The Gareth JonesDiaries

- A Man Who Knew Too Much© 2006. All Rights Reserved. www.garethjones.org

OverviewPart 1 – Who Was Gareth Jones?1. Early Life / Education

Part 2 – The Gareth Jones Diaries1. Personal Diary & Letter Observations of Soviet Famine in the

USSR:a) 1930 – Lloyd George & First Unescorted Visit to Donetskb) 1931 – Off the Beaten Track with Jack Heinz IIc) 1933 – ‘Tramping’ through Ukrainian Villages & Kharkiv

Part 3 – Covering-up of a Famine1. Damned by Walter Duranty & The New York Times2. Randolph Hearst’s Famine -1935

a) Repeating Famine Allegations b) Thomas Walker (Fake Photos) Affair

Part 4 – Murdering the Messenger & Airbrushing the Truth 1. Murdered by Japanese Controlled Chinese Bandits or Soviet

Retribution?2. Memorial Plaque - Aberystwyth, Wales, 2006

Early Life• Mother, Former Governess

to John Hughes’ family between 1889-92, founder of Hughesovka (now Donetsk).

• Father, Headmaster Barry County Grammar School.

Early Life• Mother, Former Governess

to John Hughes’ family between 1889-92, founder of Hughesovka (now Donetsk).

• Father, Headmaster Barry County Grammar School.

• Gareth, Born 1905 in Barry, South Wales.

Academic Career•1922-26 – 1st Class

Honours Degree in French & German from Aberystwyth University, Wales.

•1923-25 - Université de Strasbourg: Diplôme Supérieur des Etudes Françaises.

•1926 – Exhibition Scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge.

•1927, 1928 & 1929 - College Prizeman – Plus Senior Scholar in 1928.

•1929 – 1st Class Honours in German and Russian, with distinction in Oral Examinations.

1930-31 – With Lloyd George • One month unsuccessful

trial with The Times and through family acquaintance Tom Jones, the long-standing British Government Cabinet Secretary is introduced to Former World War One British Prime Minister David Lloyd George.

• Appointed Foreign Affairs Advisor to Lloyd George.

1930-31 – With Lloyd George

• Visits USSR in August 1930, for 1st time, on behalf of Lloyd George; soon after British Diplomatic Relations are restored having being broken in 1927, due to the Arcos Spying Affair.

• On Leaving USSR, Gareth writes candidly to his parents:

Hurray! It is wonderful to be in Germany again, absolutely wonderful.  Russia is in a very bad state; rotten, no food, only bread; oppression, injustice, misery among the workers and 90% discontented.  I saw some very bad things, which made me mad to think that people like [the Webbs] go there and come back, after having been led round by the nose and had enough to eat, and say that Russia is a paradise.  In the South there is talk of a new revolution, but it will never come off,

because the Army and the G.P.U. (Secret Police) are too strong.  The winter is going to be one of great suffering there and there is starvation.  The government is the most brutal in the world.  The peasants hate the Communists.  This year thousands and thousands of the best men in Russia have been sent to Siberia and the prison island of Solovki. People are now speaking openly against the Government.

In the Donetz Basin conditions are unbearable Thousands are leaving. I shall never forget the night I spent in a railway station on the way to Hughesovka. One reason why I left Hughesovka so quickly was that all I could [get to eat was a roll of bread.]

1930 – October -The London Times: “Two Russias”

Through Lord Lothian, Gareth was introduced to Geoffrey Dawson, Editor of The Times (who had no Moscow Correspondent) & invited to write 3 articles, in which he stated:

Click HERE for link to articles

1930 - The London Times: “Two Russias”

• “…foreign delegations [are] blissfully ignorant of the hunger, discontent, opposition, and hatred.”

• “…Donetz Basin, where there has been a serious breakdown in food supplies.”

• A miner expressed …“Everybody is going away from the Donetz Basin, because there is no food here.  There is nothing in Russia.  The situation is terrible.”

• “The present food shortage was attributed by most Russians to two causes – the agricultural revolution begun last year and the absence of a free market...  “It is all the fault of this collectivisation, which the peasants hate.  There is no meat, nothing at all.”

1931 – Ivy Lee (PR), New York• Head-hunted from Lloyd

George’s Secretariat to work for world’s leading PR agency on Wall Street as their Soviet expert.

• Chaperoned 21 year old Jack Heinz’s visit to USSR in August 1931.

1931 – Ivy Lee (PR), New York• Afterwards, compiled a privately published ‘Anonymously

written’ book in spring 1932, entitled: “Experiences of Russia – 1931 – A Diary” – namely from Gareth’s Diaries.

