The New York Times, 'the World's Greatest Newspaper'

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See the Lev Navrozov Archive By Lev Navrozov SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM Lev Navrozov emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1972 He settled in New York City where he quickly learned that there was no market for his eloquent and powerful English language attacks on the Soviet Union. To this day, he writes without fear or favor or the conventions of polite society. He chaired the "Alternative to the New York Times Committee" in 1980, challenged the editors of the New York Times to a debate (which they declined) and became a columnist for the New York City Tribune. His columns are today read in both English and Russian. .

The title of the book that the then New York Times Associate Editor Harrison Salisbury published in 1980 is ÒWithout Fear or Favor.Ó This is the motto both of the New York Times, and of Salisbury. The book is subtitled ÒAn Uncompromising Look at the New York Times.Ó Thus, without fear or favor or compromise, the front flap of the jacket of the book states that the New York Times is the Òworld's greatest newspaper.Ó

According to Salisbury's book, Walter Duranty Òwas one of the best-known correspondents in the world and the best known ever to write from the Soviet Union.Ó He was a New York Times staff correspondent from 1913 to 1934, that is, for over twenty years. In 1932 he received a Pulitzer Prize, the presidential candidate Roosevelt invited him to lunch to benefit from his peerless knowledge of Stalin's Russia, and in general he became so famous, important, and influential that he wanted to leave the New York Times in order to write bestsellers and lecture for extraordinary fees. But the newspaper persuaded him to stay on a permanent salary or fee for another eleven years without any full-time obligations.

In 1935, at the zenith of his fame, he published a 347-page bestseller, describing and summing up his fourteen years in Soviet Russia. Proud of having been so astute ever since Stalin came to the fore in 1922, he modestly asked at the conclusion of his memoir whether he was Òwrong in believing that Stalin is the greatest living statesman.Ó Ha! He knew that he was way back in 1922! And who would deny it now, in 1935? The triumphant Duranty concluded:

ÒLooking backwards over the fourteen years I have spent in Russia, I cannot escape the conclusion that this period has been a heroic chapter in the life of Humanity. During these years the first true Socialist State, with all that implies in planned economy, in the ownership of production and means of production. . . .Ó

For his part, Stalin praised him, and in the same book Duranty proudly recalls how he saw Stalin Òon Christmas Day, 1933,Ó and what Stalin told him:

ÒHe said, 'You have done a good job in your reporting of the U.S.S.R. although you are not a Marxist, because you tried to tell the truth about our country and to understand it and to explain it to your readers.'Ó

In the 1930s the Western think-fashion concerning Russia kept changing owing to Stalin's outrages he could not or would not conceal: his liquidation of the prosperous peasants, the Òshow trialsÓ of his rivals, the Ògreat terrorÓ of 1937, and finally his treaty with Hitler in 1939. Most or nearly all Western Stalinist Òfellow-travelersÓ were cooling off toward Stalin. But not Duranty! He died in 1957, penniless and forgotten, like a hero who would not renounce the truth he had been telling since 1920 as news in the New York Times.

In contrast to Duranty, Harrison Salisbury, who became the New York Times correspondent in Moscow in 1949, was always in think-fashion. Here is how he followed it in 1961.

As Stalin's life was drawing to its close, the word ÒpeaceÓ in Soviet propaganda became more and more obsessive.

Khrushchev, who had attacked Stalin in his Òsecret speechÓ in 1956, put forward in 1961 a new draft Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Naturally, Khrushchev wanted to show that he was not only less cruel than Stalin, but also more peaceful, if that was possible. Accordingly, the draft Program included the chapter: ÒPeaceful Coexistence and Struggle for World Peace.Ó

But in 1961 the Western or at least American think-fashion was: Òthe Soviet quest for world dominion,Ó as Senator and later President Kennedy put it. So published by Salisbury in 1961 was Khrushchev's peace-oozing draft Program under the title: Khrushchev's Mein Kampf.Ó Printed above the title were two phrases with ominous ellipsis dots between them: ÒThe Threatening Prelude to World War III. . . . Authentic Soviet Blueprint for World Conquest.Ó

The back cover of the ÒblueprintÓ quoted Salisbury: ÒNo chapter of Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' ever spelled out a dictator's goal more clearly.Ó

Now, in 1965 Salisbury published a book entitled ÒRussiaÓ and representing Khrushchev according to the post-1963 think-fashion:

ÒHe launched programs for new housing in Moscow, Leningrad and other cities. He opened new stores and stocked them with a variety of items not seen in many years. Clothing became more abundant. The quality of goods and services rose.Ó

The advent of Hitler, on January 30, 1933, to the most absolute personal and ruthless power that the history of absolutism in post-Roman Europe had ever known, was the second most ominous event between the resurgence of absolutism in Russia and then in China. The news of the New York Times can be exemplified by this headline in the New York Times on the next day, January 31, p. 3: ÒHITLER PUTS ASIDE AIM TO BE DICTATOR.Ó

AP reported from Berlin, January 30:

ÒIn a press conference, the Chancellor, through Interior Minister Frick, assured Germans and foreign correspondents that 'the new Government seeks to live in peace and friendship with all the world.'Ó

On March 24, page 2, the New York Times reported that according to a Frankfurter Zeitung editorial:

ÒHermann Wilhelm Goering [at NŸrnberg in 1946 found guilty of all charges and sentenced to death] has assured the Central Jewish Federation that all Jewish citizens loyal to the government could have the protection of law for person and property.Ó

On January 30, 1939, the sixth anniversary of the day he became chancellor, Hitler delivered in the Reichstag a marathon speech, which was just so much propaganda verbiage about how peaceful Germany was. Except for one threat. He declared that Òif the international Jewish financiersÓ (read: Britain and France) Ògo to war with Germany, the result would be the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.Ó

The New York Times discussed the speech in great detail. But it did not notice its only important sentence: Hitler's threat to annihilate the Jews in Europe.

The most ominous event in the 1970s and the 1980s was the Soviet development of post-nuclear weapons. The New York Times refused to believe me in 1972 and never printed a word about this Soviet threat until the newly elected President Yeltsin of Russia opened in 1992 to international inspection the giant bioweapons part of the giant project.

Since 1986, the world's most ominous event has been the development of post-nuclear superweapons in China (inasmuch as the dictatorship had not returned to Russia). But the New York Times has been as silent on the subject as it was on the subject of the Soviet development of post-nuclear superweapons.