Transcript The Airbrushing of Gareth Jones

The
Gareth Jones
Diaries
- A Man Who Knew Too Much
© 2006. All Rights Reserved. www.garethjones.org
Overview
Part 1 – Who Was Gareth Jones?
1.
Early Life / Education
Part 2 – The Gareth Jones Diaries
1.
Personal Diary & Letter Observations of Soviet Famine in the
USSR:
a) 1930 – Lloyd George & First Unescorted Visit to Donetsk
b) 1931 – Off the Beaten Track with Jack Heinz II
c) 1933 – ‘Tramping’ through Ukrainian Villages & Kharkiv
Part 3 – Covering-up of a Famine
1.
Damned by Walter Duranty & The New York Times
2.
Randolph Hearst’s Famine -1935
a) Repeating Famine Allegations
b) Thomas Walker (Fake Photos) Affair
Part 4 – Murdering the Messenger & Airbrushing the Truth
1.
Murdered by Japanese Controlled Chinese Bandits or Soviet
Retribution?
2.
Memorial Plaque - Aberystwyth, Wales, 2006
Early Life
• Mother, Former Governess
to John Hughes’ family
between 1889-92, founder
of Hughesovka (now
Donetsk).
• Father, Headmaster Barry
County Grammar School.
Early Life
• Mother, Former Governess
to John Hughes’ family
between 1889-92, founder
of Hughesovka (now
Donetsk).
• Father, Headmaster Barry
County Grammar School.
• Gareth, Born 1905 in
Barry, South Wales.
Academic Career
• 1922-26 – 1st Class
Honours Degree in French &
German from Aberystwyth
University, Wales.
• 1923-25 - Université de
Strasbourg: Diplôme Supérieur
des Etudes Françaises.
• 1926 – Exhibition
Scholarship to Trinity College,
Cambridge.
• 1927, 1928 & 1929 - College
Prizeman – Plus Senior Scholar
in 1928.
• 1929 – 1st Class Honours in
German and Russian, with
distinction in Oral Examinations.
1930-31 – With Lloyd George
• One month unsuccessful
trial with The Times and
through family
acquaintance Tom Jones,
the long-standing British
Government Cabinet
Secretary is introduced to
Former World War One
British Prime Minister David
Lloyd George.
• Appointed Foreign Affairs
Advisor to Lloyd George.
1930-31 – With Lloyd George
• Visits USSR in August 1930, for 1st time, on
behalf of Lloyd George; soon after British
Diplomatic Relations are restored having being
broken in 1927, due to the Arcos Spying Affair.
• On Leaving USSR, Gareth writes candidly to his
parents:
Hurray! It is wonderful to be in
Germany again, absolutely
wonderful.
Russia is in a very bad state;
rotten, no food, only bread;
oppression, injustice, misery
among the workers and 90%
discontented. I saw some
very bad things, which made
me mad to think that people
like [the Webbs] go there and
come back, after having been
led round by the nose and
had enough to eat, and say
that Russia is a paradise. In
the South there is talk of a
new revolution, but it will
never come off,
because the Army and the
G.P.U. (Secret Police) are
too strong. The winter is
going to be one of great
suffering there and there is
starvation. The
government is the most
brutal in the world. The
peasants hate the
Communists. This year
thousands and thousands
of the best men in Russia
have been sent to Siberia
and the prison island of
Solovki. People are now
speaking openly against
the Government.
In the Donetz Basin
conditions are unbearable
Thousands are leaving. I
shall never forget the night I
spent in a railway station on
the way to Hughesovka.
One reason why I left
Hughesovka so quickly was
that all I could [get to eat was
a roll of bread.]
1930 – October -The London Times:
“Two Russias”
Through Lord Lothian, Gareth was introduced to Geoffrey
Dawson, Editor of The Times (who had no Moscow
Correspondent) & invited to write 3 articles, in which he
stated:
Click HERE for link to articles
1930 - The London Times:
“Two Russias”
• “…foreign delegations [are] blissfully ignorant of the
hunger, discontent, opposition, and hatred.”
• “…Donetz Basin, where there has been a serious
breakdown in food supplies.”
• A miner expressed …“Everybody is going away from the
Donetz Basin, because there is no food here. There is
nothing in Russia. The situation is terrible.”
• “The present food shortage was attributed by most
Russians to two causes – the agricultural revolution
begun last year and the absence of a free market... “It is
all the fault of this collectivisation, which the peasants
hate. There is no meat, nothing at all.”
1931 – Ivy Lee (PR), New York
• Head-hunted from Lloyd
George’s Secretariat to
work for world’s leading
PR agency on Wall
Street as their Soviet
expert.
• Chaperoned 21 year old
Jack Heinz’s visit to
USSR in August 1931.