• Arguably, the first Western book to ‘honestly’ report the onset of famine conditions within the Soviet Union, again citing variations of the word ‘starve’ on half a dozen occasions…

Click HERE for link to full transcription of book

1931 Experiences of Russia – A DiaryGareth wrote the Foreword:“With knowledge of Russia and the Russian language, it was possible to get off the beaten path, to talk with grimy workers and rough peasants, as well as such leaders as Lenin’s widow and Karl Radek.

We visited vast engineering projects and factories, slept on the bug-infested floors of peasants’ huts, shared black bread and cabbage soup with the villagers - in short, got into direct touch with the Russian people in their struggle for existence and were thus able to test their reactions to the Soviet Government’s dramatic moves.”

Extract from Gareth’s 1931 Diary [transcribed in next 2 slides]

Sept 5 Woke, Keen supporter came; later whispered to Vice President, then he came & there was a complete change in his attitude. “Its terrible. We can’t speak worse than before the Rev. But 1926-27, those were fine years”. Absolute change in [his] attitude & gestures.“We’ve got to keep quiet or they will send us to Siberia .

Then went to the Village Soviet, an old man came, whispered “It’s terrible in Kolhoz. They took away my cows & my horse. We are starving. Look what they give us. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing! How can we live with nothing in our dvor. But we can’t say anything or they’ll send us away as they did the others. All are weeping in villages.

1931 – Oct 14th The London Times THE REAL RUSSIA  - 3 Articles

Click HERE for link to articles

1932 - Oct 14th - Letter to Parents -London Circles Knew of Raging Famine…

“On Friday, I had exceptionally interesting talks … with Prof. Jules Menken (LSE) a very well known economist.  He was appalled with the prospects: what he had seen was the complete failure of Marxism.  He dreaded this winter, when he thought millions would die of hunger. 

He had never seen such bungling & such breakdowns.  What struck him was the unfairness & the inequality.  He had seen hungry people one moment & the next moment he had lunched with Soviet Commissars in the Kremlin with the best caviar, fish, game & the most luxurious wines.”

Planning a Trip to Expose the Soviet Famine• Gareth immediately pens two articles for the Cardiff Western

Mail published on October 15th & 17th to highlight the tragic situation entitled; “Will there be Soup?”

• In line with his Welsh Non-Conformist beliefs & virtues; Gareth decided to make a trip to view the conditions firsthand.

• On 23 February 1933, Gareth became the first foreign journalist to fly with the newly appointed German Chancellor and afterwards dining privately with Goebbels…

He prophetically wrote in the Western Mail:

“If this aeroplane should crash then the whole history of Europe would be changed. For a few feet away sits Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of Germany and leader of the most volcanic nationalist awakening which the world has seen.”

Click HERE for link to German articles

Malcolm Muggeridge

Gareth’s 1933 Diary appointment with Muggeridge in Moscow on 6th March at 9pm.

10 Days Later Gareth Arrived in Moscow on 5th March 1933

Muggeridge

Collapse of Bolshevism. Returned from villages – terrible – dying. No seed for sowing. Practically no winter sowing.

Outlook for next year disastrous – End of Party absolutely inevitable,Stalin hated by Party, but Party cannot do anything. 95% of Party opposed to Stalin’s policy, but there s no discussion. Any opposition and man is removed.

1933 Mach 10th – Conversations on ‘Local’ Train to Ukraine.

Boy on train asking for bread.I dropped a small piece on floor and put it in spittoon. Peasant came and picked it up - ate it.

Peasant woman: “Many are dying. We’re starving. There is little cattle left. They take all grain away.

Ukrainian peasant: “They took away my grain. Cattle (maлo) a little. But there were a lot.

Member Politdel

“I’ve been a member of the party for 12 years. They are now sending 2,700 from Moscow Politdel. They are the best, the strongest. It is semi-military. We’ll smash kulaks and smash opposition. We’re promoting all men who served in the civil war. The elite, chosen ones. 60% of us have been in higher educational schools.

He clenched his fist & hit down

…with every word: resolute, ruthless, cruel:“We are all workers mainly from the factories.”

“We are going to organise. They’ll be about 4 of us in each MTC. The MTC where I shall be will look after 15 kolkhozes. We’ll give them strict control.”

“The weather for the harvest is good, i.e. Lot of snow.”

“The methods of the kulaks have changed. They used to murder. Now they are subtle. Now they say “yes we’re for the Kolkhoz”,

they’ll steal & wont work & they’ll make difficulties. They try to wreck by mean tricks, but they are not dangerous any longer.

