January 4, 1919

Prince Lvoff, president of the deposed and fugitive Kerensky government and the founder of the Zemstvos, came in this morning. He brought no encouraging news, only complaints, and that was not news. He stated that the promised arms and ammunition [for use against the Reds] were only reaching the Omsk government with great delay or not at all. I had to tell him this was not surprising as so much of it fell into the hands of the Bolsheviki even when we placed it at points represented as being safely in the possession of his forces. The old man has aged twenty years since I saw him last in Petrograd, and yet but a scant four years have elapsed. These years of Sturm und Drang count as double time, I suppose, for all who are closely involved.

Not so Boris Savinkov, however; he looks ten years younger than he did during our clandestine meetings in the Tartar Market of Moscow, now some twelve or thirteen years ago. Then he was a terrorist to be shot on sight. Now he claims to be still Minister of War, although the Bolsheviki have expelled him. Now he twirls a cane and wears a gardenia in his buttonhole. He could pass for a boulevardier of the latest vintage, but he says he is returning to Russia very shortly, where, he asserts, the Bolsheviki are at the end of their tether.

[Savinkov, a born revolutionary, is credited with having organized the assassination of Grand Duke Sergius in 1905. As Minister of War in the short-lived Kerensky regime, he fought the Bolsheviks in Russia, Poland, and then in Paris. Apparently believing all this was forgiven, he did return to Russia in 1924, was promptly arrested, and, while being questioned by the secret police at their headquarters, either leaped or was pushed to his death from a window.]