great embarrassment, of course, but Stalin heard
about it.

He was -- he was a sadist personally. He would torture people himself. He was very creative
about it. When he heard that one woman hated snakes, he had snakes put in her cell.

He was a great poisoner. He had people poisoned. He belonged in the history of the Borgias.
And yet he was super capable, super intelligent. Nothing was beyond his capabilities. He was quite
educated. He was an architect, and he was a lovely sort of father and husband, and also a father-in-law. I`m
very lucky that I managed to find one of the great contributors to this book is his daughter-in-law, who lived
in his house with him, for eight years and so knew him very well.

LAMB: What is her name?

MONTEFIORE: She`s calledMarfa Peshkova. She`s also Gorky -- Maxim Gorky`s
granddaughter, so she knew Stalin from childhood. Then she was Svetlana Stalin`s best friend. Then
Svetlana Stalin was in love with Beria`s son and wanted to marry him, but Marfa Peshkova did marry him
and joined the Beria family. And of course, part of this, I`ve gotten to know the Beria grandchildren and
great grandchildren. So I know the Beria family. Not something I ever thought I`d boast of.

But, you know, fascinating people. You can see from that how incestuous this little world was,
what a bizarre tiny little world of seething hatreds, incestuous relationships this was.

LAMB: Beria did what, what was his highest rank?

MONTEFIORE: He was a Politburo member. He was secret police chief from 1938. First of all,
he ran Georgia in the 1930s,