“I was in Perekop [Crimea?] in cavalry served Budyonny’s 1st cavalry.”

The conductor said that there were fewer travelling now, because it was difficult to leave factory. But soon there will be a lot of people leaving Moscow for south on account of passportisation. Also there were a lot about 2 months ago.

I asked a man (Jew or Armenian) where he was going.

He had a lot of gold teeth and said: “I’ve left Leningrad and am going to Kharkov to look for a job. I have no vote. They have deprived me of my rights, because I was a private trader.”

Boy Komsomolets:“Very strict now. They are dying in villages. In Belgorad there is bread, but that’s a town.

“One woman stole 5 beets & got 10 years imprisonment.”

“If you steel coal from station, 10 yrs. Very bad & we don’t know if it’ll be better.”

Talked to a group of women peasants; “We’re starving. Two months we’ve hardly had bread. We’re from the Ukraine and we’re trying to go north. They’re dying quietly in the villages. Kolkhozes are terrible. They won’t give us any tickets and we don’t know what to do. Can’t buy bread for money.

A chicken was 20 rubles. Milk - 3 rubles a litre.

I dropped orange peel in spittoon. Peasant picked it up, ate it. Later apple core. Man speaking German same story “Tell them in England, Starving, bellies extended. Hunger

“Be careful in the villages because the Ukrainians are desperate. They will grab any bread they can see.”

Conductor gets 67 rubles a month, & a pound of black bread for journey (day); “I must work night and day”.

Komsomolets: “When I left my mother and her sisters a couple of days ago, they had 2 glasses of flour left.”

First day March 11

From train, I walked about an hour, chatted to all. The same story.

There was a kolkhoz.

Asked children outside hut: God? “Of course not. There is no God.”

Talked to men on track. It was getting [to] sunset. One of them said:- “you’d better not go…

…further, for hooligans will rob you of your coat & your food & all.”

The other – handsome, determined young Communist, said “ Yes its dangerous. Come and stay with us in our village.”

Communist took me along to a Selsoviet; full of young people, children. One of them belly swollen.

All people say same ”XЛEБА HETУ BCE nyxnoie” (Bread Not Available) – One woman said:- “We are looking forward to death.”

In one village, all bread had gone two months ago, & potatoes had run out, there was only bypяk (beetroot)

… for one month. How can they live till next harvest?

The questions in the Selsoviet were most intelligent: about workers life, Japan, China, America, why the crisis? Good Listeners. Keen Discussions.

Then to the cottage of the young Pres. of village soviet, decent fellow with smile, ruddy face, 27 yrs of age. His wife was there, with closely cropped hair with gold round earrings. Very kind.

Discussions for hours: “there is only one communist in the village”.

March 11 The President of the Kolkhoz said they had enough seed, but move towards the South there was a lack of seed. He said that two families had been sent away from the village of 120 dvor. Probably he was kind-hearted. The discussion was very open, the peasants saying that it have never been so bad, the Pres. saying faint-heartedly that great sacrifices had to be made. One peasant: “If only Lenin had lived, we’d be living fine. He knew what was going to happen. Here they’ve been chopping and changing policy & we don’t know what’s going to happen next. Lenin would not have done something violently and then said that it was an oшибka (mistake).”

Two soldiers came and they asked heaps of questions. “The bourgeoisie were crushing the working class in England. They shot down demonstrators. Communists sat in prison & England was going to declare war on Russia.” They had come to arrest a peasant thief who had killed another. The thief had gone to steal potatoes from the hut of another. The owner of the hut had come out & the peasant had stabbed him with a knife. There were many cases of that happening. The Red Army soldier who came the next morning also said, “Don’t travel by night. There are too many wild…

uncultured men want food and to steal.” Went to bed late, slept on floor. In one bed; Pres., his wife & her sister & small bed the child. Woke up next morning before 8. The Communist leader of next village was there – Keen Revolutionary; “We have difficulties, but they have been overcome.” “There’s seed in this village.”Cattle decrease disastrous. There used to be 200 oxen, now 6 horses & cattle here down by tremendous amount. The new tax, the Communists

… think will increase the desire of the workers to work. But there have been too many wreckers, too many kulaks, who have been trying to influence the other peasants. Breakfasted, then sister of wife did algebra lesson. The Communists realised & admitted that there was no grain. That was ‘Bockrenchenka’ [?] in the Black Earth region. Lower down it is much worse. Talked to all the people as I tramped along the railway track. Ravens or crows (with…