1931 – Ivy Lee (PR), New York
• Afterwards, compiled a privately published ‘Anonymously
written’ book in spring 1932, entitled: “Experiences of
Russia – 1931 – A Diary” – namely from Gareth’s
Diaries.
• Arguably, the first Western book to ‘honestly’ report the
onset of famine conditions within the Soviet Union, again
citing variations of the word ‘starve’ on half a dozen
occasions…
Click HERE for link to full transcription of book
1931 Experiences of Russia – A Diary
Gareth wrote the Foreword:
“With knowledge of Russia and the
Russian language, it was possible to get
off the beaten path, to talk with grimy
workers and rough peasants, as well as
such leaders as Lenin’s widow and Karl
Radek.
We visited vast engineering projects and
factories, slept on the bug-infested floors
of peasants’ huts, shared black bread and
cabbage soup with the villagers - in short,
got into direct touch with the Russian
people in their struggle for existence and
were thus able to test their reactions to the
Soviet Government’s dramatic moves.”
Extract from Gareth’s 1931 Diary [transcribed in next 2 slides]
Sept 5
Woke, Keen supporter
came; later whispered
to Vice President, then
he came & there was a
complete change in his
attitude. “Its terrible.
We can’t speak worse
than before the Rev.
But 1926-27, those
were fine years”.
Absolute change in
[his] attitude &
gestures.
“We’ve got to keep
quiet or they will send
us to Siberia .
Then went to the
Village Soviet, an old
man came,
whispered “It’s
terrible in Kolhoz.
They took away my
cows & my horse. We
are starving. Look
what they give us.
Nothing. Nothing.
Nothing!
How can we live with
nothing in our dvor.
But we can’t say
anything or they’ll
send us away as they
did the others.
All are weeping in
villages.
1931 – Oct 14th The London Times
THE REAL RUSSIA - 3 Articles
Click HERE for link to articles
1932 - Oct 14th - Letter to Parents London Circles Knew of Raging Famine…
“On Friday, I had exceptionally interesting talks …
with Prof. Jules Menken (LSE) a very well known
economist. He was appalled with the prospects: what
he had seen was the complete failure of Marxism. He
dreaded this winter, when he thought millions would
die of hunger.
He had never seen such bungling & such
breakdowns. What struck him was the unfairness &
the inequality. He had seen hungry people one
moment & the next moment he had lunched with
Soviet Commissars in the Kremlin with the best caviar,
fish, game & the most luxurious wines.”
Planning a Trip to Expose the Soviet Famine
• Gareth immediately pens two articles for the Cardiff
Western Mail published on October 15th & 17th to highlight
the tragic situation entitled; “Will there be Soup?”
• In line with his Welsh Non-Conformist beliefs & virtues;
Gareth decided to make a trip to view the conditions
firsthand.
• On 23 February 1933, Gareth became the first foreign
journalist to fly with the newly appointed German
Chancellor and afterwards dining privately with Goebbels…
He prophetically wrote in the Western Mail:
“If this aeroplane should crash then the whole history of
Europe would be changed. For a few feet away sits
Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of Germany and leader of the
most volcanic nationalist awakening which the world has
seen.”
Click HERE for link to German articles
10 Days Later Gareth Arrived in Moscow on 5th March 1933
Malcolm Muggeridge
Gareth’s 1933 Diary
appointment with
Muggeridge in Moscow
on 6th March at 9pm.
Muggeridge
Collapse of Bolshevism.
Returned from villages –
terrible – dying. No seed for
sowing. Practically no winter
sowing.
Outlook for next year
disastrous – End of Party
absolutely inevitable,
Stalin hated by Party, but
Party cannot do anything. 95%
of Party opposed to Stalin’s
policy, but there s no
discussion. Any opposition
and man is removed.
1933 Mach 10th – Conversations on ‘Local’ Train to Ukraine.
Boy on train asking for
bread.
I dropped a small piece
on floor and put it in
spittoon. Peasant came
and picked it up - ate
it.
Peasant woman: “Many are
dying. We’re starving. There
is little cattle left. They take
all grain away.
Ukrainian peasant: “They
took away my grain. Cattle
(maлo) a little. But there
were a lot.
Member Politdel
“I’ve been a member of the
party for 12 years. They are
now sending 2,700 from
Moscow Politdel. They are the
best, the strongest. It is semimilitary. We’ll smash kulaks
and smash opposition. We’re
promoting all men who
served in the civil war. The
elite, chosen ones. 60% of us
have been in higher
educational schools.
He clenched his fist & hit
down
…with every word: resolute,
ruthless, cruel:
“We are all workers mainly from
the factories.”
“We are going to organise. They’ll
be about 4 of us in each MTC. The
MTC where I shall be will look
after 15 kolkhozes. We’ll give
them strict control.”
“The weather for the harvest is
good, i.e. Lot of snow.”
“The methods of the kulaks have
changed. They used to murder.
