Lord Whitworth and the Conspiracy Against Tsar Paul

Ragsdale is 1981, and the relevant chapter is based on Kenney anyway, so no further forward

McGrew was 1992, but still probably too early to take full advantage of glasnost.

So other than the ravings of a Putin apologist on another thread, all we have is a re-heat from 30-40 years ago? My Russian is more than a little rusty, but does anyone know of more modern, serious post Soviet era research?

As conspriracy theories go, it's not exactly been attracting a lot of attention has it? As it didn't really make it into the mainstream narrative I can only conclude it wasn't very convincing then. I see little to change that opinion now.

@Kevin F. Kiley It is also unreasonable to expect a former diplomat to comment publicly on the disbursement of intelligence funds. Indeed, when that country is still nominally friendly revealing any intelligence assets would be irresponsible. It is instructive that the US pursued Snowden for much the same thing, to have had similar from a former ambassador would be unthinkable. Concealing funding is not exactly unique either, ie The Skunkworks, Stealth Bomber etc. Would you really expect an itemised spreadsheet of Castro assassination attempts or at the time that the CIA was paying good money for charlatans to stare at goats? Are we somehow to expect different conduct for a historical character?

I agree, the chronology and geography does not fit with Whitworth taking an intimate or leading role. Tangential at best. I think the recent article posted on this forum which suggests otherwise should be assessed in relation to post Scripal/Salisbury international relations and the ongoing state sponsored misinformation campaign. It would be very sad if any forum members were thus duped into supporting this.

Have you read Kenney's article that Tom referenced?

If you have access to JSTOR https://www.jstor.org/stable/2495036

Otherwise you can sign up for the Scribd trial