… grey cap). White expanse of snow.Moscow – Sebastopol train rattled past with sleeping wagon. Politdel party members, etc. Went into village. There is no bread. “We’ve had no bread for 2 months”. “Each dvor had one or 2 cows. Now none. There are almost no oxen left & the horses have been dying off.” There was a young worker in the village. “The unemployed are growing and they’re treated…

…like cattle. They’re told to get away & they get no bread card. They’re cutting down men everywhere. I worked in Kharkov. There they’ve dismissed thousands. “ “How can I live? I got a lb of bread for all my family & we came here for a short time, there is no food here. My family is in Kharkoff & I don’t know how they’ll live.” “We’re all getting (swollen) nyxлbin.” “In this village 5 or 6 kulak families were sent away to Siberia & to cut wood in the Northern forests,

…also to build a railway in Murmansk.” But some of the kulaks live better than those who remain in the villages because there is now more bread in the towns. “In the south 20% of the population have died of hunger” said the young worker “and in some parts 50%. They’re murdering us.” “A lot of factories cannot pay their wages.” Lunched with teacher: “potato soup, potatoes with a little meat (very little) & kasha.”

“I have my own cow” said teacher.He was a Marxist. His wife said that hardly any of the children believed in God. Walked out. The peasant; “No food. You [teacher] don’t work & get plenty of food. You’re the first kulak in the village and tried to throw me out of my hut.” Then, onto the railway and on to Ukraine. Wagons, oil, timber towards the South. Most important railway in Russia. Now in Ukraine. / Go back pages… [Gareth’s diary entries now fill space in previous diary].

In the Ukraine. A little later I crossed the border from Greater Russia into the Ukraine. Everywhere I talked to peasants who walked past – they all had the same story; “There is no bread – we haven’t had bread for 2 months – a lot are dying.” The first village had no more potatoes left and the store of БҮРЯК (beetroot) was running out.

They all said ‘the cattle is dying. (Nothing to feed.) НЕЧЕВО КОРМНБ.” We used to feed the world now we are hungry. How can we sow when we have few horses left? How will we be able to work in the fields when we are weak from want of food? Then I caught up…

…[with] a bearded peasant who was walking along . His feet were covered with sacking. We started talking. He spoke in Ukrainian Russian. I gave him a lump of bread and of cheese. “You could not buy that anywhere for 20 rubles. There just is no food.” We walked along and talked; “Before the war this was all gold. We had horses and cows and pigs and chickens. Now we are ruined. We are (doomed) ПОLUБЛИ..“You see that field. It was all gold, but now look at the weeds. The weeds were peeping up over the snow.” “Before the war we could have boots and meat and butter. We were the richest

…country in the world for grain.We fed the world. Now they have taken all away from us. “Now people steal much more. Four days ago, they stole my horse. Hooligans came. There that’s where I saw the tract of the horse.” “A horse is better than a tractor. A tractor goes and stops., but a horse goes all the time. A tractor cannot give manure, but a horse can. How can the spring sowing be good? There is little…

…seed and the people are too weak. We are all weak and hungry. “The winter sowing was bad, and the winter ploughing was also bad.” He took me along to his cottage. His daughter and three young children. Two of the smaller children were swollen. “If you had come before the Revolution we would have given you chicken and eggs and milk and fine bread. Now we have no bread in the house. They are killing us.” “People are dying of hunger.” There was in the

…hut – a spindle the daughter showed me how to make thread. The peasant showed me his shirt, which was home-made and some of his sacking which had been home-made. “But the Bolsheviks are crushing that. They want the factory to make everything.” The peasant then ate some very thin soup with a scrap of potato. No bread in house. The white bread [bought in Moscow Torgsin by GJ] they thought was wonderful. The hut had eight ikons, path tawdry & cheap. [Diary continues with several more conversations along the railway track…]

Everybody on the track said the same: “Lots of people dying. Only beetroot. Too weak for spring sowing. One group: “There are thousands of unemployed. Their bread card is taken away and they have nothing. On April 1st there’ll be another (оқращєнue) cut. Go down to the Poltava district and there you’ll see hundreds of cottages empty. In a village of 300 huts only about 100 will have people living in them & others have died or gone away, but most have died.”

One worker in Kharkov: “I only get 100gm of bread per day for wife and myself.”--------G.J. : “ What kind of crop will you have?”Peasant: “A splendid crop, - of weeds.”Group of workers: “Terrible! Dying.!”

