RUSSIAN VALET

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 52, 20 November 1946, Page 2

RUSSIAN VALET

may be sent home

Evgeni Yost, vale.t to Lord Inverchauel, the British Ambassador is a Soviet citizen and a very good valet. So good that it was with understandable emphasis that Lord Inverchapel said “sheer nonsense!” when he was shown reports that the United States security officers had been pressing him to send Evgeni home as they fear the valet will see secret papers and tell Stalin everything. The officers, said a Newsweek report, were disturbed by the" Ambassador’s “eccentricity” in keeping his Soviet valet. “Neither British nor American security officers- have been near me on this matter,” declared Lord Invereliapel to questioning newspapermen. “Is he a good valet?” someone asked. “Do you think I would have brought him all the way from Moscow if he wasn’t?” asked the Ambassador in turn. He smiled when he read the passage in the article, which quoted him as saying: “I can’t do anything about Yost. Uncle Joe gave him to me.” His valet, he explained in repudiating this report, had served under Sir Stafford Cripps in Moscow—his predecessor as Ambassador there. Although a Soviet citizen, Evgeni was actually what the Russians called a Volga German, descended from Germans who were taken to Russia in the.reign of Catherine the Great. As for Evgeni seeing secret State papers—“Am I so eccentric?” asked the Ambassador.