NEWS AND VIEWS: UCCA involved in campaign to revoke Walter Duranty's Pulitzer (05/04/03)

NEWS AND VIEWS

UCCA involved in campaign to revoke Walter Duranty's Pulitzer

by Tamara Gallo
Ukrainian Congress Committee of America

NEW YORK - During its first executive board meeting of 2003, held on January 25, the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America discussed the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide. A broad spectrum of ideas was outlined and a comprehensive yearlong plan was devised to focus on developing a high school curriculum, obtaining coverage of the Famine-Genocide in the mass media and organizing solemn remembrances to appropriately observe this anniversary in the United States. One integral component of the UCCA's strategy is a campaign to revoke Walter Duranty's 1932 Pulitzer Prize and to expose the truth about his reporting from the Soviet Union.

In a recently released book titled "U.S. Intelligence Perceptions of Soviet Power 1921-46," the author, Leonard Leshuk, details U.S. intelligence-gathering and analysis on the Soviet Union based on documentary materials from U.S. and British archival sources. In his book Mr. Leshuk states that the U.S. news media had a great influence on how those in the intelligence agencies, policy-makers and the general public viewed the USSR. The reliability and objectivity of at least one U.S. newspaper concerning the Soviets, as well as its ethics and those of its reporters can be questioned based on a statement by Mr. Duranty of The New York Times who admitted in June 1931 that in an "agreement with The New York Times and the Soviet authorities" his official dispatches always reflected the official opinion of the Soviet regime and not his own.

The above statement is a chilling reminder of how an American journalist can sway public opinion and policy-makers by misinterpreting or withholding the facts. Such was the case with The New York Times' Moscow correspondent, who not only disregarded the Famine-Genocide in his dispatches but called other journalists outright liars for reporting about Ukraine's Famine Genocide of 1932-1933.

The UCCA has begun to a nationwide and international campaign to revoke Duranty's Pulitzer Prize. The action began in early February with a community-wide letter writing campaign to the Pulitzer Prize Committee urging the revocation of Mr. Duranty's prize. The campaign was timed to coincide with the Pulitzer Prize board meetings, when members are in frequent contact with each other to discuss current prize candidates. In addition to an official letter sent by the UCCA Executive Board, hundreds of letters were sent from members of the Ukrainian American community. The UCCA's Kyiv Bureau also joined the campaign by soliciting letters from various influential individuals in Ukraine. Letters were sent to the Pulitzer board by National Deputy Hennadii Udovenko, former President of the United Nations General Assembly; National Deputy Pavlo Movchan, chairman of the Prosvita Society; Prof. Volodymyr Serhiychuk, director of the Ukrainian Studies Center at Kyiv's Taras Shevchenko National University; Ihor Lubchenko, Chairman of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine; and others.

The official response from the Pulitzer Prize committee's administrator, Sig Gissler, came in a form letter that stated in part: "My predecessor as administrator says that complaints about the prize for Mr. Duranty have raised on and off through the years. However, to date, the Pulitzer Prize Board has not seen fit to reverse a previous board's decision that now stretches back 70 years."

Understanding that the Pulitzer Prize Board was not going to address these complaints in a proper manner, the UCCA joined an international campaign, spearheaded by the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association and supported by Ukrainian World Congress, the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, the Federation of Ukrainian Australian Organizations, the Ukrainian American Justice Committee and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. This campaign, which is supported by the above-mentioned organizations and the UCCA, published postcards for distribution throughout their respective communities to ensure that the Pulitzer Prize committee receives thousands of cards postmarked May 1 from around the world urging the committee to revoke Duranty's prize.

The UCCA has also been contacting various journalists to inform them of these efforts. As a result, several newspapers have printed stories about the UCCA and its campaign, including The Washington Times, which carried a story by Natalia Feduschak. The Washington Times carried this piece on the front page of its March 29, 2003 issue. The same article was picked up and printed on March 31, the Agence France Press.

Other news agencies, such as Radio Liberty, have conducted interviews with UCCA executive board members regarding the UCCA's action to revoke Duranty's Pulitzer.

| Home Page |