Railway Post

“Down South it’s ten times worse. They’re dying off. Empty villages.” “We are too weak for sowing. “In this village they’ve sent some seed but we’ve few horses. Resigned to fate. One village – practically no seed.

Escorted to ‘Kharkoff’After two days ‘tramping’ along the track, according to one of

Gareth’s 1935 American syndicated articles for Randolph Hearst, his trek came to an abrupt end:

“It happened in a small station, where I was talking with a group of peasants: “We are dying,” they wailed and poured out the old story of their woes. A red-faced, well-fed OGPU policeman in uniform approached us and stood listening for a few moments.

Then came the outburst, and from his lips poured a series of Russian curses. “Clear away, you! Stop telling him about hunger! Can’t you see he’s a foreigner?”

He turned to me and roared: “Come along. What are you doing here? Show me your documents.”

Visions of a secret police prison darted before my mind. The OGPU man looked at my passport and beckoned to one of the crowd, whom I had taken to be an ordinary passenger, but who was obviously in the secret police. 

Escorted to ‘Kharkoff’He came to me and in the most polite and respectful terms

bade me follow him. “I shall have to take you to the nearest city, Kharkov.”

Throughout the journey I impressed him with the fact that I had interviewed Lenin’s widow, and a number of commissars and great panjandrums of the Soviet régime, and by the time we reached Kharkov I believed he was thoroughly convinced that any real arrest of myself would plunge Russia and Europe and the United States into a world war.

For he decided to accompany me to a foreign consulate in Kharkov and he left me at the doorstep, while I, rejoicing at my freedom bade him a polite farewell – an anti-climax but a welcome one.

[Kharkiv]

Queues for bread. Erika [from the German Consulate] and I walked along about a hundred ragged pale people. Militiaman came out of shop whose windows had been battered in and were covered with wood and said: “There is no bread today.” Shouts angry peasants also there. “But citizens, there is no bread.” “How long here?” I asked a man. “Two days.”

They would not go away, but remained. Sometimes a cart might come up with bread. Waiting with forlorn hope. Streets in terrible. Condition, houses rotten, ice thawing, wet dirty. Saw homeless boys. They are increasing. The influence of the film “Introduction to Life” has been bad & many boys from good family have run away. We examined houses, the stones were terrible, crumbled away when I touched.

Many constructions were abandoned on account of financial difficulties. Rottenly built.

Churches taken down to make place for building. In one church place workers

said that it was haunted & ran away. One church was exploded and the tower remained standing. Population said it was a sign of God. Still Religious but young people not. Bewilderment among the Village Communists. When they drove too hard, lots of peasants got into trouble. When they were too kind, accused of being pro-kulak. Many arrested 35 shot – in paper last Sunday. Policy has chopped & changed.

Queues of 7000 stand. They begin queuing up at 3-4 o’clock afternoon to get bread next morning at 7. It is freezing. – many degrees of frost.

Very many dismissals, thousands of unemployed in Kharkoff. Their bread card is taken away, often given no passport.

Coat c.f. Gogol.One street we went through had an evil reputation. Gangs would steal coats & watches, etc,. Dark Street.

Lack of electric light. The electric trams had to stop over the Dniepstroy because there was no current. Electricity failure.

Many beggars, peasants on the streets, crying for bread. GPULand - green tabs.Town – blue tabs.

Saw general pass, looking like ordinary soldier.

Lots of GPU men in street. Supposed to be 250,000 in Ukraine, but this is exaggeration. There are peasants [who] hate them like poison.

30,000 in Kharkoff. Terror much worse. In 1931 it was lightened. Now bad again for bourgeoisie. Stricter.

When Consul telephoned the Foreign Office, said; ‘Yes Jones. He arrived on foot.’

We passed the GPU prison & a lot of peasants &

Ukrainian Nationalists sitting there.GPU much stronger than it was & has complete control.

Outside Torgsin. 80 paper rubles offered for one Torgsin ruble.

1921. German: Now much worse - much worse than war years also. Then there was no food in the towns, but the peasants had food. Now neither the peasants nor the town have food.

The GPU is getting more and more powerful.

Stalin & GPU now ruling Russia.

There is a struggle between Narkomindel [People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs] & GPU, but Narkomindel has nothing to say.

New Ukrainian Policy.

In the last few weeks there has been a beginning of Russification again.Muscovites have been placed in leading posts in Kharkoff & more Russian is to be taught in the schools.