Now they are subtle. Now they
say “yes we’re for the Kolkhoz”,
they’ll steal & wont work & they’ll
make difficulties. They try to wreck by
mean tricks, but they are not
dangerous any longer.
“I was in Perekop [Crimea?] in cavalry
served Budyonny’s 1st cavalry.”
The conductor said that there were
fewer travelling now, because it was
difficult to leave factory. But soon
there will be a lot of people leaving
Moscow for south on account of
passportisation. Also there were a lot
about 2 months ago.
I asked a man (Jew or Armenian)
where he was going.
He had a lot of gold teeth and said:
“I’ve left Leningrad and am going to
Kharkov to look for a job. I have no
vote. They have deprived me of my
rights, because I was a private trader.”
Boy Komsomolets:
“Very strict now. They are dying in
villages. In Belgorad there is bread,
but that’s a town.
“One woman stole 5 beets & got 10
years imprisonment.”
“If you steel coal from station, 10 yrs.
Very bad & we don’t know if it’ll be
better.”
Talked to a group of women
peasants; “We’re starving. Two
months we’ve hardly had bread.
We’re from the Ukraine and we’re
trying to go north. They’re dying
quietly in the villages. Kolkhozes
are terrible. They won’t give us any
tickets and we don’t know what to
do. Can’t buy bread for money.
A chicken was 20 rubles. Milk - 3
rubles a litre.
I dropped orange peel in spittoon.
Peasant picked it up, ate it. Later
apple core. Man speaking German
same story “Tell them in England,
Starving, bellies extended. Hunger
“Be careful in the villages
because the Ukrainians are
desperate. They will grab any
bread they can see.”
Conductor gets 67 rubles a
month, & a pound of black
bread for journey (day); “I
must work night and day”.
Komsomolets: “When I left
my mother and her sisters a
couple of days ago, they had
2 glasses of flour left.”
First day March 11
From train, I walked about
an hour, chatted to all. The
same story.
There was a kolkhoz.
Asked children outside hut:
God? “Of course not. There
is no God.”
Talked to men on track. It
was getting [to] sunset. One
of them said:- “you’d better
not go…
…further, for hooligans will rob
you of your coat & your food & all.”
The other – handsome, determined
young Communist, said “ Yes its
dangerous. Come and stay with us in
our village.”
Communist took me along to a
Selsoviet; full of young people,
children. One of them belly swollen.
All people say same ”XЛEБА HETУ
BCE nyxnoie” (Bread Not Available)
– One woman said:- “We are looking
forward to death.”
In one village, all bread had gone two
months ago, & potatoes had run out,
there was only bypяk (beetroot)
… for one month. How can they live
till next harvest?
The questions in the Selsoviet
were most intelligent: about workers
life, Japan, China, America, why the
crisis? Good Listeners. Keen
Discussions.
Then to the cottage of the
young Pres. of village soviet, decent
fellow with smile, ruddy face, 27 yrs
of age. His wife was there, with
closely cropped hair with gold
round earrings. Very kind.
Discussions for hours: “there
is only one communist in the
village”.
March 11 The President of the Kolkhoz
said they had enough seed, but move
towards the South there was a lack of
seed. He said that two families had
been sent away from the village of 120
dvor. Probably he was kind-hearted.
The discussion was very open, the
peasants saying that it have never
been so bad, the Pres. saying faintheartedly that great sacrifices had to be
made.
One peasant: “If only Lenin had
lived, we’d be living fine. He knew what
was going to happen. Here they’ve
been chopping and changing policy &
we don’t know what’s going to happen
next. Lenin would not have done
something violently and then said that
it was an oшибka (mistake).”
Two soldiers came and they asked
heaps of questions. “The bourgeoisie
were crushing the working class in
England. They shot down
demonstrators. Communists sat in
prison & England was going to declare
war on Russia.”
They had come to arrest a peasant
thief who had killed another. The thief
had gone to steal potatoes from the
hut of another.
The owner of the hut had come out
& the peasant had stabbed him with a
knife. There were many cases of that
happening.
The Red Army soldier who came the
next morning also said, “Don’t travel
by night. There are too many wild…
uncultured men want food and to
steal.”
Went to bed late, slept on floor.
In one bed; Pres., his wife & her
sister & small bed the child.
Woke up next morning before 8.
The Communist leader of next
village was there – Keen
Revolutionary; “We have
difficulties, but they have been
overcome.”
“There’s seed in this village.”
Cattle decrease disastrous. There
used to be 200 oxen, now 6 horses
& cattle here down by tremendous
amount.
The new tax, the Communists
… think will increase the desire
of the workers to work.
But there have been too
many wreckers, too many
kulaks, who have been trying to
influence the other peasants.
Breakfasted, then sister of
wife did algebra lesson.
The Communists realised &
admitted that there was no grain.
That was ‘Bockrenchenka’ [?] in
the Black Earth region. Lower
down it is much worse.
