Historian says Pulitzer awarded to Duranty should be revoked (10/26/03)

Historian says Pulitzer awarded to Duranty should be revoked

by Andrew Nynka

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - A noted Columbia University professor of history has said in a report - commissioned by The New York Times and subsequently sent to the Pulitzer Prize Board - that the 1931 dispatches of Pulitzer Prize winner Walter Duranty showed "a serious lack of balance."

Prof. Mark von Hagen said in an interview with The Ukrainian Weekly on October 23 that Mr. Duranty's reporting from the Soviet Union could be characterized as "cynical in tone and apologist in purpose and effect in terms of justifying what the Stalinist regime was up to."

"That lack of balance and uncritical acceptance of the Soviet self-justification for its cruel and wasteful regime 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," Dr. von Hagen wrote in his 4,138-word report.

The New York Times commissioned Dr. von Hagen to write an independent assessment of Mr. Duranty's reporting on the Soviet Union after the newspaper received a letter from the Pulitzer Prize Board in July.

In the letter, the board said it was responding to "a new round of demands" that the prize awarded to Mr. Duranty in 1932 be revoked, The New York Times reported. The letter asked the newspaper for its comments on Mr. Duranty's work.

As part of its review of Mr. Duranty's work, The New York Times commissioned Dr. von Hagen, an expert on early 20th century Soviet history, to examine nearly all of what Mr. Duranty wrote for The New York Times in 1931.

"After reading through a good portion of Duranty's reporting for 1931, I was disappointed and disturbed by the overall picture he painted of the Soviet Union for that period," Dr. von Hagen wrote. "But after reading so much of Duranty in 1931 it is far less surprising to me that he would deny in print the famine of 1932-1933."

Asked if his opinion of Mr. Duranty's reporting would change if he were to examine only those 13 articles for which Mr. Duranty won the Pulitzer Prize, Dr. von Hagen replied with a resolute no. The reporting for which he won the Pulitzer Prize was "quintessential of the problems of Mr. Duranty's analysis," Dr. von Hagen said. The professor said that Mr. Duranty's award "diminishes the prize's value."

"It should never have been awarded in the first place," Dr. von Hagen said. "I started reading [Mr. Duranty's work from 1931] and kept saying: this is apology, clearly apology."

Dr. von Hagen's completed report was sent to the Pulitzer Prize Board on July 29 by The New York Times, which included a cover letter with comments from Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher of The New York Times. Mr. Sulzberger said, according to an article in The Times on October 23, 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."

However, Mr. Sulzberger also advised the Pulitzer Board to consider that revoking Mr. Duranty's award "might evoke the Stalinist practice to airbrush purged figures out of official records and histories." Mr. Sulzberger also said he feared that "the board would be setting a precedent for revisiting its judgments over many decades."

Dr. von Hagen acknowledged concerns The New York Times may have about prize revocation in terms of the precedent such a move might create. However, he said that arguing the moral equivalence of revoking Mr. Duranty's prize with Stalin's airbrushing, or removing, individuals from historical records, was "deeply troubling." Records of Mr. Duranty, even if the Pulitzer Prize were revoked, would still abound in books, articles and other materials, Dr. von Hagen said.

The executive editor of The New York Times, Bill Keller, told The Washington Post on October 23 that the newspaper would have no objection if the Pulitzer Prize Board wanted to revoke Mr. Duranty's award. Mr. Keller called Mr. Duranty's work "pretty dreadful. ... It was a parroting of propaganda," the Washington Post reported.

Mr. Keller also said in an interview with his own paper: "It's absolutely true that the work Duranty did, at least as much of it as I've read, was credulous."

"I don't think either The New York Times or the Pulitzer Prize Board will collapse if they admit they made a mistake," Dr. von Hagen said.

Sig Gissler, administrator for the Pulitzer Prizes and a Columbia journalism professor, said the matter was under internal review and declined any further comment. Officials from The New York Times did not return The Weekly's phone call before deadline.

Since the inception of the Pulitzer Prizes in 1917, the Pulitzer Board has never revoked an award. Mr. Gissler siad the board is scheduled to meet on November 21, but he would not say what steps the board might take next.

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