Who was Gareth Jones?From United Press Moscow Correspondent, Eugene Lyons’

1937 book; Assignment in Utopia:

“The first reliable report of the Russian famine was given to the world by an ‘English’ journalist, a certain Gareth Jones, at one time secretary to Lloyd George. Jones had a conscientious streak in his make-up which took him on a secret journey into the Ukraine and a brief walking tour through its countryside. That same streak was to take him a few years later into the interior of China during political disturbances, and was to cost him his life at the hands of Chinese military bandits. An earnest and meticulous little man, Gareth Jones was the sort who carries a note-book and unashamedly records your words as you talk. Patiently he went from one correspondent to the next, asking questions and writing down the answers...”

Click HERE for Lyon’s chapter with more about Gareth; “The Press Corps Conceals a Famine”

Gareth Holds Berlin Press Conference Immediately on Leaving USSR where he Exposes the Famine.First USA Newspaper reports published on 29th March 1933.

Click HERE for link to articles

Articles In Europe

31st March 1933 – London Evening Standard.1st April 1933 – Berliner Tageblatt by Paul Scheffer.

Plus Series of (20) Articles by Gareth in London Daily Express, Financial News & Cardiff Western Mail in Early April 1933.

Throwing Down Jones? From Eugene Lyons’ 1937 book; Assignment in Utopia:

On emerging from Russia, Jones made a statement which, startling though it sounded, was little more than a summary of what the correspondents and foreign diplomats had told him. To protect us… he emphasized his Ukrainian foray rather than our conversation as the chief source of his information.

In any case… with preparations under way for the trial of the British [Metrovik] engineers. The need to remain on friendly terms with the censors at least for the duration of the trial was for all of us a compelling professional necessity.

Throwing down Jones was as unpleasant a chore as fell to any of us in years of juggling facts to please dictatorial regimes, but throw him down we did, unanimously and in almost identical formulas of equivocation. Poor Gareth Jones must have been the most surprised human being alive when the facts he so painstakingly garnered from our mouths were snowed under by our denials.

Duranty – 31 March 1933, New York Times“Mr. Jones is a man of a keen and

active mind, and he has taken the trouble to learn Russian, which he speaks with considerable fluency, but the writer thought Mr. Jones' judgment was somewhat hasty and asked him on what it was based. It appeared that he had made a forty-mile walk through villages in the neighborhood of Kharkov and had found conditions sad.”

“There is a serious shortage food shortage throughout the country, with occasional cases of well-managed State or collective farms. The big cities and the army are adequately supplied with food. There is no actual starvation or deaths from starvation, but there is widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition.”Click HERE for link to article

March 19.

Met Litvinoff.

“I don’t trust Duranty. He still believes in Collectivisation. “

Gareth Jones’ Rebuttal Letter to the Editor of the New York Times – 13 May 1933

•…Journalists, on the other hand, are allowed to write, but the censorship has turned them into masters of euphemism and understatement.  Hence they give “famine” the polite name of  “food shortage” and “starving to death” is softened down to read as widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition.”

•… May I in conclusion congratulate the Soviet Foreign Office on its skill in concealing the true situation in the U.S.S.R.?  Moscow is not Russia, and the sight of well fed people there tends to hide the real Russia.

Click HERE for link to letter

1933 – ‘Joneski’ Litvinov Ban – Correspondence from Gareth to a Friend…

"Alas! You will be very amused to hear that the inoffensive little 'Joneski' has achieved the dignity of being a marked man on the black list of the OGPU and is barred from entering the Soviet Union. I hear that there is a long list of crimes which I have committed under my name in the secret police file in Moscow and funnily enough espionage is said to be among them. As a matter of fact Litvinoff sent a special cable from Moscow to the Soviet Embassy in London to tell them to make the strongest of complaints to Mr. Lloyd George about me."

1933-34, The ‘Wilderness’ Year

• Snubbed by Lloyd George and London Intelligentsia.

• 1933-34 - Worked as local reporter for Cardiff Western Mail, primarily on stories relating to Welsh traditional arts & crafts!

1933-34, The ‘Wilderness’ Year• June 1934 – Meets

Randolph Hearst at his Welsh Castle, St. Donats, Cardiff – invited to meet again in St. Simeon, California.

• January 1st 1935 – Personally commissioned to repeat famine observations for Hearst; given carte blanche to write some of the most vitriolic attacks on the Stalinist regime whilst being equally heart-rending.

12, 13, 14th January 1935,New York American, Los Angles Examiner & Other Hearst Papers

Click HERE for link to articles

1935 – February – The Thomas Walker Affair

Five articles published in American Hearst Press commencing 18 February 1935 relating Thomas Walker’s observations of a continuing 1934 Ukrainian famine & illustrated with secretly taken photographs from his own camera.