Talked to all the people as I
tramped along the railway track.
Ravens or crows (with…
… grey cap). White expanse of
snow.
Moscow – Sebastopol train rattled
past with sleeping wagon. Politdel
party members, etc.
Went into village. There is no
bread. “We’ve had no bread for 2
months”.
“Each dvor had one or 2 cows.
Now none. There are almost no
oxen left & the horses have been
dying off.”
There was a young worker in
the village. “The unemployed are
growing and they’re treated…
…like cattle. They’re told to get
away & they get no bread card.
They’re cutting down men
everywhere. I worked in Kharkov.
There they’ve dismissed
thousands. “
“How can I live? I got a lb of
bread for all my family & we came
here for a short time, there is no
food here. My family is in Kharkoff
& I don’t know how they’ll live.”
“We’re all getting (swollen)
nyxлbin.”
“In this village 5 or 6 kulak
families were sent away to Siberia &
to cut wood in the Northern forests,
…also to build a railway in
Murmansk.”
But some of the kulaks live
better than those who remain in
the villages because there is
now more bread in the towns.
“In the south 20% of the
population have died of hunger”
said the young worker “and in
some parts 50%. They’re
murdering us.”
“A lot of factories cannot
pay their wages.”
Lunched with teacher:
“potato soup, potatoes with a
little meat (very little) & kasha.”
“I have my own cow” said teacher.
He was a Marxist. His wife said that
hardly any of the children believed in
God.
Walked out. The peasant; “No
food. You [teacher] don’t work & get
plenty of food. You’re the first kulak in
the village and tried to throw me out
of my hut.”
Then, onto the railway and on to
Ukraine.
Wagons, oil, timber towards the
South.
Most important railway in Russia.
Now in Ukraine. / Go back
pages… [Gareth’s diary entries now
fill space in previous diary].
In the Ukraine. A little later I
crossed the border from Greater
Russia into the Ukraine.
Everywhere I talked to peasants
who walked past – they all had the
same story;
“There is no bread – we haven’t
had bread for 2 months – a lot are
dying.”
The first village had no more
potatoes left and the store of
БҮРЯК (beetroot) was running out.
They all said ‘the cattle is
dying. (Nothing to feed.) НЕЧЕВО
КОРМНБ.” We used to feed the
world now we are hungry. How
can we sow when we have few
horses left? How will we be able
to work in the fields when we are
weak from want of food?
Then I caught up…
…[with] a bearded peasant who was
walking along . His feet were covered
with sacking. We started talking. He
spoke in Ukrainian Russian. I gave
him a lump of bread and of cheese.
“You could not buy that anywhere
for 20 rubles. There just is no food.”
We walked along and talked;
“Before the war this was all gold. We
had horses and cows and pigs and
chickens. Now we are ruined. We are
(doomed) ПОLUБЛИ..“You see that
field. It was all gold, but now look at
the weeds. The weeds were peeping
up over the snow.”
“Before the war we could have
boots and meat and butter. We were
the richest
…country in the world for grain.
We fed the world. Now they have
taken all away from us.
“Now people steal much more.
Four days ago, they stole my
horse. Hooligans came. There
that’s where I saw the tract of the
horse.”
“A horse is better than a
tractor. A tractor goes and stops.,
but a horse goes all the time. A
tractor cannot give manure, but a
horse can.
How can the spring sowing be
good? There is little…
…seed and the people are too
weak. We are all weak and hungry.
“The winter sowing was bad,
and the winter ploughing was also
bad.”
He took me along to his
cottage. His daughter and three
young children. Two of the smaller
children were swollen.
“If you had come before the
Revolution we would have given
you chicken and eggs and milk and
fine bread. Now we have no bread
in the house. They are killing us.”
“People are dying of hunger.”
There was in the
…hut – a spindle the daughter
showed me how to make thread. The
peasant showed me his shirt, which
was home-made and some of his
sacking which had been home-made.
“But the Bolsheviks are crushing
that. They want the factory to make
everything.”
The peasant then ate some very
thin soup with a scrap of potato. No
bread in house.
The white bread [bought in
Moscow Torgsin by GJ] they thought
was wonderful.
The hut had eight ikons, path
tawdry & cheap.
[Diary continues with several
more conversations along the railway
track…]
Everybody on the track said
the same: “Lots of people dying.
Only beetroot. Too weak for
spring sowing.
One group: “There are
thousands of unemployed. Their
bread card is taken away and they
have nothing. On April 1st there’ll
be another (оқращєнue) cut.
Go down to the Poltava
district and there you’ll see
hundreds of cottages empty. In a
village of 300 huts only about 100
will have people living in them &
others have died or gone away,
but most have died.”
One worker in Kharkov: “I only get
100gm of bread per day for wife and
myself.”
-------G.J. : “ What kind of crop will you
have?”
Peasant: “A splendid crop, - of weeds.”
