Page 7 - Discover Summer 2021
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Stalin’s miraculous economic engine were a encouraged by the American correspondent
closely guarded secret. to agree. He does, and is shipped back to
England.
He enlisted the aid of a fellow journalist
who was in Moscow, and who was also eager Once safely in the UK, Jones breaks his
to learn more. This gentleman calls him on the promise and reports the truth. Some media
phone, and tells him that he has uncovered outlets are unwilling to believe it; others
the truth, and is eager to share it with him. believe it but fear the backlash that would be
The unfortunate correspondent soon vanishes, sure to come if they dared to report it.
having made the serious error of disclosing his
In short, Jones was branded a liar by the
discovery over the well-monitored telephone
mainstream media, otherwise known today
system.
as “the only credible news sources”. The
Jones is so determined to learn the secret American correspondent who played along
that he applies for permission to go to with the Soviets and patronized Jones was
Moscow, where he is greeted by an American none other than Pulitzer Prize winning
correspondent, who carefully steers Jones to Walter Duranty of the New York Times.
pre-approved functions. He parrots the Soviet There are your “credible news sources”.
party line, and tries to distract his guest with
Duranty’s complicity with the Soviets
parties featuring sex and narcotics.
was eventually learned, but he suffered no ill
Naturally, this frustrates Jones, and he consequences, and was never stripped of his
manages to forge a ‘permission slip’ for him to Pulitzer Prize, which had been awarded for
visit the Ukraine. This alarms the local party his fabricated reports of the glories of the
apparatchiks, and they arrange a carefully USSR.
guided tour to the home of a Ukrainian
For his part, although banned from the
commissar. When the train takes him to the
Soviet Union, Gareth Jones continued his
Ukraine, he gives his host the slip and melts
search for truth in the Far East, and was
into the countryside. He discovers to his
ambushed and killed in Mongolia, ostensibly
horror that the so-called “miracle” is the result
by Soviet operatives.
of a combination of slave labor and mass
starvation of the people who produced the If all of that sounds uncomfortably familiar,
wheat. it should. Suppression of free speech may
seem at times innocent or even noble, but the
After a series of misadventures, he finds
truth is that it is the handmaiden of tyranny.
himself in prison, along with some British
Freedom of speech is essential to our republic.
engineers who had been contracted to build
That means that we need to tolerate all forms
electric power plants. They had been arrested
of speech, including those that we don’t like.
and accused of espionage. Jones is promised
Once government becomes the arbiter of
that they will be spared if and only if he does
truth, true freedom is lost.
not report the details of his findings, and
instead parrots the Soviet party line. He is
www.discoversmithmountainlake.com 5