1935 – February – The Thomas Walker Affair

• show pic of articles

1935 – 13th March – Louis Fischer & The Thomas Walker Affair

• Fischer in a published letter in left-wing weekly magazine, The Nation, showed that:– Walker’s photos were from different seasons.– Some photos from 1921 famine.– Thomas Walker according to unverified Soviet-

supplied records to Fischer, was only present in Moscow for five days in Autumn 1934 and therefore could never have visited Ukraine.

– “P.S. Would the Hearst press oblige with a photo of Mr Thomas Walker, and with facsimiles of his US passport and of the Soviet visa stamped upon it?”

1935 – 13th March – Louis Fischer & The Thomas Walker Affair

British PRO Records of Deportees for June 1935 shows…

1935 – 13th March – Louis Fischer & The Thomas Walker Affair

Passport Fraud Charged’, New York Times, July 13, 1935

‘Indicted Writer Also Accused as Escaped Convict’...

“Robert Green, a writer of newspaper articles describing famine conditions in the Ukraine, was indicted yesterday …on the charge that he had made false statements obtaining a passport. George Pfann, Attorney, alleged that Green, who wrote under the pen name, Thomas Walker, was a fugitive from Colorado prison where he escaped in 1921 while serving a sentence for forgery. After escaping from Prison Mr. Pfann said, Green went to Canada, learned chemical engineering and got a job with an exporting Company as its German representative …”

1935 – 13th March – Louis Fischer & The Thomas Walker Affair

1. How did Fisher know Walker was travelling on a false passport, three months before his London arrest? Was he supplied by the Soviets along with Walker's 1934 USSR travel dates? & who tipped off the British authorities?

2. Even Canadian Marxist, Douglas Tottle, who in the 1980s reminded Jim Mace that Walker was a fraud, cited The Daily Worker; “Evidence at trial revealed he [Walker] had made a previous visit to the Soviet Union in 1930, under the name Thomas J. Burke” and was “expelled for attempting to smuggle out a ‘whiteguard’ out of the country”.

Yet Walker, was evidently able to travel again to the USSR in Autumn 1934, albeit under another name, but surely a risky undertaking, nonetheless!

1935 – 13th March – Louis Fischer & The Thomas Walker Affair

3. London Times (p6) 20 November 2006 re. Alex Litvinenko, the recent alleged Thallium-poisoned Journalist / RSU defector. The former London KGB Station Head, Oleg Gordievsky stated “the KGB has recruited agents in prison since the 1930s. That’s how they work.” So, where was Walker for his 14 years on run from Colorado prison, in a Soviet prison?

4. Finally, how did this professional forger come by at first glance such genuinely-looking photos and plausible story – though similar copy was published in the London Daily Express in Aug 1934.

1935 – 13th March – Louis Fischer & The Thomas Walker Affair

• Fischer’s letter combined with Walker’s subsequent (re)arrest effectively for half a century …

– Destroyed the credibility of the Worldwide ‘Conservative’ press’ allegations of any Soviet famine in the 1930s.

– Without ever mentioning Gareth’s name or even attacking his 1935 articles directly – Gareth’s truthful observations of 1933 were tarnished by the same brush.

– [Gareth during this controversy was ‘conveniently’ incommunicado when Fischer’s letter was published & therefore unable to contribute to the controversy.]

Gareth Investigates the Far East

• Spring 1935 -Gareth embarks on fact-finding mission of Japanese Expansionism of their puppet state of Manchukuo, in Northern China after interviewing political leaders in Tokyo.

Click HERE for link to Gareth’s Far East Articles

Click HERE for link to Manchukuo Incident Book.

1935 – 28th July – Gareth Kidnapped in Northern China by Bandits

• German Company, Wostwag kindly supplied vehicle for an extended trip into Inner Mongolia to witness the Japanese presence in the area.

1935 – 28th July – Gareth Kidnapped in Northern China by Bandits

• Invite from German Journalist Dr Herbert Mueller.• Gareth assured; “Absolutely safe, no bandits”.• After kidnapping, Mueller released after two days as

captive…• Ransom rejected by bandits …

• Gareth was tragically murdered after two weeks on eve of

his 30th birthday -12 Aug 1935 …

1935 – Sept / Oct - Immediate Aftermath

• London publication in The Week by Marxist, Claud Cockburn, claimed that Dr. Mueller was released because of secret Japanese-German Entente Cordiale Pact.