Group of workers: “Terrible! Dying.!”
Railway Post
“Down South it’s ten times
worse. They’re dying off.
Empty villages.”
“We are too weak for
sowing.
“In this village they’ve sent
some seed but we’ve few
horses.
Resigned to fate. One
village – practically no seed.
Escorted to ‘Kharkoff’
After two days ‘tramping’ along the track, according to one of
Gareth’s 1935 American syndicated articles for Randolph Hearst,
his trek came to an abrupt end:
“It happened in a small station, where I was talking with a
group of peasants: “We are dying,” they wailed and poured out
the old story of their woes. A red-faced, well-fed OGPU policeman
in uniform approached us and stood listening for a few moments.
Then came the outburst, and from his lips poured a series of
Russian curses. “Clear away, you! Stop telling him about hunger!
Can’t you see he’s a foreigner?”
He turned to me and roared: “Come along. What are you doing
here? Show me your documents.”
Visions of a secret police prison darted before my mind. The
OGPU man looked at my passport and beckoned to one of the
crowd, whom I had taken to be an ordinary passenger, but who
was obviously in the secret police.
Escorted to ‘Kharkoff’
He came to me and in the most polite and respectful terms
bade me follow him. “I shall have to take you to the nearest city,
Kharkov.”
Throughout the journey I impressed him with the fact that I
had interviewed Lenin’s widow, and a number of commissars and
great panjandrums of the Soviet régime, and by the time we
reached Kharkov I believed he was thoroughly convinced that any
real arrest of myself would plunge Russia and Europe and the
United States into a world war.
For he decided to accompany me to a foreign consulate in
Kharkov and he left me at the doorstep, while I, rejoicing at my
freedom bade him a polite farewell – an anti-climax but a welcome
one.
[Kharkiv]
Queues for bread. Erika [from the
German Consulate] and I walked along
about a hundred ragged pale people.
Militiaman came out of shop whose
windows had been battered in and
were covered with wood and said:
“There is no bread today.”
Shouts angry peasants also there.
“But citizens, there is no bread.”
“How long here?” I asked a man.
“Two days.”
They would not go away, but
remained. Sometimes a cart might
come up with bread. Waiting with
forlorn hope.
Streets in terrible. Condition,
houses rotten, ice thawing, wet dirty.
Saw homeless boys. They are
increasing. The influence of the film
“Introduction to Life” has been bad &
many boys from good family have run
away. We examined houses, the
stones were terrible, crumbled away
when I touched.
Many constructions were
abandoned on account of financial
difficulties. Rottenly built.
Churches
taken down to
make place
for building.
In one church
place workers
said that it was haunted & ran away. One
church was exploded and the tower
remained standing. Population said it
was a sign of God. Still Religious but
young people not.
Bewilderment among the Village
Communists. When they drove too hard,
lots of peasants got into trouble. When
they were too kind, accused of being
pro-kulak. Many arrested 35 shot – in
paper last Sunday. Policy has chopped
& changed.
Queues of
7000 stand.
They begin
queuing up at
3-4 o’clock
afternoon to
get bread
next morning
at 7. It is
freezing. –
many
degrees of
frost.
Very many dismissals,
thousands of unemployed
in Kharkoff. Their bread
card is taken away, often
given no passport.
Coat c.f. Gogol.
One street we went through
had an evil reputation.
Gangs would steal coats &
watches, etc,. Dark Street.
Lack of electric light. The
electric trams had to stop
over the Dniepstroy
because there was no
current. Electricity failure.
Many beggars,
peasants on the streets,
crying for bread.
GPU
Land - green tabs.
Town – blue tabs.
Saw general pass, looking
like ordinary soldier.
Lots of GPU men in street.
Supposed to be 250,000 in
Ukraine, but this is
exaggeration. There are
peasants [who] hate them
like poison.
30,000 in Kharkoff.
Terror much worse.
In 1931 it was
lightened. Now bad
again for
bourgeoisie. Stricter.
When Consul
telephoned the
Foreign Office, said;
‘Yes Jones. He
arrived on foot.’
We passed the GPU prison
& a lot of peasants &
Ukrainian Nationalists
sitting there.
GPU much stronger than it
was & has complete
control.
Outside Torgsin. 80 paper
rubles offered for one
Torgsin ruble.
1921.
German: Now much worse
- much worse than war
years also. Then there
was no food in the towns,
but the peasants had food.
Now neither the peasants
nor the town have food.
The GPU is getting more and
more powerful.
Stalin & GPU now ruling
Russia.
There is a struggle between
Narkomindel [People's Commissariat
of Foreign Affairs] & GPU, but
Narkomindel has nothing to say.
New Ukrainian Policy.
In the last few weeks there has been
a beginning of Russification again.
Muscovites have been placed in
leading posts in Kharkoff & more
Russian is to be taught in the
schools.
