Should they take back Walter Duranty's Pulitzer Prize? Will they?

[december]

This UPI article gives the history. It argues that the Pulitzer Prize should be taken back from Walter Duranty, even though it was awarded 70 years ago.

The Pulitzer Prize board is reviewing the award it gave to New York Times Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty more than 70 years ago for his shamefully – and knowingly – false coverage of the great Ukrainian famine…

The utter falsehood of Duranty’s claims that there was no famine at all in the Ukraine…has been documented and common knowledge for decades. But neither the Times nor the Pulitzer board ever before steeled themselves to launch such a ponderous, unprecedented – and potentially immensely embarrassing – procedure…

The Ukrainian famine of 1929-33, named the “Harvest of Sorrow” by historian Robert Conquest in his classic book on the subject, was the largest single act of genocide in European history…

In all, 10 million Ukrainians, most of them peasants, died…

The enforced collectivization of land and the unbelievable death toll were deliberately whipped up by conscious policy and malice. Stalin was determined to crush the slightest remaining glimmer of Ukrainian national identity and also to liquidate the “kulaks” or wealthy peasants, which in practical terms meant any family with the expertise to raise a decent crop on the land. Mass shootings of entire families, or so-called liquidations, were commonplace. The production of food collapsed.

Yet the mainstream Western media was virtually blind to what was going on. And in the United States, serious newspapers across the nation took their lead from the then-revered and utterly trusted Duranty…

Duranty may well have been blackmailed or bribed or both by the Soviets, but Muggeridge concluded that his real motive in lying outright about what he knew to be true and helping the Soviets in their unprecedented, astonishingly successful cover-up was a far simpler one: He loved and revered Stalin precisely because he was so colossally murderous and cruel.

It seems strange to consider this step so many years after the award. However, given that it’s being looked at, it seems that they should and will take back the prize. Regardless of Duranty’s motive, his dishonest reporting misled the world, and thus did enormous harm. In fact, I think the New York Times would be well advised to voluntarily relinquish Duranty’s Prize.

What do you think?

[Mr.Moto]

This goes far beyond honest error in journalism - and was a deliberate falsehood. I do think the prize should be taken away.

Duranty at the time famously remarked that to break an omelet, you have to break a few eggs. Those eggs had names and families.

[Mr.Moto]

“Make” an omelet. Sorry.

[Governor_Quinn]

I’m not fully certain that this can be done. In general, if enough time has passed, undeserving awards end up being “grandfathered” in, known to be false, but with nothing done to them.

(I recall reading somewhere that several Nobels in medicine were given to dubious theories, and, of course, the ideologes will rant for hours about some of the Peace Prize recipients.)

[Mr.Moto]

The Pulitzer Prize is run by a committee that can pull the prize if it wants, according to the rules of the organization.

Presumably, they wouldn’t be considering doing it if they couldn’t do it.

[Apos]

Duranty at the time famously remarked that to break an omelet, you have to break a few eggs.

And as George Orwell said: “Yeah, but where’s the omelet?”

[Eva_Luna]

Well, the UPI article gives part of the history. What is the evidence that Duranty knew the extent and nature of the Ukrainian collectivization/famine and the repression of the kulaks? This is honestly the first I’ve heard about any allegations that Duranty lied.

FYI, Conquest, and even more so Richard Pipes, are indeed widely respected Russian historians. Pipes in particular, however, is somewhat of a right-wing Cold Warrior type. I’d want to see some more varied/balanced opinions before making any judgement. And well, I suspect the [iUkrainian Weekly** has somewhat of an axe to grind.

Don’t get me wrong; the Ukrainian famine was a truly evil event. I’ve heard firsthand testimony from survivors and their descendants. But did Duranty knowingly deny its causes and extent? I haven’t seen the evidence, so I’m not judging just yet. And so far, neither is the Pulitzer Committee. I’m sure they’ll be more balanced than Richard Pipes.

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

*Originally posted by Eva Luna *
Well, the UPI article gives part of the history. What is the evidence that Duranty knew the extent and nature of the Ukrainian collectivization/famine and the repression of the kulaks? This is honestly the first I’ve heard about any allegations that Duranty lied.

Duranty privately told British diplomats about the extent of the famine, but reported it in the New York Times as nonexistent. Cite.

Duranty was basically Stalin’s Goebbels-for-America. Goddamn right they should revoke the award.

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

Also Eva, from the OP link:

British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, London correspondent for the left-wing Manchester Guardian, scooped the world by fearlessly going into the Ukraine and defying the Soviet secret police – then known as the OGPU – to expose the true horrors of the famine. He also knew Duranty well and observed him closely.

Writing 40 years later in his classic memoirs “Chronicles of Wasted Time,” Muggeridge concluded that Duranty was a sociopath without a grain of professional integrity or human decency to his name. He described Duranty as “a little, sharp-witted, energetic man” who liked “to hint at aristocratic connections and classical learning, of which, I must say, he produced little evidence. One of his legs had been amputated after a train accident, but he was very agile at getting about with an artificial one.”

Duranty may well have been blackmailed or bribed or both by the Soviets, but Muggeridge concluded that his real motive in lying outright about what he knew to be true and helping the Soviets in their unprecedented, astonishingly successful cover-up was a far simpler one: He loved and revered Stalin precisely because he was so colossally murderous and cruel.

“He admired Stalin and the regime precisely because they were so strong and ruthless. ‘I put my money on Stalin’ was one of his favorite sayings.’” Indeed, Muggeridge related that in one conversation they had, Duranty even admitted to him that he knew there was a catastrophic food shortage, even famine in Ukraine and that he knew the Soviet authorities were prepared to kill large numbers of people there to keep control.

As Muggeridge described the conversation, “But, he said, banging the sides of the sofa, remember that you can’t make omelettes without breaking eggs – another favorite saying. They’ll win, he went on; they’re bound to win. If necessary, they’ll harness the peasants to the ploughs but I tell you they’ll get the harvest in and feed the people that matter. The people that mattered were the men in the Kremlin and their underlings. … The others were just serfs, reserves of the proletariat, as Stalin called them. Some would die, surely, perhaps, quite a lot, but there were enough, and to spare.”

(Emphasis added)

[SmackFu]

What’s the difference? He wouldn’t care, he’s dead. His reputation is already tarnished, so one step more would matter little.

If Pulitzer wants to sanitize their past and forget their mistakes, more power to them.

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

It’s less about sanitizing the past and more about the Pulitzer people officially acknowledging they were wrong to give the award to Duranty.