1935 – Sept / Oct - Immediate Aftermath

• The British Foreign Office then instigated 500 page investigation into this specific allegation and concluded; ‘No foundation whatsoever’.

• Not a single mention of Gareth’s Soviet ban or any of his famine reporting in whole report.

• The Soviet Union were never once considered as possibly being culpable despite…

British Public Records Office Releases Secret Intelligence on Wostwag in 2004

• Wostwag shown to be a major organ of Soviet NKVD:– The General Manager in China, Adam Purpiss

according to Chase Manhattan Bank records was: “considered one of the shrewdest and cleverest men in Far East,” and “at one time associated with the Cheka.”

– Purpiss travelled under a fake Honduran Passport.– Wostwag were allegedly ‘de facto’ bankers and arms

dealers to Chinese Communist Party.– In 1938Purpiss personally banked in NYC $900,000

for purchase of aeroplanes.– Wostwag had sole monopoly for trade in Soviet Outer

Mongolia – 50% profits went to Moscow State bank.Click HERE for link to PRO Evidence on Wostwag.

British Public Records Office releases intelligence on Dr. Herbert Mueller in 2004/05

• 34-year dossier from 1917 to 1951 relating his Soviet sympathies:

– Lived at one time in Soviet Consol at Hankow.

– Alleged to have had assumed several aliases.

– Known member of the Soviet International Comitern.

– Ran a secret Soviet courier business in China.

Click HERE for link to PRO Evidence on Mueller.

MI5 Cover-up or Cock-up?

• MI5 never passed on relevant intelligence to F.O. for their enquiry, even though:– Sir Vernon Kell, founder and Director General of MI5,

told US intelligence he knew of Wostwag’s financial links with the Soviet Security Services back in 1929.

– Mueller’s 34 year dossier from 1917 was active at the time of Gareth’s murder in 1935.

– If the FO had, then their conclusions may well have been different… As it was, the FO armed only with Cockburn’s allegations of a possible Japanese-German pact, were most effectively ‘deflected’ away from investigating any Soviet complicity…

Gareth Jones – A Man Who Knew Too Much

In Conclusion:

• Gareth’s diaries probably represents the only independent western verifications of Stalin’s Ukrainian famine-genocide.

• With his mysterious murder, a major thorn in the side of the Soviets was not only effectively silenced, but his lone heroic voice ‘crying in the wilderness’ was almost airbrushed out of history for more than half a century…

Gareth Jones – A Man Who Knew Too Much

On Friday 16th August, upon hearing of Gareth’s murder, Lloyd George commented in The London Evening Standard:

“I was struck with horror when the news of poor Mr Gareth Jones was conveyed to me. I was uneasy about his fate from the moment I ascertained that when his companion, Dr Herbert Müller, was released he was detained.”

“That part of the world is a cauldron of conflicting intrigue and one or other interests concerned probably knew that Mr Gareth Jones knew too much of what was going on…”

“He had a passion for finding out what was happening in foreign lands wherever there was trouble, and in pursuit of his investigations he shrank from no risk.”

“…I had always been afraid that he would take one risk too many. Nothing escaped his observation, and he allowed no obstacle to turn from his course when he thought that there was some fact, which he could obtain. “

“He had the almost unfailing knack of getting at things that mattered.”

GARETH JONES WAS INDEED ‘A MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH…’

Ihor Kharchenko, London Ukrainian Ambassador at the unveiling & blessing with Gareth's niece, Siriol, myself, the University Vice Chancellor, Chancellor, Lord Morgan and Principal Organiser, Prof. Lubomyr Luciuk.

2006 – May 2nd Gareth ‘Recognised’ in Aberystwyth, Wales

Click HERE for link to Press Coverage, Photos and Speeches

2006 – May 2nd Gareth ‘Recognised’ in Aberystwyth, Wales

•Historical tri-lingual plaque Gareth was unveiled at The University of Wales, inscribed: ,

“In Memory of Gareth Richard Vaughn Jones, born 1905, who graduated from the University of Aberystwyth and the University of Cambridge. One of the first journalists to report on the Holodomor, the Great Famine of 1932-33 in the Soviet Ukraine.”

•With thanks to the UCCLA, the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches of Great Britain and of Canada, the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, the Ukrainian American Civil Liberties Association, and other donors, the bronze plaque is adorned with a bas relief of Gareth, prepared by Toronto sculptor, Oleh Lesiuk.

2006 November - Canada

Thank you for the kind invitation & opportunity to speak to you today, about my great uncle,

Gareth Jones…

Nigel Linsan Colley

For further information: www.garethjones.org