Who was Gareth Jones?
From United Press Moscow Correspondent, Eugene Lyons’
1937 book; Assignment in Utopia:
“The first reliable report of the Russian famine was given to
the world by an ‘English’ journalist, a certain Gareth Jones, at
one time secretary to Lloyd George. Jones had a
conscientious streak in his make-up which took him on a
secret journey into the Ukraine and a brief walking tour
through its countryside. That same streak was to take him a
few years later into the interior of China during political
disturbances, and was to cost him his life at the hands of
Chinese military bandits. An earnest and meticulous little man,
Gareth Jones was the sort who carries a note-book and
unashamedly records your words as you talk. Patiently he
went from one correspondent to the next, asking questions
and writing down the answers...”
Click HERE for Lyon’s chapter with more about Gareth; “The Press Corps Conceals a Famine”
Gareth Holds Berlin Press Conference
Immediately on Leaving USSR where he
Exposes the Famine.
First USA Newspaper reports published
on 29th March 1933.
Click HERE for link to articles
Articles In Europe
31st March 1933 – London Evening
Standard.
1st April 1933 – Berliner Tageblatt by Paul
Scheffer.
Plus Series of (20) Articles by Gareth in
London Daily Express, Financial News &
Cardiff Western Mail in Early April 1933.
Throwing Down Jones?
From Eugene Lyons’ 1937 book; Assignment in Utopia:
On emerging from Russia, Jones made a statement which,
startling though it sounded, was little more than a summary of what
the correspondents and foreign diplomats had told him. To protect
us… he emphasized his Ukrainian foray rather than our
conversation as the chief source of his information.
In any case… with preparations under way for the trial of the
British [Metrovik] engineers. The need to remain on friendly terms
with the censors at least for the duration of the trial was for all of us
a compelling professional necessity.
Throwing down Jones was as unpleasant a chore as fell to
any of us in years of juggling facts to please dictatorial regimes,
but throw him down we did, unanimously and in almost identical
formulas of equivocation. Poor Gareth Jones must have been the
most surprised human being alive when the facts he so
painstakingly garnered from our mouths were snowed under by
our denials.
Duranty – 31 March 1933, New York Times
Click HERE for link to article
“Mr. Jones is a man of a keen and
active mind, and he has taken the trouble
to learn Russian, which he speaks with
considerable fluency, but the writer
thought Mr. Jones' judgment was
somewhat hasty and asked him on what
it was based. It appeared that he had
made a forty-mile walk through villages in
the neighborhood of Kharkov and had
found conditions sad.”
“There is a serious shortage food
shortage throughout the country, with
occasional cases of well-managed State
or collective farms. The big cities and the
army are adequately supplied with food.
There is no actual starvation or deaths
from starvation, but there is widespread
mortality from diseases due to
malnutrition.”
March 19.
Met Litvinoff.
“I don’t trust Duranty.
He still believes in
Collectivisation. “
Gareth Jones’ Rebuttal Letter to the Editor of
the New York Times – 13 May 1933
• …Journalists, on the other hand, are allowed to write, but
the censorship has turned them into masters of
euphemism and understatement. Hence they give
“famine” the polite name of “food shortage” and “starving
to death” is softened down to read as widespread mortality
from diseases due to malnutrition.”
• … May I in conclusion congratulate the Soviet Foreign
Office on its skill in concealing the true situation in the
U.S.S.R.? Moscow is not Russia, and the sight of well fed
people there tends to hide the real Russia.
Click HERE for link to letter
1933 – ‘Joneski’ Litvinov Ban – Correspondence
from Gareth to a Friend…
"Alas! You will be very amused to
hear that the inoffensive little 'Joneski'
has achieved the dignity of being a
marked man on the black list of the
OGPU and is barred from entering the
Soviet Union. I hear that there is a long
list of crimes which I have committed
under my name in the secret police file
in Moscow and funnily enough
espionage is said to be among them.
As a matter of fact Litvinoff sent a
special cable from Moscow to the Soviet
Embassy in London to tell them to make
the strongest of complaints to Mr. Lloyd
George about me."
1933-34, The ‘Wilderness’ Year
• Snubbed by Lloyd George and London
Intelligentsia.
• 1933-34 - Worked as local reporter for Cardiff
Western Mail, primarily on stories relating to
Welsh traditional arts & crafts!
1933-34, The ‘Wilderness’ Year
• June 1934 – Meets
Randolph Hearst at his
Welsh Castle, St. Donats,
Cardiff – invited to meet
again in St. Simeon,
California.
• January 1st 1935 –
Personally commissioned
to repeat famine
observations for Hearst;
given carte blanche to
write some of the most
vitriolic attacks on the
Stalinist regime whilst
being equally heartrending.
