S.t'Chroni cle 28 Jan 69

a- 6` 7

Our Man in 33 The Cosmonaut Shooting Mystery Edmund Stevens Arthur Hoppe is ill. Moscow and who have insisted on the conspirac HE DRIVER of the car in the cosmo- theory should (not seek to minimize T naut motorcade that was fired upon Wednesday's incident as the work of a so- last Wednesday reportedly died of his bul- litary "schizophrenic. Even at this stage let wounds in the hospital late Friday. The the indications are that the deed was care- member of the motorcycle escort who was fully planned. hit at the same time is still on the critical The 64-ruble question would seem to list. be: why did the gunman choose vehicle Meanwhile, the Soviet capital buzzed number three in the motorcade? In the with rumors and guesses about the sensa- heavy frost it was virtually impossible to tional incident. Despite conflicting ac- id4ntify the occupants of the closed cars, counts it seemed fairly certain that the all of them in fur caps and heavy over- shooting did not occur as the vehicles coats. The exceptions were the four were approaching the Kremlin's Borovits- heroes of the occasion. , ky Gate, as the original official version , Alexel. Yeliseyev and Ev- implied. genyi Khrunov of the 4-5 docking According to credible sources the at- mission who at this point were riding in a tempt took place a few yards inside the Zil convertible with the top down at the Kremlin entrance. As the motorcade ad- head of the procession. They had switched vanced at a walking pace a figure in a over to the open job a few minutes pre- militiaman's (policeman's) uniform dart- viously before crossing the Moscow River ed out and drawing two revolvers fired bridge leading to the Kremlin. almost pointblank through the windshield of the third car, a Zil 111 limousine, nar- * * * rowly missing Cosmonaut George Berego- A FTER THEY transferred to the open voi who was seated next to the driver, ,EI convertible for the final stretch the hitting the latter three times. closed car continued to follow In line right Beregovoi received a light cut on the behind them as second car in the motor- neck from a fragment of glass. The re- cade. The car in which Beregovoi and his maining three passengers, Cosmonauts companions were riding which had pre- , Andrian Nikolayev and viously been number two in the line thus his wife, Cosmonette Valentina Teresh- became number three. The following car kova were unhurt. A total of six shots in which top leaders were riding including were fired, one of which went wild strik- party chief Leonid Brezhnev and Presi- ing the motorcyclist. dent Nikolai Podgorny now became num- * * * ber four. This change in sequence may THE OFFICIAL account confirms that have caused the gunman to miscalculate. the killer was caught but gave no indi- None of this offers any clue as to the cation of his identity or motives beyond killer's identity or how he managed to im- implying that he was mentally unbal- personate a member of the Kremlin guard anced. all of whom were presumably handpicked At the same time it is almost the irony and known to each other. Also amazing is of history that the Russians who have con- the circumstance that the incident hardly sistently refused to accept the claim that caused any perceptible delay in the pro- President Kennedy and Senator Robert gram of the day's festivities. Kennedy were shot by isolated crackpots Chronicle Foreign Service