http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/artic ... E_ID=47456
ALL THE LIES FIT TO PRINT
Protesters demand Times'
'blood-stained' Pulitzer
Ukrainians to demonstrate at paper today over Stalin apologist's prize
Posted: November 18, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
Walter Duranty
A Ukrainian-American group plans a demonstration in front of the New York Times building today to demand the paper give up the "blood-stained" 1932 Pulitzer Prize to reporter Walter Duranty, who is accused of ignoring Soviet leader Josef Stalin's forced famine.
Volodymyr Kurylo, president of the United Ukrainian American Organizations of Greater New York, told FrontPage Magazine Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. should relinquish the prize because it's "the moral thing to do."
As WorldNetDaily reported in 2003, the Pulitzer Prize board concluded in an investigation of the award prompted by Ukrainian groups that "there was not clear and convincing evidence of deliberate deception" on Duranty's part.
Duranty's writing about Stalin and the Soviet Union has received widespread condemnation for covering up the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33, which killed as many as 7 million people, and other Soviet atrocities. His Pulitzer actually was awarded for writing he did in 1931. He covered the Soviet Union for the Times from 1922 to 1941.
The review said Duranty's work "measured by today's standards, falls seriously short," but the board concluded revoking the award "would be a momentous step."
The Times displays the 1932 Pulitzer with the caveat: "Other writers in the Times and elsewhere have discredited this coverage."
The paper commissioned a report by Columbia University history professor Mark von Hagen, who recommended the award be rescinded.
The group, a branch of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, plans to gather at noon at the paper's building at 229 West 43rd Street in Manhattan.
Making the case against Duranty, Kurylo cites Zara Witkins memoir "An American Engineer in Stalin's Russia," which recalls how New York Herald Tribune reporter Ralph Barnes asked Duranty how he was going to report about the Stalin-made famine.
Duranty reportedly replied: "What are a few million dead Russians (Ukrainians) in a situation like this? Quite unimportant. This is just an incident in the sweeping historical changes here. I think the entire matter is exaggerated."
Asked why he believes the Times still refuses to surrender the prize despite evidence Duranty consciously lied about the forced famine, Kurylo told FrontPage that while the Times argues it doesn't want to "undo history," the paper "in fact is trying to cover up its own history of helping launch communist regimes that systematically oppress their people."
"There was no shortage of leftists in New York City in the 1930s," Kurylo said. "They eagerly awaited Duranty's reports in the Times and I would imagine, fantasized about the days when their vision of a Soviet-style utopia would become America's reality."
Kurylo noted that in November 1933, Duranty stood in the Oval Office of the White House with Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov-Wallach as President Roosevelt announced the diplomatic recognition of the USSR, "an initiative he would not have dared had the public known of the horrendous death toll of Stalin's policies."
When the Pulitzer panel announced it would not revoke Duranty's prize, Kurylo pointed out, Sulzberger stated: "We regret [Duranty's] lapses and we join the Pulitzer board in extending sympathy to those who suffered in the famine."
Kurylo responded: "Lapses? We're talking about 7 to 10 million human beings, not car keys. And, we're not looking for Arthur Sulzberger's sympathy. We want Duranty's blood-stained Pulitzer."
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