12, 13, 14th January 1935,
New York American, Los
Angles Examiner & Other
Hearst Papers
Click HERE for link to articles
1935 – February – The Thomas Walker
Affair
Five articles published in American Hearst Press
commencing 18 February 1935 relating Thomas
Walker’s observations of a continuing 1934
Ukrainian famine & illustrated with secretly taken
photographs from his own camera.
1935 – February – The Thomas Walker Affair
• show pic of articles
1935 – 13th March – Louis Fischer & The Thomas
Walker Affair
• Fischer in a published letter in left-wing weekly
magazine, The Nation, showed that:
– Walker’s photos were from different seasons.
– Some photos from 1921 famine.
– Thomas Walker according to unverified Sovietsupplied records to Fischer, was only present in
Moscow for five days in Autumn 1934 and therefore
could never have visited Ukraine.
– “P.S. Would the Hearst press oblige with a photo of
Mr Thomas Walker, and with facsimiles of his US
passport and of the Soviet visa stamped upon it?”
1935 – 13th March – Louis Fischer & The Thomas
Walker Affair
British PRO Records of Deportees for June 1935 shows…
1935 – 13th March – Louis Fischer & The Thomas
Walker Affair
Passport Fraud Charged’, New York Times, July 13, 1935
‘Indicted Writer Also Accused as Escaped Convict’...
“Robert Green, a writer of newspaper articles describing
famine conditions in the Ukraine, was indicted yesterday
…on the charge that he had made false statements
obtaining a passport. George Pfann, Attorney, alleged that
Green, who wrote under the pen name, Thomas Walker,
was a fugitive from Colorado prison where he escaped in
1921 while serving a sentence for forgery. After escaping
from Prison Mr. Pfann said, Green went to Canada, learned
chemical engineering and got a job with an exporting
Company as its German representative …”
1935 – 13th March – Louis Fischer & The Thomas
Walker Affair
1.
2.
How did Fisher know Walker was travelling on a false
passport, three months before his London arrest? Was he
supplied by the Soviets along with Walker's 1934 USSR
travel dates? & who tipped off the British authorities?
Even Canadian Marxist, Douglas Tottle, who in the 1980s
reminded Jim Mace that Walker was a fraud, cited The Daily
Worker; “Evidence at trial revealed he [Walker] had made a
previous visit to the Soviet Union in 1930, under the name
Thomas J. Burke” and was “expelled for attempting to
smuggle out a ‘whiteguard’ out of the country”.
Yet Walker, was evidently able to travel again to the USSR in
Autumn 1934, albeit under another name, but surely a risky
undertaking, nonetheless!
1935 – 13th March – Louis Fischer & The Thomas
Walker Affair
3.
4.
London Times (p6) 20 November 2006 re. Alex Litvinenko,
the recent alleged Thallium-poisoned Journalist / RSU
defector. The former London KGB Station Head, Oleg
Gordievsky stated “the KGB has recruited agents in prison
since the 1930s. That’s how they work.”
So, where was Walker for his 14 years on run from Colorado
prison, in a Soviet prison?
Finally, how did this professional forger come by at first
glance such genuinely-looking photos and plausible story –
though similar copy was published in the London Daily
Express in Aug 1934.
1935 – 13th March – Louis Fischer & The Thomas
Walker Affair
• Fischer’s letter combined with Walker’s subsequent
(re)arrest effectively for half a century …
– Destroyed the credibility of the Worldwide
‘Conservative’ press’ allegations of any Soviet famine
in the 1930s.
– Without ever mentioning Gareth’s name or even
attacking his 1935 articles directly – Gareth’s truthful
observations of 1933 were tarnished by the same
brush.
– [Gareth during this controversy was ‘conveniently’
incommunicado when Fischer’s letter was published
& therefore unable to contribute to the controversy.]
Gareth Investigates the Far East
• Spring 1935 Gareth embarks
on fact-finding
mission of
Japanese
Expansionism of
their puppet state
of Manchukuo, in
Northern China
after interviewing
political leaders in
Tokyo.
Click HERE for link to Manchukuo Incident Book.
Click HERE for link to Gareth’s Far East Articles
1935 – 28th July – Gareth Kidnapped in
Northern China by Bandits
• German Company, Wostwag kindly supplied vehicle for an
extended trip into Inner Mongolia to witness the Japanese
presence in the area.
1935 – 28th July – Gareth Kidnapped in
Northern China by Bandits
• Invite from German Journalist Dr Herbert Mueller.
• Gareth assured; “Absolutely safe, no bandits”.
• After kidnapping, Mueller released after two days as
captive…
• Ransom rejected by bandits …
• Gareth was tragically murdered after two weeks on eve of
his 30th birthday -12 Aug 1935 …
1935 – Sept / Oct - Immediate Aftermath
• London publication in The Week by Marxist,
Claud Cockburn, claimed that Dr. Mueller was
released because of secret Japanese-German
Entente Cordiale Pact.
