NAMES IN THE NEWS : Writer Says He Found Czar’s Body

The bodies of imperial Russia’s last czar and his family, previously believed to have been destroyed by acid, were found by a Soviet writer in 1979 but he dared not tell the world, a weekly newspaper said today.

Moscow News said Geli Ryabov found the mutilated remains of Nicholas II, his wife, 5 children and servants, all murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918, 10 months after the revolution which overthrew the Romanov dynasty.

In an apparent challenge to the accepted Soviet version of events, Ryabov said the leaders of the fledgling Bolshevik state voted for the execution and local authorities concealed the pit where the bodies lay to prevent its becoming a shrine.

“Ten years ago when we opened up the grave where the naked bodies were thrown . . . and even later, I just could not publish the result of my investigation,” Ryabov said. “Times were different and nobody would undertake to identify the skulls and bones.”