EDITORIAL: The Times and the Famine (10/26/03)

EDITORIAL

The Times and the Famine

Our front page this week reports that Dr. Mark von Hagen, a professor of history at Columbia University, was hired back in July by The New York Times to make an independent assessment of the USSR coverage provided by its Moscow correspondent, Walter Duranty, in the 1930s. His assessment, in a nutshell, was that Duranty parroted the Soviet line - that his writing manifested a "lack of balance and uncritical acceptance of the Soviet self-justification for its cruel and wasteful regime" and "was a disservice to the American readers of The New York Times and the liberal values they subscribe to and to the historical experience of the peoples of the Russian and Soviet empires and their struggle for a better life."

"After reading so much Duranty in 1931 it is far less surprising to me that he would deny in print the famine of 1932-1933 and later defend the prosecutors' charges during the show trials of 1937," the historian noted.

In his report Prof. von Hagen did not offer an opinion on whether Duranty's Pulitzer, awarded for work done in 1931, should be revoked. However, he later told The Sun, a New York newspaper, that it should be revoked, and was quoted in The New York Times as saying: "They should take it away for the greater honor and glory of The New York Times. He really was kind of a disgrace..."

Prof. von Hagen's analysis was forwarded to the Pulitzer Board on July 29 along with a cover letter signed by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher of The New York Times, a fact reported on the day this editorial is being written. That letter disingenuously notes that, "over the past two decades, The Times has often acknowledged that Duranty's slovenly work should have been recognized for what it was by his editors and by his Pulitzer judges seven decades ago." We say disingenuously because the Times' "acknowledgment" did not rise to the level required by the offense. Previously, the Times had simply "regretted the lapses" in Duranty's coverage (to use the words in the Times' own report on the latest developments in the Duranty case). Those regrets came in a book review in 1986 and then in a 1990 signed opinion piece by a Times editorial board member, published under the newspaper's regular editorial column, which noted that the articles written by Duranty contained "some of the worst reporting to appear in this newspaper."

Mr. Sulzberger concluded his letter by saying that the newspaper did not have Mr. Duranty's prize, and thus could not "return" it. And, though he said the Times would "respect" the Pulitzer board's decision on whether to rescind the award, he asked board members to consider that such an action might be akin to the "Stalinist practice to airbrush purged figures out of official records and histories" and that "the board would be setting a precedent for revisiting its judgments over many decades."

Frankly, airbrushing history - as if that is what's being suggested - is not the issue. Truth must trump all other considerations.

Last week, we wrote in our editorial in support of the Senate resolution that unambiguously characterizes the Great Famine as genocide that we must continue our work to ensure that the truth will be victorious; we cited the words of Thomas Paine: "It is an affront to truth to treat falsehood with complaisance." This week we can site the same argument with regard to Duranty's Pulitzer.

If The New York Times cannot physically "return" the Pulitzer, then it must repudiate its recipient and renounce his prize. It is for The Times to take responsibility for the lies and Stalinist propaganda published on its news pages. As for the Pulitzer Board, it must act to revoke the tainted Pulitzer that despoils all others.

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