1935 – Sept / Oct - Immediate Aftermath
• The British Foreign Office then instigated 500
page investigation into this specific allegation
and concluded; ‘No foundation whatsoever’.
• Not a single mention of Gareth’s Soviet ban or
any of his famine reporting in whole report.
• The Soviet Union were never once considered
as possibly being culpable despite…
British Public Records Office Releases Secret
Intelligence on Wostwag in 2004
• Wostwag shown to be a major organ of Soviet NKVD:
– The General Manager in China, Adam Purpiss
according to Chase Manhattan Bank records was:
“considered one of the shrewdest and cleverest men
in Far East,” and “at one time associated with the
Cheka.”
– Purpiss travelled under a fake Honduran Passport.
– Wostwag were allegedly ‘de facto’ bankers and arms
dealers to Chinese Communist Party.
– In 1938Purpiss personally banked in NYC $900,000
for purchase of aeroplanes.
– Wostwag had sole monopoly for trade in Soviet Outer
Mongolia – 50% profits went to Moscow State bank.
Click HERE for link to PRO Evidence on Wostwag.
British Public Records Office releases
intelligence on Dr. Herbert Mueller in 2004/05
• 34-year dossier from 1917 to 1951
relating his Soviet sympathies:
– Lived at one time in Soviet
Consol at Hankow.
– Alleged to have had assumed
several aliases.
– Known member of the Soviet
International Comitern.
– Ran a secret Soviet courier
business in China.
Click HERE for link to PRO Evidence on Mueller.
MI5 Cover-up or Cock-up?
• MI5 never passed on relevant intelligence to
F.O. for their enquiry, even though:
– Sir Vernon Kell, founder and Director General of MI5,
told US intelligence he knew of Wostwag’s financial
links with the Soviet Security Services back in 1929.
– Mueller’s 34 year dossier from 1917 was active at the
time of Gareth’s murder in 1935.
– If the FO had, then their conclusions may well have
been different… As it was, the FO armed only with
Cockburn’s allegations of a possible JapaneseGerman pact, were most effectively ‘deflected’ away
from investigating any Soviet complicity…
Gareth Jones – A Man Who Knew Too Much
In Conclusion:
• Gareth’s diaries probably
represents the only independent
western verifications of Stalin’s
Ukrainian famine-genocide.
• With his mysterious murder, a
major thorn in the side of the
Soviets was not only effectively
silenced, but his lone heroic
voice ‘crying in the wilderness’
was almost airbrushed out of
history for more than half a
century…
Gareth Jones – A Man Who Knew Too Much
On Friday 16th August,
upon hearing of Gareth’s
murder, Lloyd George
commented in The London
Evening Standard:
“I was struck with horror
when the news of poor Mr
Gareth Jones was conveyed to
me. I was uneasy about his
fate from the moment I
ascertained that when his
companion, Dr Herbert Müller,
was released he was detained.”
“That part of the world is a cauldron of conflicting
intrigue and one or other interests concerned probably
knew that Mr Gareth Jones knew too much of what was
going on…”
“He had a passion for finding out what was
happening in foreign lands wherever there was trouble, and
in pursuit of his investigations he shrank from no risk.”
“…I had always been afraid that he would take one
risk too many. Nothing escaped his observation, and he
allowed no obstacle to turn from his course when he
thought that there was some fact, which he could obtain. “
“He had the almost unfailing knack of getting at
things that mattered.”
GARETH JONES WAS INDEED ‘A MAN WHO
KNEW TOO MUCH…’
2006 – May 2nd Gareth ‘Recognised’ in
Aberystwyth, Wales
Click HERE for link to Press
Coverage, Photos and Speeches
Ihor Kharchenko, London Ukrainian
Ambassador at the unveiling &
blessing with Gareth's niece, Siriol,
myself, the University Vice Chancellor,
Chancellor, Lord Morgan and Principal
Organiser, Prof. Lubomyr Luciuk.
2006 – May 2nd Gareth ‘Recognised’ in
Aberystwyth, Wales
• Historical tri-lingual plaque Gareth was unveiled at The
University of Wales, inscribed: ,
“In Memory of Gareth Richard Vaughn Jones, born
1905, who graduated from the University of Aberystwyth
and the University of Cambridge. One of the first journalists
to report on the Holodomor, the Great Famine of 1932-33 in
the Soviet Ukraine.”
• With thanks to the UCCLA, the Ukrainian Orthodox
Churches of Great Britain and of Canada, the Association
of Ukrainians in Great Britain, the Ukrainian American Civil
Liberties Association, and other donors, the bronze plaque
is adorned with a bas relief of Gareth, prepared by Toronto
sculptor, Oleh Lesiuk.
2006 November - Canada
Thank you for the kind
invitation & opportunity
to speak to you today,
about my great uncle,
Gareth Jones…
Nigel Linsan Colley
For further information: www.garethjones.org