August 12, 1948 and signed by Edward Mullins, Deputy Chief Inspector. This deals with the disappearance of the Samarin family, Mrs. Kasenkina, and events between July 29 and August 12, 1948.
- 2.
- Report from the Commanding Officer, Detective Bureau, Manhattan East, dated August 12, 1948 and signed by Conrad H. Rothengast, Deputy Chief Inspector. Here are described Mrs. Kasenkina’s jump from the window, some of the injuries she sustained, and about the inspection by police of some rooms on the third floor of the consulate building at the invitation and in the company of Consul General Lomakin.
- 3.
- Report on the removal of Mrs. Kasenkina to Roosevelt Hospital, from the Commanding Officer, 24th Squad, dated August 13, 1948, signed by Thomas J. Curley, Lieutenant, with the transcript of her interrogation at the hospital on the night of August 12.
- 4.
- Copy of the interview on August 13, 1948, 11:10–11:14 a. m., between Mrs. Kasenkina and the Vice Counsul of the Soviet Union Zot Ivanovich Chepurnykh, from the Commanding Officer, Detective Bureau, Manhattan West, signed by Edward Mullins, Deputy Chief Inspector.
- 5.
- Transcript of the Statement by Mrs. Kasenkina at Roosevelt Hospital on August 13, 1948, 6:02–6:50 p. m., to Inspector Michael J. Ledden, Special Office Squads, concerning her letter of August 5 from Reed Farm, her stay in the Consulate General of the Soviet Union in New York, and on being instructed what to say to the press.