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By Daniel Davies, The Western Mail
ic.WALES: The National Website of Wales
Cardiff, Wales, Feb 16, 2004
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THE CAMPAIGN to strip a journalist of his Pulitzer Prize for ridiculing a
Western Mail journalist who uncovered famine under Stalin is to call for
backing from Democrat front runner John Kerry.
In an effort to defrock New York Times reporter Walter Duranty of his
Pulitzer because he discredited Welshman Gareth Jones's expose of starvation
in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, Ukrainian campaigners will try to enlist
the help of presidential hopeful Kerry through his wife.
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John Kerry
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Teresa Heinz Kerry's first husband was an heir to the Heinz food dynasty
[see note below about U.S. Senator H. J. Heinz III (John)].
In August 1931, Gareth Jones visited Russia and Ukraine with Jack Heinz
II - heir to the food empire - where they both saw evidence of famine.
But Walter Duranty later criticised Mr Jones.
In November last year the Pulitzer prize committee said it would not revoke
Duranty's prize after a campaign led by Ukrainians angry that the famine -
known as the Holodomor - was not being given its proper historical
significance.
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Walter Duranty, 1945, University of Arizona
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Mr Jones's diary from his visit to Russia and Ukraine with Heinz, found in
an aunt's home in Barry, could be the first primary evidence gathered by a
Western observer of starvation caused by Stalin's collectivisation drives.
After working for David Lloyd George, Mr Jones returned to Ukraine in 1932
and in a series of articles for The Western Mail reported how Stalin's
policies were resulting in starvation across the then Soviet republic. In
March 1933, Mr Jones called a press conference in Berlin where he told the
world of the plight suffered by the Ukranian and Russian peoples.
A fluent Russian speaker, he was one of few foreigners to travel around the
rural Soviet Union.
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He told the New York Evening Post at the time, "Millions are dying of
hunger. Everywhere was the cry, 'There is no bread. We are dying'.
"In the train a Communist denied to me that there was a famine. I flung a
crust of bread which I had been eating from my own supply into a spittoon.
A peasant fellow-passenger fished it out and ravenously ate it. I threw an
orange peel into the spittoon and the peasant again grabbed it and devoured
it."
The famine would eventually claim the lives of between seven to 10 million
people.
But Duranty swallowed the Stalinist propaganda and wrote, "Since I talked
with Mr Jones I have made exhaustive inquiries about this alleged famine
situation.
"There is no actual starvation or death from starvation, but there is
widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition."
Professor Lubomyr Luciuk, of the Ukranian Canadian Civil Liberties
Association, said, "The campaign will continue. We are publishing materials
on the campaign to date in a book, due out this May, entitled Not Worthy:
Walter Duranty's Pulitzer Prize and The New York Times.
"Just yesterday, discussions were initiated with representatives of the
Government of Ukraine about future efforts that will involve Ukraine itself
more directly in the campaign to see Walter Duranty's ill-got Pulitzer
revoked or returned."
Mr Jones's niece, retired GP Dr Margaret Colley, and his great-nephew Nigel
Colley run a website devoted to keeping the journalist's legacy alive at
http://colley.co.uk/garethjones.
Last November, Dr Colley gave a lecture at Colombia University in New York
on Mr Jones's reporting of the Holodomor. She said, "His only crime was his
journalistic pursuit of the truth. Sticking his head above the parapet, he
refused to be silenced, on righting the moral injustices of the Soviet
famine, which from first-hand knowledge, he clearly knew to be true."
She said yesterday, "I am disappointed, but I do feel that because of the
Pulitzer award rejection that it has brought Gareth's name to the fore.
"My great object in life is promoting Gareth because he has been airbrushed
out of history, particularly Welsh history.
"I can remember Gareth. He was very cheerful, very likeable and outward
going."
The Western Mail, Thomson House, Havelock Street, Cardiff, Wales
CF10 IXR, http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/
FOR PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC USE ONLY
NOTE: The man Gareth Jones spent time with in the early 1930's in the
U.S.S.R. (including Soviet Ukraine), referred to in The Western Mail
article above, was H. J. Heinz II (Jack) of the famous Heinz Company
and Heinz family of Pennsylvania.
Jack Heinz's only child was H. J. Heinz III (John), who was a leading
Republican U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania at the time of his tragic death
April 4, 1991 in an airplane accident. Senator Heinz's wife's name was
Teresa.
After Senator H. J. Heinz III (John) was killed in the tragic airplane
crash,
Mrs. Teresa Heinz, later married John Kerry, a Democrat U.S. Senator
from Massachusetts and became Mrs. Teresa Heinz Kerry.
This is the Gareth Jones connection to the Democratic U.S. presidential
candidate front runner, U.S. Senator John Kerry, mentioned in the article
above.
For further information about H. J. Heinz II (Jack) and Gareth Jones
click on: http://colley.co.uk/garethjones.
For more information on the Heinz family click on:
http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/about/heinz.html.
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