I Didn ’t Know My Opinion of Walter Duranty Could Fall Any Lower

David BoazWalter Duranty was the New York Times reporter who won a  Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for his dispatches from the Soviet Union — reporting that even the Times nowdeclares“largely discredited” and “completely misleading.” His biographer goes further, calling himStalin ’s Apologist. I  knew this story. But a new movie,Mr. Jones, which Kyle Smith approvinglycalls“a vicious act of celluloid vivisection on Duranty,” portrays him as thoroughly sinister, from his louche and lavish lifestyle to his denunciation of reporters who tried to report the truth.One such honest reporter was Gareth Jones, a  young Welsh free‐​lancer who went to Moscow in 1933 to study the Soviet economy. He found his way to Ukraine, once known as the “breadbasket of Europe” but by 1933 a land offamine and desperation. He saw starvation, death, and cannibalism. He tried to tell the story but found himself not believed or brushed off.Mr. Joneswas written by Andrea Chalupa and directed by Agnieszka Holland. The imagery in the movie is dark — shadowy and foreboding. It was, of course, a dark time, in Moscow, in Berlin, and in places where people worried about what might be coming. George Orwell, David Lloyd George, and William Randolph Hearst play small but visible roles in the movie. Blink and you’ll miss Malcolm Muggeridge and E ugene Lyons, young Soviet‐​sympathizing journalists who soon realized the truth, told it, and in later years wrote for William F. Buckley Jr....
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs