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Guinea-Bissau Civil War

The Guinea-Bissau Civil War was fought from 7 June 1998 to 10 May 1999 and was triggered by an attempted coup d'état against the government of President João Bernardo Vieira led by Brigadier-General Ansumane Mané. Government forces, backed by neighbouring states, clashed with the coup leaders who had quickly gained almost total control over the country's armed forces.

The conflict resulted in the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of people and the displacement of hundreds of thousands.

An eventual peace agreement in November 1998 provided for a national unity government and new elections in the next year. However, a subsequent and brief outbreak of fighting in May 1999 ended with the deposing of Vieira on 10 May 1999 when Vieira signed an unconditional surrender.

Pre-conflict tension
Guinea-Bissau gained independence from Portugal in 1974 after an eleven-and-a-half-year-long war of independence. In January 1998, ten fighters from the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MDFC), an insurgent separatist group from the Senegalese region of Casamance, were killed and another forty were arrested following clashes with the armed forces in two towns on the northern border of Guinea-Bissau.

The armed forces deployed reinforcements along the border with Casamance to prevent the separatists from entering the country. In late January, following the seizure in Guinea-Bissau of a cache of weapons, a number of officers of the armed forces were arrested on charges of supplying arms to the Casamance separatists.

On 30 January 1998, Guinea-Bissau's defense minister announced the suspension of the Chief of Staff of the armed forces, Brigadier-General Ansumane Mané on the grounds of dereliction of duty as the weapons impounded in the previous month had been taken from a military depot of the Guinea-Bissau armed forces.

In March 1998, following protest by opposition parties at delays in the organization of legislative elections, an independent national elections commission was established. The elections were due to be held in July. In April, Mané publicly accused the Minister of Defense and a group of officers in the armed forces of involvement in arms trafficking to the Casamance separatists. At the sixth PAIGC congress held May 1998, President João Bernardo Vieira was re-elected president of the party.

Coup and civil war (1998–1999)
Vieira dismissed the suspended Mané and appointed General Humberto Gomes to replace him on 6 June 1998. On 7 June, rebelling troops led by Ansumane Mané seized control of military barracks in Bissau as well as other strategic locations including the international airport. Mané subsequently demanded the resignation of Vieira and his administration and the conduct of free and democratic elections in July. With the support of 1,300 Senegalese and 400 Guinean soldiers, troops loyal to the government attempted unsuccessfully to regain control of rebel held areas of the city and heavy fighting ensued.

In the following days more than 3,000 foreign nationals were evacuated from the capital by ship to Senegal. An estimated further 200,000 residents of Bissau fled the city, prompting fears of a humanitarian disaster, with the hostilities preventing aid organizations from distributing emergency food and medical supplies to the refugees. Fighting continued into July, with many members of the Guinea-Bissau armed forces reportedly defecting to the side of the rebels. Portuguese marines were dispatched to occupy Bissau to both rescue Portuguese citizens and attempt to force a ceasefire.

On 26 July, following mediation by a delegation from the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), the government and the rebels agreed to implement a truce enforced by the Portuguese, still occupying Bissau and other major urban centers. On 25 August, representatives of the government and the rebels met under the auspices of the CPLP and ECOWAS on Sal Island, Cape Verde, where an agreement was reached to transform the existing truce into a cease-fire. The accord provided for the reopening of the international airport and for the deployment of international forces to maintain and supervise the cease-fire.

In September 1998, talks between the government and the rebels resumed in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. The rebels demanded that all Senegalese and Guinean forces be withdrawn from the country as a precondition to a definitive peace agreement, which was rejected by the government. The rebels, in turn, rejected a proposal for the establishment by Senegal of a buffer zone within Guinea-Bissau territory along the border with Casamance.

In October the rebels agreed to a government proposal for the creation of a demilitarized zone separating the opposing forces in the capital. Before the proposal could be formally endorsed, the cease-fire collapsed as fighting erupted in the capital and several other towns. On 20 October, the government imposed a nationwide curfew, and on the following day President Vieira declared a unilateral cease-fire.

By that time almost all of the government troops had defected to the side of rebel forces, which were believed to control approximately 99% of the country. On 23 October, Brigadier-General Mané agreed to observe a 48-hour truce to allow Vieira time to clarify his proposals for a negotiated peace settlement and agreement was subsequently reached for direct talks to be held in Banjul, The Gambia. At the talks, which took place on 29 October, the rebels confirmed that they would not seek Vieira's resignation.

Further talks held under the aegis of ECOWAS in Abuja, Nigeria, resulted in the signing of a peace accord on 1 November. Under the accord's terms, the two sides reaffirmed the cease-fire of 25 August and resolved that the withdrawal of Senegalese and Guinean troops from Guinea-Bissau be conducted simultaneously with the deployment of an ECOMOG (ECOWAS Cease-fire Monitoring Group) interposition force, which would guarantee security on the border with Senegal.

It was also agreed that a Government of National Unity would be established to include rebel representatives and that presidential and legislative elections would be held no later than March 1999. In early November 1998, an agreement was reached on the composition of a joint executive commission to implement the peace accord. Later that month the commission approved the structure of the new government, which was to comprise ten ministers and seven secretaries of state.

On 3 December, Francisco Fadul was appointed Prime Minister and later that month Vieira and Mané reached agreement on the allocation of portfolios to the two sides. The first contingent of 100 ECOMOG troops arrived in late December. At the same time, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1216 which called for both parties to form a government of national unity and hold elections by the end of March 1999.

1999
In January 1999, Fadul announced that presidential and legislative elections would not take place in March as envisaged in the Abuja accord, and would be delayed until the end of the year. Also in January agreement was reached between the government, rebels and ECOWAS on the strength of the ECOMOG interposition force, which was to comprise some 710 troops. Agreement was also reached on a timetable for the withdrawal of Senegalese and Guinean troops from Guinea-Bissau.

At the end of January 1999, hostilities resumed in the capital resulting in numerous fatalities and the displacement of some 250,000 residents. On 9 February, talks between the government and the rebels produced agreement on a cease-fire that provided for the immediate withdrawal of Senegalese and Guinean troops.

At a meeting held in Lomé, Togo on 17 February, João Bernardo Vieira and Ansumane Mané pledged never again to resort to armed conflict. On 20 February the new Government of National Unity was announced. The disarmament of rebel troops and those loyal to the president, as provided for under the Abuja accord, began in early March. The withdrawal of Senegalese and Guinean troops was completed that month following an extension of the deadline from 28 February to 16 March, owing to logistical problems.

In April, a report was released by the National People's Assembly, which exonerated Mané on charges of trafficking arms to the Casamance rebels. Although the report, which had been due for release in June 1998 when hostilities began, called for the reinstatement of Mané as Chief of Staff of the armed forces, it revealed that President Vieira's presidential guard had been heavily implicated in arms trafficking. The United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office in Guinea-Bissau was subsequently established to monitor the general elections and the implementation of the Abuja Agreement.

Second coup (May 1999)

In early May 1999, Vieira announced that legislative and presidential elections would take place on 28 December, but he was overthrown by the rebel military junta on 7 May, to widespread condemnation by the international community. Fighting had erupted in Bissau on the previous day when rebel troops seized stockpiles of weapons that had been held at the international airport since the disarmament of the rival forces in March.

The rebels, who claimed that their actions had been prompted by Vieira's refusal to allow his presidential guard to be disarmed, surrounded the presidential palace and forced its surrender. Vieira subsequently took refuge at the Portuguese embassy, where on 10 May 1999 he signed an unconditional surrender.

Post-conflict events
The President of the National People's Assembly, Malam Bacai Sanhá, was appointed acting president of the republic until elections were held. The Government of National Unity, including the ministers appointed by Vieira, remained in office. At a meeting of the ruling bodies of the PAIGC that month, Manuel Saturnino da Costa was appointed to replace Vieira as party leader.

At a tripartite meeting conducted in late May by representatives of the government, the military junta and the political parties, agreement was reached that Vieira should stand trial for his involvement in arms trafficking to the Casamance separatists and for political and economic crimes relating to his terms in office. Vieira subsequently agreed to stand trial, but only after receiving medical treatment abroad, after which he pledged to return to Guinea-Bissau.

At a meeting of ECOWAS foreign ministers held in Togo in May 1999, Vieira's overthrow was condemned and demands were made for him to be permitted to leave Guinea-Bissau. It was also decided that ECOMOG forces would be withdrawn from the country. The last ECOMOG troops left in early June.

That month Vieira was permitted to leave Guinea-Bissau to seek medical treatment in France. Sanhá cited humanitarian reasons for allowing Vieira's departure, but stressed that he would return to stand trial. In the same month Sanhá asserted that presidential and legislative elections would take place by 28 November. In July, constitutional amendments were introduced that limited the tenure of presidential office to two terms and abolished the death penalty. It was also stipulated that the country's principal offices of state could only be held by Guinea-Bissau nationals born of Guinea-Bissau parents.

On 28 November 1999, presidential and legislative elections were held with the opposition Social Renewal Party (PRS) winning 38 of 102 seats making it the largest party represented in the National People's Assembly. The long ruling African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) won 24 seats. The PRS presidential candidate, Kumba Ialá, placed first winning 38.81% of the vote. In a run-off held on 16 January 2000, Ialá easily defeated acting President Malam Bacai Sanhá of the PAIGC, winning 72% of the vote. He was sworn in on 17 February 2000.

title: Guinea-Bissau Civil War


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Talk:Nettleham

"King Edward I of England was staying in the Bishop's Palace when he created his son Edward"? What does that mean? Was he conceived or born or what? --flyhighplato 23:03, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Correct population size?
The article gives two different figures for population. The one in the text is exactly 3000 higher than the one in the side bar. Which is right? APW (talk) 21:48, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Nettleham


text: User talk:24.107.64.137

title: User talk:24.107.64.137


text: User talk:12.75.96.88

title: User talk:12.75.96.88


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Once More with Feeling: Singles 1996–2004

Once More with Feeling: Singles 1996–2004 is a greatest hits album by British alternative rock band Placebo. It was released on 30 November 2004 by record label Hut to celebrate the band's tenth anniversary. It features their singles from 1996 to 2004 (the only omission being the band's debut single, "Come Home") as well as three new songs: "I Do", "Twenty Years", and "Protège-Moi", the last two of which were released as singles. The album is also available in DVD format, titled Once More with Feeling: Videos 1996–2004, featuring all of the band's music videos.

Release history
The limited edition of the album included a bonus remix disc featuring remixes by artists such as Timo Maas, UNKLE, and M83. There is also a limited edition bonus disc exclusive to the Mexican market which features remixes by Mexican artists.

This album has been released with the Copy Control protection system in some regions.

Once More with Feeling: Videos 1996–2004
Once More with Feeling: Videos 1996–2004 was released in 2004 and features the band's music videos.

Production credits

 * Jim Abbiss – production (tracks 1-13–1-17), mixing (tracks 1-13–1-15)
 * Philip Bagenal – engineering (tracks 1-18–1-19)
 * Simon Barnicott – engineering (tracks 1-13–1-17), mixing (tracks 1-13–1-15)
 * David Bascombe – mixing (tracks 1-3 and 1-8)
 * Andy Bolleshon – additional production (track 2-1)
 * James Brown – engineering assisting (track 1-16)
 * Adrian Bushby – engineering (tracks 1-6–1-8)
 * Martin Buttrich – additional production (track 2-1)
 * Paul Corkett – engineering (track 1-9), additional engineering (track 1-6), mixing and production (tracks 1-9–1-12)
 * Alex Cowper – sleeve art direction and design
 * Jake Davies – engineering assisting (track 1-6)

 * Lorraine Francis – engineering (tracks 1-9–1-12)
 * Nick Hunt – engineering (track 1-19)
 * Nadav Kander – sleeve photography
 * Phelan Kane – programming (tracks 1-18–1-19)
 * Ed Kenehan – engineering (tracks 1-1, 1-3–1-4)
 * Timo Maas – additional production (track 2-1)
 * Andy Mason – production (track 1-9)
 * Sean Magee – mastering and remastering (tracks 1-1–1-19)
 * Teo Miller – engineering (tracks 1-3–1-4), additional recording and mixing (track 1-7)
 * Alan O'Connell – engineering assisting (tracks 1-18–1-19)
 * Steve Osborne – production (tracks 1-6–1-8), mixing (track 1-6)
 * Gareth Parton – engineering (track 1-18)
 * Tom Paterson – engineering assisting (tracks 1-18–1-19)

 * Kenny Patterson – engineering (track 1-9)
 * Fergus Peterkin – engineering assisting (tracks 1-13–1-15)
 * Dan Porter – engineering assisting (tracks 1-13–1-15)
 * Junior Sanchez – additional production (track 2-10)
 * Tom Stanley – engineering assisting (tracks 1-13–1-15)
 * Dimitri Tikovoi – mixing (tracks 1-16–1-17)
 * Jaquie Turner – engineering assisting (track 1-6)
 * Orla Quirke – sleeve art direction
 * Phil Vinall – production (tracks 1-3, 1-5, 1-18–1-19), mixing (tracks 1-5, 1-18–1-19)
 * Tony Visconti – additional mixing and additional recording (track 1-8)
 * Brad Wood – mixing and production (tracks 1-1–1-2, and 1-4)


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Talk:Face the Promise

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title: Talk:Face the Promise


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Face the Promise

Face the Promise is the sixteenth studio album by the American rock musician Bob Seger. The album was originally planned to be released in 2004, was delayed to 2005, and was officially released on September 12, 2006. It is his first new studio album since It's a Mystery in 1995 and is Seger's first studio album not to be credited to "Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band" since Beautiful Loser in 1975. It took Seger six years to finish Face the Promise. The first single, "Wait For Me", was premiered in July 2006.

The album was certified platinum in the United States.

Personnel

 * Bernie Barlow - backing vocals
 * Eddie Bayers - drums
 * Bekka Bramlett - backing vocals
 * Steve Brewster - drums
 * David Cole - percussion
 * J. T. Corenflos - electric guitar, acoustic guitar
 * Laura Creamer - backing vocals
 * Eric Darken - tambourine
 * Kenny Greenberg - electric guitar
 * Aubrey Haynie - fiddle
 * Steve Herman - trumpet
 * Jim Hoke - tenor saxophone
 * William Huber - trombone
 * John Jarvis - piano
 * Kid Rock - guitar
 * Randy Leago - tenor saxophone
 * Paul Leim - drums, cowbell
 * Sam Levine - baritone saxophone
 * Patty Loveless - vocals
 * Gordon Mote - piano
 * Shaun Murphy - backing vocals
 * Steve Nathan - piano
 * Larry Paxton - bass
 * Bill Payne - piano
 * Michael Rhodes - bass
 * Brent Rowan - electric guitar
 * Biff Watson - electric guitar
 * Glenn Worf - bass
 * Marlin Young - electric guitar
 * Bob Seger - vocals, synthesizer, percussion, electric guitar, acoustic guitar
 * Strings
 * David Angell
 * Zeneba Bowers
 * John Catchings
 * David Davidson
 * Conni Ellisor
 * Carl Gorodetzky
 * Jim Grosjean
 * Craig Nelson
 * Carole Rabinowitz
 * Pamela Sixfin
 * Elisabeth Small
 * Gary Vanosdale
 * Mary Kathryn Vanosdale
 * Matthew Walker

Production
Produced by Bob Seger, except "Real Mean Bottle" produced by Bob Seger and Kid Rock

Recorded by David N. Cole

Mixed by David N. Cole and Bob Seger

Recorded at Ocean Way Studios in Nashville except "Won't Stop" and "The Long Goodbye" recorded at Home Studios, Michigan

title: Face the Promise


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Merle Travis

Merle Robert Travis (November 29, 1917 – October 20, 1983) was an American country and western singer, songwriter, and guitarist born in Rosewood, Kentucky, United States. His songs' lyrics often discussed both the lives and the economic exploitation of American coal miners. Among his many well-known songs and recordings are "Sixteen Tons", "Re-Enlistment Blues", "I am a Pilgrim" and "Dark as a Dungeon". However, it is his unique guitar style, still called "Travis picking" by guitarists, as well as his interpretations of the rich musical traditions of his native Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, for which he is best known today. Travis picking is a syncopated style of guitar fingerpicking rooted in ragtime music in which alternating chords and bass notes are plucked by the thumb while melodies are simultaneously plucked by the index finger. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1977.

Early years
Merle Travis was born and raised in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, a place which would inspire many of Travis' original songs. (This is the same coal mining county mentioned in the John Prine song "Paradise".) He became interested in the guitar early in life and originally played one made by his brother. Travis reportedly saved his money to buy a guitar for which he had window-shopped for some time.

Merle's guitar playing style was developed out of a native tradition of fingerpicking in western Kentucky. Among its early practitioners was the black country blues guitarist Arnold Shultz. Shultz taught his style to several local musicians, including Kennedy Jones, who passed it on to other guitarists, notably Mose Rager, a part-time barber and coal miner, and Ike Everly, the father of The Everly Brothers. Their thumb and index fingerpicking method created a solo style that blended lead lines picked by the finger and rhythmic bass patterns picked or strummed by the thumbpick. This technique captivated many guitarists in the region and provided the main inspiration to young Travis. Travis acknowledged his debt to both Rager and Everly, and appears with Rager on the DVD Legends of Country Guitar (Vestapol, 2002).

At the age of 18, Travis performed "Tiger Rag" on a local radio amateur show in Evansville, Indiana, leading to offers of work with local bands. In 1937 Travis was hired by fiddler Clayton McMichen as guitarist in his Georgia Wildcats. He later joined the Drifting Pioneers, a Chicago-area gospel quartet that moved to WLW radio in Cincinnati, the major country music station north of Nashville. Travis' style amazed everyone at WLW and he became a popular member of their barn dance radio show the Boone County Jamboree when it began in 1938. He performed on various weekday programs, often working with other WLW acts including Louis Marshall "Grandpa" Jones, the Delmore Brothers, (in Alton Delmore's book Truth is Stranger Than Publicity on pages 274–275, Alton describes how he taught Merle Travis how to read and write music) Hank Penny and Joe Maphis, all of whom became lifelong friends.

In 1943, he and Grandpa Jones recorded for Cincinnati used-record dealer Syd Nathan, who had founded a new label, King Records. Because WLW barred their staff musicians from recording, Travis and Jones used the pseudonym The Sheppard Brothers. Their recording of "You'll Be Lonesome Too" was the first to be released by King Records, subsequently known for its country recordings by the Delmore Brothers and Stanley Brothers as well as R&B musicians Hank Ballard, Wynonie Harris and most notably James Brown.

With World War II and the threat of being drafted, Travis enlisted in the US Marine Corps. His stint as a marine was very brief, and he returned to Cincinnati. When the Drifting Pioneers left radio station WLW, leaving a half-hour hole in the schedule that needed filling, Merle, Grandpa Jones and the Delmore Brothers formed a gospel group called "The Brown's Ferry Four". Performing a repertoire of traditional white and black gospel songs, with Merle singing bass, they became one of the most popular country gospel groups of the time, recording nearly four dozen sides for the King label between 1946 and 1952. The Brown's Ferry Four has been called "possibly the best white gospel group ever."

During this period, Travis appeared in several soundies, an early form of music video intended for visual jukeboxes where customers could view as well as hear the popular performers of the day. His first soundie was "Night Train To Memphis" with the band Jimmy Wakely and his Oklahoma Cowboys and Girls, including Johnny Bond and Wesley Tuttle along with Colleen Summers (who later married Les Paul and became Mary Ford). His performance of "Why'd I Fall For Abner" with Carolina Cotton was chosen for inclusion in the 2007 PBS documentary Soundies. Several years later he recorded a set of Snader Telescriptions, short music videos intended for local television stations needing "filler" programming. His performances included playful duets with his then-wife Judy Hayden as well as several songs from his 1947 album Folk Songs from the Hills (see below).

Career peak
Travis performed in stage shows and landed bit parts and singing roles in several B westerns. He recorded for small labels there until 1946 when he was signed to Hollywood-based Capitol Records. Early hits like "Cincinnati Lou", "No Vacancy", "Divorce Me C.O.D.", "Sweet Temptation", "So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed", and "Three Times Seven", all his own compositions, gave him national prominence, although they did not all showcase the guitar work that Travis was renowned for among his peers. His design for a solid body electric guitar, built for him by Paul Bigsby with a single row of tuners, is thought to have inspired longtime Travis pal Leo Fender's design of the famous Broadcaster in 1950. The Travis-Bigsby guitar now resides in the Music Hall of Fame Museum.

In 1946, asked to record an album of folk songs, Travis combined traditional songs with several original compositions recalling his family's days working in the mines. The result was released as the 4-disk 78 rpm box set Folk Songs of the Hills. This album, featuring Travis accompanied only on his guitar, contains his two most enduring songs, both centered on the lives of coal miners: "Sixteen Tons" and "Dark as a Dungeon".

"Sixteen Tons" became a No. 1 Billboard country hit for Tennessee Ernie Ford in 1955 and has been recorded many times over the years. Travis and Molly Bee appeared together as guests on November 24, 1960, on NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford. The darkly philosophical "Dark As A Dungeon", although never a hit single, became a folk standard during the 1960s folk revival, and has been covered by many artists including Johnny Cash in his best-selling concert album At Folsom Prison, by Dolly Parton on her 9 to 5 and Odd Jobs album and by Travis himself, along with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in the landmark 1972 album Will the Circle Be Unbroken. In spite of its initial lack of commercial success, Folk Songs of the Hills, with added tracks, has remained in print virtually ever since.

Travis was a popular radio performer throughout the 1940s and 1950s. He appeared on many country music television shows, co-hosting a show "Merle Travis and Company" with his wife Judy Hayden around 1953. He was a regular member of the Hollywood Barn dance broadcast over radio station KNX, Hollywood, and of the Town Hall Party, which was broadcast first as a radio show on KXLA out of Pasadena, California and later as a TV series in 1953–1961. However, his personal life became increasingly troubled. A heavy drinker and at times desperately insecure despite his multitude of talents (including prose writing, taxidermy, cartooning and watch repair), he was involved in various violent incidents in California, and he married several times in the course of his life. He suffered from serious stage fright, though amazed fellow performers added that once onstage, he was an effective and even charismatic performer. In spite of his problems he was respected and admired by his friends and fellow musicians. Longtime Travis fan Doc Watson named his son Merle Watson, and Travis admirer Chet Atkins named his daughter Merle Atkins, in Travis' honor.

Travis' string of chart-topping honky-tonk hits in the 1940s did not continue into the 1950s, despite the reverence of friends like Grandpa Jones and Hank Thompson, with whom he toured and recorded as lead guitarist (Thompson, who could pick Travis-style, even had Gibson design him a Super 400 hollow body electric guitar identical to the one Travis began using in 1952.) Travis continued recording for Capitol in the 1950s, broadening his repertoire to include new guitar instrumentals, blues and boogie numbers. His uptempo single "Merle's Boogie Woogie" showed him working with multi-part disc recording at the same time as Les Paul.

He found greater exposure after an appearance in the successful 1953 movie From Here to Eternity singing and playing "Reenlistment Blues", and following the success of his friend Tennessee Ernie Ford's million-selling rendition of "Sixteen Tons" in 1955. His reputation as a folk-inspired singer-composer and guitarist grew after the appearance of the album The Merle Travis Guitar in 1956, the reissue of Folk Songs of the Hills with four additional tracks under the title Back Home in 1957, and Walkin' the Strings in 1960, the latter two of which won 5-star ratings from Rolling Stone. His career acquired a second wind during the American folk music revival in the late 1950s and early 1960s, leading to appearances at clubs, folk festivals and at Carnegie Hall as a guest of Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs in 1962. In the mid-1960s he moved to Nashville and joined the Grand Ole Opry. During this time he became a close friend and occasional hunting partner of Johnny Cash.

Guitar style
Merle Travis is now acknowledged as one of the most influential American guitarists of the 20th century. His unique guitar style inspired many guitarists who followed, most notably Chet Atkins, who first heard Travis's radio broadcasts on Cincinnati's WLW Boone County Jamboree in 1939 while living with his father in rural Georgia. Among the many other guitarists influenced by Travis are Scotty Moore, Earl Hooker, Lonnie Mack, Doc Watson and Marcel Dadi. His son, Thom Bresh (1948–2022), had continued playing in Travis's style on a custom-made Langejans Dualette.

Although his early tutors were among the first to use the thumbpick in guitar playing, freeing the fingers to pick melody, Travis' style, according to Chet Atkins, went on in musical directions "never dreamt about" by his predecessors. His trademark mature style incorporated elements from ragtime, blues, boogie, jazz and Western swing, and was marked by rich chord progressions, harmonics, slides and bends, and rapid changes of key. He could shift quickly from finger-picking to flatpicking in the midst of a number by gripping his thumbpick like a flat pick. In his hands, the guitar resembled a full band. As his son Thom Bresh puts it, on first hearing his father as a child "I thought it was just the coolest sound, because it sounded like a whole bunch of instruments coming from one guitar. In it, I heard rhythm parts, I heard melodies, I heard chords and all this wrapped up in one." Equally at home on acoustic and electric guitar, Travis was one of the first to exploit the full range of techniques and sonorities available on the electric guitar.

Though Chet Atkins was the most prominent guitarist to be inspired by Merle Travis, the two players' styles were significantly different. As Atkins explained, "While I play alternate bass strings which sounds more like a stride piano style, Merle played two bass strings simultaneously on the one and three beats, producing a more exciting solo rhythm, in my opinion. It was somewhat reminiscent of the great old black players." The resemblance was no coincidence; Travis himself acknowledged the influence of black guitarists such as Blind Blake, the foremost ragtime and blues guitarist of the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Travis' style is explained and exemplified by Marcel Dadi on the DVD The Guitar of Merle Travis, which includes live video performances by Travis of classics such as "John Henry" and "Nine Pound Hammer" as well as transcriptions of Travis solos in tablature.

Late career
After a career dip during which he struggled to overcome alcohol and drug abuse, Travis put his career back on track in the 1970s. He appeared frequently on such country music TV shows as The Porter Wagoner Show, The Johnny Cash Show, Austin City Limits, Grand Old Country, and Nashville Swing; and his featured performances on the 1972 Nitty Gritty Dirt Band album Will the Circle Be Unbroken introduced him to a new generation of roots music enthusiasts. His 1974 album of duets with Chet Atkins, The Atkins - Travis Traveling Show, won a Grammy award in the category "Best Country Instrumental", and a later album Travis Pickin' received another nomination. In 1976, he contributed to the musical score of the Academy Award-winning documentary Harlan County, USA. Toward the end of the 1970s, he signed a new contract with the Los-Angeles-based country music label CMH, which launched one of the most prolific recording periods in his career. The many titles that followed included new guitar solo albums, duets with Joe Maphis, a blues album, and a double album tribute to the country fiddler Clayton McMichen, with whom he had played in the 1930s.

In 1983, Travis died of a heart attack at his Tahlequah, Oklahoma home. His body was cremated and his ashes scattered around a memorial erected to him near Drakesboro, Kentucky.

Legacy
Although many of his original LP albums are still unissued on CD, Travis' posthumous discography continues to grow, due in large part to the efforts of independent labels. A live concert album Merle Travis in Boston 1959 released by Rounder Records in 1993 documents Travis' singing and guitar work still at its peak. A major retrospective of Travis' work and career (Guitar Rags and a Too Fast Past, five CDs with an 80-page booklet authored by Rich Kienzle, who interviewed many of Travis' contemporaries) was produced by Bear Family Records in 1994, and includes much previously unreleased material. The Country Routes label has issued several transcriptions of his radio broadcasts of the 1940s and 1950s. Several recent DVDs published by Vestapol and Bear Family have collected many of his music videos and television appearances. He was an honoree of the two-hour television special An Evening of Country Greats: A Hall of Fame Celebration in 1996, and two classic Travis performances were included in the four-part PBS television documentary American Roots Music in 2001, available in CD and DVD formats.

Notes on the recordings

 * The 1956 and 1968 Capitol albums are collections of unaccompanied electric guitar solos.
 * The 1957 Capitol LP album Back Home contains the 8 tracks of the 1947 box set Folk Songs of the Hills together with four previously unreleased tracks; the 1996 remastered CD reissue of this album, which reverts to the original title, adds a further unreleased track.
 * The 1960 Capitol album consists of unaccompanied acoustic guitar solos with a few vocals.
 * The Capitol albums Back Home, Walkin' the Strings, and The Best of Merle Travis were awarded the top (five-star) rankings in the Rolling Stone Record Guide
 * The 1974 album with Chet Atkins received a Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental
 * The 1979 CMH CD consists of late-period recordings, tracked over two days in New Mexico four years before Travis' death
 * The 1981 LP Travis Pickin'  is an acoustic solo guitar album
 * On the 1981 CMH LP Rough, Rowdy and Blue Travis accompanies himself on 12-string acoustic guitar
 * The 1991, 1995, 1998 and 2003 Country Routes CDs contain remastered radio transcriptions
 * The 1993 Bear Family double reissue contains remasterings of all tracks from Back Home (1957) and Songs of the Coalmines (1963)
 * The 1993 Bear Family 5-CD collection contains Capitol singles from 1946 to 1955 as well as early singles recorded for small labels such as King and Bel-Tone as well as comprehensive notes by country music historian and Travis authority Rich Kienzle.
 * The 2002 Varèse Sarabande CD is a collection of remastered mid-50s live recordings, taken from appearances on Jimmy Wakely's radio show
 * The 2003 Proper Records 2-CD album is a compilation of remastered recordings from 1943 to 1952 accompanied by a 15-page booklet listing recording dates and personnel. Includes rare Sheppard Brothers and Browns Ferry Four tracks.
 * The 2003 Rounder Records CD is a concert recording of songs accompanied on acoustic guitar
 * The 2008 2-CD Delta Leisure Group album is a digitally remastered compilation of recordings from the 1940s and 1950s.

Music DVDs

 * 1994 Rare Performances 1946–1981, Vestapol (with 36-page booklet)
 * 2002 Legends of Country Guitar, Vestapol (with Chet Atkins, Doc Watson and Mose Rager)
 * 2003 More Rare Performances 1946–1981, Vestapol (with 21-page booklet)
 * 2005 At Town Hall Party, Bear Family

Music films
1. Soundies Distributing Corporation (1946) 2. Snader Transcriptions (1951)
 * "Night Train to Memphis"
 * "Silver Spurs"
 * "Texas Home"
 * "Old Chisholm Trail"
 * "Catalogue Cowboy"
 * "Why'd I Fall for Abner" (with Carolina Cotton)
 * "No Vacancy" (with the Bronco Busters and Betty Devere)
 * "Spoonin' Moon" (with the Westerners and Judy Hayden)
 * "Too Much Sugar for a Dime" (with the Westerners and Judy Hayden)
 * "I'm a Natural Born Gamblin' Man" (with the Westerners)
 * "Petticoat Fever" (with the Westerners)
 * "Sweet Temptation" (with the Westerners)
 * "Nine Pound Hammer" (with acoustic guitar)
 * "Lost John" (with acoustic guitar)
 * "Muskrat" (with acoustic guitar)
 * "John Henry" (with acoustic guitar)
 * "Dark as a Dungeon" (with acoustic guitar)

Film appearances as musical performer

 * 1944: I'm from Arkansas - Musician (uncredited)
 * 1944: The Old Texas Trail - Guitar and Banjo Player (uncredited) (U.K. title: Old Stagecoach Line)
 * 1945: Montana Plains (Short) - Musician
 * 1945: When the Bloom is on the Sage (Short) - Himself
 * 1945: Why Did I Fall for Abner? (Short) - Vocalist-Lead Guitarist
 * 1945 Texas Home (with Carolina Cotton) - Himself - Lead Singer-Guitarist
 * 1946: Roaring Rangers (U.K. title False Hero) - Guitar Player Travis (with the Bronco Busters)
 * 1946: Galloping Thunder (U.K. title On Boot Hill) - Guitar Player (with the Bronco Busters)
 * 1946: Lone Star Moonlight (U.K. title Amongst the Thieves) - Himself (with the Merle Travis Trio)
 * 1946: Old Chisholm Trail (Short) - Vocalist
 * 1947: Silver Spurs (Short) - Vocalist-Guitarist
 * 1951: Cyclone Fury - Guitar Player (with the Bronco Busters)
 * 1953: From Here to Eternity - Sal Anderson (vocal with acoustic guitar)
 * 1966: That Tennessee Beat - Larry Scofield

Other film appearances

 * 1945: Beyond the Pecos - Slim Jones (uncredited)
 * 1961: Door-to-Door Maniac (U.S. video title Last Blood) - Max
 * 1962: The Night Rider (TV Short) - Kentucky
 * 1982: Honkytonk Man - Texas Playboy #3 (final film role)

Original film music

 * 1976: Harlan County, USA

title: Merle Travis


text:
Ghostwriter (1992 TV series)

Ghostwriter is a children's mystery television series created by Liz Nealon and produced by Children's Television Workshop (now known as Sesame Workshop) and BBC Television. The series revolves around a multiethnic group of friends from Brooklyn who solve neighborhood crimes and mysteries as a team of youth detectives with the help of a ghost named Ghostwriter. Ghostwriter can communicate with children only by manipulating whatever text and letters he can find and using them to form words and sentences. The series was filmed on location in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. It began airing on PBS on October 4, 1992, and the last episode aired on February 12, 1995. It reran on Noggin, a channel co-founded by the Children's Television Workshop, from 1999 to 2003.

Overview
The series is designed to teach reading and writing skills to schoolchildren. Each mystery is presented as a case, covering four 30-minute episodes (except for the first and fifth story arc, where there are five 30 minute episodes); children are encouraged to follow each mystery and use the reading and writing clues given to attempt to solve them just as the Ghostwriter team does.

Cast

 * Sheldon Turnipseed as Jamal Jenkins
 * Blaze Berdahl as Lenni Frazier
 * David López as Alex Fernández
 * Mayteana Morales as Gaby Fernández (1992–1995)
 * Tram-Anh Tran as Tina Nguyen
 * Todd Alexander Cohen as Rob Baker (1992–1993)
 * William Hernandez as Héctor Carrero (1993–1995)
 * Lateaka Vinson as Casey Austin (1994–1995)
 * Marcella Lowery as CeCe Jenkins

Critics and merchandise
Ghostwriter was critically acclaimed and honored for presenting a realistic, ethnically diverse world in its two-hour mystery stories. By the end of its third season, Ghostwriter ranked in the top five of all children's shows on American television.

Created as an integrated, branded, multi-media project, the Ghostwriter brand included magazines and teacher's guides, software (Microsoft), home video, games/licensed product, and other outreach materials that reached over a million children each month. There were many Ghostwriter novels released, both novelizations of the TV episodes and new stories. They were released by Bantam Books.

Noggin's website featured exclusive casebook files based on the show.

Broadcast and home release
Ghostwriter has been broadcast in 24 countries worldwide, and generated a number of foreign-language adaptations, including a dubbed over version on Discovery Kids in Latin America marketed as Fantasma Escritor.

Despite its popularity, the program was abruptly canceled after the third season due to inadequate funding after the BBC pulled out of co-producing the show. The original series was rerun from 1995 to 1999 on PBS. From 1999 to 2003, it aired on the Noggin cable network, which was jointly founded by the Children's Television Workshop (now known as Sesame Workshop) with MTV Networks. The show's revival The New Ghostwriter Mysteries also aired on Noggin as part of its nighttime programming blocks, The Hubbub and The N.

VHS releases
During the mid-1990s, Ghostwriter was released on VHS by Republic Pictures Home Video. The company released "Ghost Story", "Who Burned Mr. Brinker's Store?", and "Into the Comics" with their respective story-arc episodes edited together into a feature-length format.

DVD releases
Shout! Factory released Season 1 of Ghostwriter on DVD on June 8, 2010. Its supplements are a trivia game and a casebook. The entire series except for the last two story arcs were also released by GPN.

Awards and nominations

 * Writers Guild of America, United States, 1995
 * Won, WGA Award (TV) for Children's Script—Carin Greenberg Baker, for "Don't Stop The Music".
 * Young Artist Awards, 1993
 * Nominated, Outstanding Performers in a Children's Program: Todd Alexander, Blaze Berdahl, David López, Mayteana Morales, Tram-Anh Tran, Sheldon Turnipseed

The New Ghostwriter Mysteries
In 1997, CBS aired a new version of the series, The New Ghostwriter Mysteries, as part of their educational Think CBS Kids block, but it was canceled after one season due to low ratings. The new series had little in common with the original, changing Ghostwriter's on-screen appearance, introducing entirely new characters, and getting rid of the serial format of the original series. The series was filmed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and featured a new team of three kids: Camella Gorik (Charlotte Sullivan), Emilie Robeson (Erica Luttrell), and Henry "Strick" Strickland (Kristian Ayre). Ghostwriter only had two colors, which were silver and gold. Production locations included Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and New York, United States of America. Running time of the show was 44 minutes. Production companies were Children's Television Workshop and Decode Entertainment. It aired on CBS (CBS Preschoolers) (United States) and CBC Television (CBC Preschoolers) (Canada).

Ghostwriter's identity
Ghostwriter producer and writer Kermit Frazier revealed in a 2010 interview that Ghostwriter was a runaway slave during the American Civil War. He taught other slaves how to read and write and was killed by slave catchers and their dogs. His spirit was kept in the book that Jamal discovers and opens in the pilot episode, freeing the ghost.

Radio series
In summer 2006, BBC School Radio produced a radio series of Ghostwriter for primary school students. Character names from the TV series were retained, though voiced by new children. Music and the theme song were also kept, and a new arranged jingle for children to recognize Ghostwriter's appearances was created by Sesame Workshop.

Revival
A revival of Ghostwriter aired on Apple TV+, premiering on November 1, 2019. The series was nominated for eight Daytime Emmy Awards.

A spin-off, Ghostwriter: Beyond the Page, premiered on April 1, 2021.

title: Ghostwriter (1992 TV series)


text:
Smyrna (disambiguation)

Smyrna is the former name of Izmir, Turkey.

Smyrna may also refer to:

In Greek mythology

 * Myrrha, also known as Smyrna, mother of Adonis
 * Smyrna (Amazon), a mythical eponym of a quarter in Ephesus

Historical figures

 * Bion of Smyrna (c. 100 BC), Greek poet
 * Chaka of Smyrna, 11th century Turkish emir
 * Chrysostomos of Smyrna (Chrysostomos Kalafatis) (1867–1922), Greek Orthodox bishop of Izmir
 * Hermippus of Smyrna (3rd century BC), Peripatetic philosopher
 * Nymphidianus of Smyrna (4th century), Neoplatonist and sophist who lived in the time of the emperor Julian
 * Theon of Smyrna (c. 70–c. 135), Greek philosopher

Place names

 * Myrina (Aeolis), called Smyrna in antiquity

United States

 * Smyrna, Delaware, population 10,000.
 * New Smyrna Beach, Florida
 * Smyrna, Georgia, population 57,000.
 * Smyrna, Decatur County, Indiana, an unincorporated community in Salt Creek Township.
 * Smyrna, Jefferson County, Indiana, an unincorporated community also called Creswell.
 * Smyrna, Louisville, Kentucky, a neighborhood.
 * Smyrna, Maine
 * Smyrna, Michigan, an unincorporated community in Otisco Township.
 * Smyrna, Nebraska, an unincorporated community in Nuckolls County.
 * Smyrna (town), New York
 * Smyrna (village), New York
 * Smyrna, North Carolina, in Carteret County
 * Smyrna, South Carolina
 * Smyrna, Tennessee, population 50,000.
 * Smyrna Airport (Tennessee)
 * Smyrna High School (Tennessee)
 * Smyrna, Washington, an unincorporated community in Grant County.

Other uses

 * SmY RNA, a family of small nuclear RNAs found in some species of nematode worms
 * Smyrna (butterfly), a genus of brush-footed butterflies

title: Smyrna (disambiguation)


text:
Talk:Walter Duranty

What uniform is Duranty wearing in the photograph? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C8:4D83:2C00:1C2F:4EEA:4D87:1A6E (talk) 14:12, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

NPOV dispute
Duranty apologists are claiming that the article is too POV, fine. In an effort to add a little rigor to the much deserved bitch slapping of this odious historical figure, I'm editing the article list heading in order to make clear that these were pulitzer prize articles. I've compared the list of pulitzer articles from here (http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/2003/300302.shtml) and reconciling it with the already existing external list of Duranty articles. It's the same set of articles. 65.104.190.4 18:21, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Woops, I hadn't realized I wasn't logged in. The above commentary from 65.104.190.4 is mine TMLutas 18:22, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Much of this article is POV, unsourced and so forth. The introduction says such things as he "is widely seen as an apologist for Joseph Stalin". On the contrary, he was a New York Times reporter and won a Pulitzer Prize, and all of this nonsense about him did not come about until a half century or so after Mr. Duranty's death. As far as Von Hagen's review of Duranty's work, he did criticize some aspects of it, but not as much as was stated. Ruy Lopez 23:17, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

what the hell are you talking about?

http://www.nationalreview.com/stuttaford/stuttaford050703.asp

" We will never know whether Walter Duranty, the principal New York Times correspondent in the U.S.S.R., ever visited Fediivka. Almost certainly not. What we do know is that, in March 1933, while telling his readers that there had indeed been "serious food shortages" in the Ukraine, he was quick to reassure them that "there [was] no actual starvation." There had been no "deaths from starvation," he soothed, merely "widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition." So that was all right then.

But, unlike Khrushchev, Duranty, a Pulitzer Prize winner, no less, was keeping count — in the autumn of 1933 he is recorded as having told the British Embassy that ten million had died. ** "The Ukraine," he said, "had been bled white," remarkable words from the journalist who had, only days earlier, described talk of a famine as "a sheer absurdity," remarkable words from the journalist who, in a 1935 memoir had dismayingly little to say about one of history's greatest crimes. Writing about his two visits to the Ukraine in 1933, Duranty was content to describe how "the people looked healthier and more cheerful than [he] had expected, although they told grim tales of their sufferings in the past two years." As Duranty had explained (writing about his trip to the Ukraine in April that year), he "had no doubt that the solution to the agrarian problem had been found". "

Really? these are "lies"? If these really are Duranty's quotes I think there should be no question about rescinding the Pulitzer, and regardless of that the NYT should finally issue an apology instead of boasting about it's precious prize. Just some thoughts, obviously not meant to be unbiased.

 * One of the problems with recinding the Pulitzer is that Duranty won it for what he wrote before 1933. While his actions in 1933 were reprehensible, taking away a prize he won for writings in 1931 doesn't directly follow. There is also a bigger problem in that it isn't just Duranty and the Times that are gulity over the famine, its almost *every* regular reporter in the Soviet Union during the famine. I very specifically include Malcolm Muggeridge who didn't write accounts of the famine under his name, didn't challenge Duranty in public and has in the years since tried to spin his cowardly and dishonest actions into something they were not.

 * It wasn't JUST Walter Duranty and the Times. Every reporter and paper covering the Soviet Union in those years compromised itself. The reason why Duranty survived as a reporter in 1933 was that nobody was willing to speak up in public against him. If Malcolm Muggeridge and a couple others who knew the truth had come forward. Or if the governments who knew (UK, US, France

...etc) had come forward with the truth, Duranty would have been finished.

 * In my opinion, the whole movement to take the prize away is mostly an overly political cause aimed at attacking the modern New York Times. If people want to do whats right, stop focusing on Duranty and start trying to get an after the fact Pulitzer for Garth Jones. He was a true hero as a journalist but has been left an unrecognized unknown. Giving him an award now would mean much more than taking away the given to Duranty. 152.163.100.6 14:29, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Currently, the vast majority of the article and its links are to websites highly critical of Duranty. I do not think that this is a balanced view. Remember, Duranty was a highly respected journalist for decades. The article needs to reflect this, rather than simply dwelling on Duranty's failure in reporting Soviet atrocities. Crotalus horridus 15:13, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

 * Shame, Crotalus! The fact that this liar was respected at his times (especially by 'freedom-loving' Western 'progressives' never seen the life in Stalinist USSR), does not conclude that we are not allowed to call him a monstrous liar now. The toll of Holodomor victims is comparable to Holocaust -- and you probably agree that it's hard to deal a Holocaust denier (of the time those crimes were committed or of present days) neutrally. Constanz - Talk 13:25, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

 * Perhaps, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. I mean, come on, practically the ENTIRE article is the section "Criticisms".  Name one other article on wikipedia like that.-86.138.233.25 16:23, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Walter Duranty knew of starvation, reported it privately, and misled the western public that there was no starvation. This was not an isolated incident but the culmination of a pro-soviet slant. What, specifically should be noted as praiseworthy about the man? I guess some details of his family life couldn't hurt but I'm just not interested in spending my time on the project. Perhaps you are? TMLutas 18:05, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

 * I would have to agree with TMLutas. Duranty's contribution to History has been the role played by him as "the expert" on the Soviet Union, as the middle man between the Western public (specifically Roosevelt) and Stalin's "grand experiment."  Duranty fed his editors and readers just what they wanted to hear.  In return, Duranty was materially reciprocated.  Hence, what makes Duranty historically special is not his mediocre life  prior to the assignment in Moscow, but the role played as a Western journalist of "a reputable and credible newspaper" describing "accurately" the events taking place in the Soviet Union at the time.  Duranty fully meets the definition of a lier and an apologist, and the article about him explains this with reliance on emperical research.--Riurik 17:48, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

 * The article has been reworked to fix the POV problems but still preserve the spirit of what was there before. To avoid POV, the article has to be about the person as a whole rather than a specific controversy. Its also not really necessary to go after Duranty with strong POV because his own words and ideas are the most damaging thing that can be presented.

Link repair
I arrived on the scene in response to the "Link Rot" listing of 404 pages at the Community Portal, so I am not approaching this with any personal POV. The link itself was absolutely missing on this visit, but since I could reconstruct an (apparently) similar link with the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Union website, I did re-enter and restore it. I will leave the verifiability or the POV-ness of the link or the article to those of you who know the subject better. --KJPurscell 20:29, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Character Assassination
''In his New York Times articles (including one published on March 31, 1933), Duranty repeatedly denied the existence of a Ukrainian famine in 1932–33.

In an article in NYT, August 24 1933, he claimed "any report of a famine is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda",''

This is a pure distortion of his reporting. For one, the quotation is selective. This is what Duranty really wrote on 23 August 1933:

The excellent harvest about to be gathered shows that any report of a famine in Russia is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda

Duranty was entirely correct on this. Demographic reports from the archives show that by September, death rates in Ukraine had largely returned to normal. In June, the crude death rate in Ukraine was 196/1000. By September, however, it dropped to 23/1000. Duranty was therefore correct with his assertion that at the time of his writing, famine in USSR had ceased. As Duranty wrote, the splendid harvest of 1933 had ended by the start of autumn.

Duranty, in the very same article, wrote the following:

''The food shortage which has affected almost the whole population in the last year, and particularly in the grain-producing provinces--that is, the Ukraine, North Caucasus, the Lower Volga region--has, however, caused heavy loss of life. Although it is pure guesswork to attempt any estimate of the loss of life so far, not so much from actual starvation as from manifold diseases due to lowered resistance and to general disease in the last year, approximations are now possible. Among peasants and others receiving bread rations conditions were certainly not better. So with a total population in the Ukraine, North Caucasus and Lower Volga of upward of 40,000,000 the normal death rate would have been about 1,000,000. Lacking official figures, it is a conservative to suppose that this was at least trebled last year in those provinces and considerably increased for the Soviet Union as a whole.''

Above, Duranty acknowledged severe economic hardships among the population. Duranty was correct in saying that deaths resulted from manifold diseases rather than actual starvation. Soviet data showed 800,000 cases of typhus in 1933. In the famine-stricken regions of Ukraine, North Caucasus, and Lower Volga, Duranty estimated that there were perhaps 2 million excess deaths. Guess what--Duranty was correct nearly 60 years before the exposure of declassified Soviet data. For 1933 declassified Soviet data showed a total of 1.73 million excess deaths in Ukraine, Lower Volga, and North Caucasus.

Therefore, not only did Duranty acknowledge the occurrence of famine which he correctly called a food shortage, he also proved remarkably accurate in his estimations of the demographic consequences.

 * Your case isn't very convincing. You are parsing words and looking at information in a selective manner in a way similar to Duranty himself. Rather than looking at words written only in August, it would be helpful to include earlier statements he made in March. He called the famine at that time a "big scare story". He then goes on (as you do) to somehow make a distinction between deaths due to outright starvation in a famine and deaths due to disease based malnutration. I personally don't understand the distinction. In most any famine, disease and malnutition will inevitably be a larger cause of death than outright starvation. If people have so little food that they die of disease, that is a famine.

 * Duranty does tell the truth in a way and his attitude in doing so is very revealing. He uses the phrase "you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs" to describe their attitude and then compares the famine deaths to a baseless claim that generals in the first world war ordered costly attacks to show "spirit" to superiors.

 * Duranty engaged in endless doubletalk. He admitted "serious shortage food shortage throughout the country", "widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition" and said "conditions are definitely bad in certain sections- the Ukraine, North Caucasus and Lower Volga" but to him all this added up to "there is no famine". Even after he knew of close to two million dead in those regions, he still insisted there was no famine. If not famine, what is the word to describe a situation where 1.73 million or more people die due to a lack of proper food?

12.96.162.45 22:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Please read works by scholars such as Taylor, Crowl, von Hagen and others. Their in-depth research ought to answer lots of questions. Details are listed under the reference section. --Riurik (discuss) 21:08, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

 * IP User; he says that there was no famine in Russia, but then lists the places where Holodomor actually occurred, as having food shortages and malnutrition. What is incorrect about that?--Senor Freebie (talk) 08:43, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Metro-Vickers
Someone removed the following from the article based on lack of citation:

 * "Around the same time, six British citizens were arrested on charges of industrial espionage."

No citation was provided because the Walter Duranty quote in the same paragraph references the same incident and serves effectively as a citation. But if anyone needs more information, the incident referred to in the paragraph is known as the Metro-Vickers affair.

Six British Engineers were arrested in March 1933 along with a number of Soviet Citizens. They were accused of economic sabotage against the soviet union. Specifically they were accused of sabotaging power stations.

12.96.162.45 22:12, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I have restored and expanded this reference because the famine and the show trials of those who "sabotaged" forced industrialisation were two sides of the same coin.

John Crowfoot (talk) 13:17, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

comments on recent attempts to change the article
Someone is making repeated attempts to change the article. Since they seem unwilling to engage in discussion, I'm going to make the case against their edits.

The first change involves subtituting "insulted" for "called".

 * This is unacceptable because insulted is specifically inserting a POV evaluation of the comment.

The second change involves the statement: Duranty "according to his critics "denied" famine in 1932–33"

 * It is not according to his critics. His own article cited and sourced says that reports of famine in the soviet union are wrong. See for example the words: "that any report of a famine is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda.

The third change involves the word-games played in his column. While Duranty denies famine in the Ukraine, he backhandedly says that "ordinary" deaths in Ukraine may have tripled. While he never says a number, the implication is that 2 million people would be dead.

 * By the end of the column, Duranty has effectively called Jones a liar and denied the existance of a famine in the Ukraine while admitting himself that 2 million people had died. How is the death of 2 million people out of a population of 40 million due to food related issues not a famine? Duranty himself mentions the 1921 famine in the USSR and in that famine the usual estimate for deaths in the entire country is 5 million. I can't explain how it is that Duranty accepts a 1921 famine and denies one in the 1930s. It makes no sense.

 * Duranty has also in the column a) suggested that the story has something to do with the Metro-Vickers "spy" case b) implied that Jones is a political operative (mentioning Lloyd-George) c) called the famine a "scare story" d) claimed that Jones and others were suggesting that the soviet union would entirely collapse because of the famine e) accepting as true the stalinist show-trials for economic sabotage and attributing the lack of food in part to sabotage by foreign agents in the agricultural minister. Duranty also includes a classic comment about making soviet omlets by breaking "eggs".

 * Your citation "proving duranty's numbers" is not valid. You cannot point to a spreadsheet without any analysis presented and claim that it proves anything. You need to at least cite a source that says what you are claiming rather than raw data. But even if you do that, you cannot get around the basic fact that duranty called the famine a scare story and denied that there was a famine.

Change four involves the removal of sources and quotes that you seem to disagree with.

 * You need to give justification why well-documented events such as the controversy involving the Pulitzer Board should be removed. As well, your removal of Strang's account of the 26 September 1933 conversation with duranty needs substantial justification.

12.96.162.45 16:25, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The important Strang reference has not been restored.

John Crowfoot (talk) 13:20, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

As a followup, the changes to the article discussed above were made by Backdash who turned out to be the sockpuppet of a banned vandal. See the link above for more information. 65.117.65.184 22:04, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Undue weight
This article is almost a textbook example of undue weight. Duranty wrote at least nine books plus countless articles, yet the overwhelming majority of this Wikipedia entry consists of nitpicking that occurred long after he was dead. This article isn't a biography of Duranty. It's a coat rack. The real subject of the article is "Criticisms of Walter Duranty's Soviet reporting". There's also a large dose of original research and uncited statements. Yes, this material deserves some room, but it shouldn't overwhelm the article as it does now. Nor should we give in to the presentist bias that this reflects. I would prefer more academic sources and less from political axe-grinders. *** Crotalus *** 05:07, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Duranty was a traitor, a rapist, a drug addict, a communist, and a willing agent of the second-worst mass murderer of all time. If you don't like how he comes across in this article, cry me a river.  If anything, it's far too circumspect about his depravity. 2601:647:4F00:7D:60C6:3022:1CDE:EA78 (talk) 05:00, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, maybe so much is said about his reporting from the Soviet Union (compared to the other books or "countless" other articles is because that's what he's famous for, for better or worse? After all, Duranty didn't get the Pulitzer Prize for writing articles about dog-catching or whatever, but for his reporting from the Soviet Union (see the list of 13 prize-winning articles in the corresponding section).  I haven't read his books, but most sound the same theme, from their titles (Red Economics, Duranty reports Russia, etc). It may be worth looking into that, but I kinda doubt they have much more than what's already known from his NYT articles. (I don't have the foggiest idea what Babies without tails, stories by Walter Duranty is about, but do we really want to know?)  Now, about the second point:  " There's also a large dose of original research" -- where exactly is that?  This is an extremely well researched subject, with dozens, if not hundreds of books, articles, etc written about it.  Hard to do any "original research" on such well-trodden ground, if you ask me, but I'm listening, if you have something concrete in mind.  Thirdly, "uncited statements": yes, that's a real problem, as anyone can see.  I don't know why that's the case (I didn't write the article), but it can certainly be remedied. See eg  Holodomor denial, which is chock-full-of inline quotations -- I plan to port some of those here, and further develop this article, when I get a chance -- but having tags slapped on it doesn't help much.  Four -- I don't know what's "presentist" about this article -- the Pulitzer Prize controversy?  I don't get it. Finally, sure, let's have more academic sources (will do that, no problemo) -- but note that all 5 books listed in the present article are all already from well-established writers, such as Robert Conquest and Malcolm Muggeridge.  Or are these writers to be viewed as "political axe-grinders", as opposed to who? Perhaps, Walter Duranty? Turgidson (talk) 05:31, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

 * Change the "criticism" section to "legacy of reporting on the Soviet Union"; unfortunately, there are more and more recent articles in the press that focus on Duranty's lack of concern over the deaths of millions or that such deaths are part of a strategy where the end justifies the means. That's the way it works. I don't see this as undue weight. After all, if you go on about Hitler and the Holocaust no one complains there's not enough information about building the autobahn, or if you go on about Mussolini and fascism no one complains there's not enough information about trains running on time. Admittedly the comparison is overdone, but you should get the point. —PētersV (talk) 19:48, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

 * I've read through the article a couple of more times. I don't agree with Crotalus' tag, however, perhaps the article might be better organized, it doesn't need two sections on Duranty's reporting of the famine, perhaps "Career" (including recounting his reporting of the famine) followed by "Legacy" (being seen as an apologist for Stalin, controversy over Pulitzers, impact on American journalism regarding the Soviet Union,...). It's unfortunate that his legacy re: the famine overshadows everything else, but that was the result of choices he made in his lifetime. —PētersV (talk) 21:37, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed -- the article needs a thorough overhaul (and inline quotations, of course). I'll be happy to work on this, in the next few weeks, provided one can do that with some degree of peace and quiet, not constant barrages of slings and arrows. Alternatively, if anyone is willing to give it a shot, I'll be glad to help out. Turgidson (talk) 21:45, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

 * I'd suggest not worrying about the tags for now and just deal with the revamp. Personally, I'm quite interested in what he did in his time in Riga, but there's not much on it. I did find tidbit at the U of Wash site (where they specialize in Baltic studies), it fills in the gap before the "reports from Moscow" years and talks about Duranty positively. —PētersV (talk) 00:24, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

 * The University of Washington article does not fill any gap. Its an amaturish book report on Duranty's "I write as I please" which was written by Durranty around 15 years after the events in question. If anyone wants to improve the article, you have to get Durranty's own books, read them and then cross-check them with other sources because he often gets things wrong. I did the last major revamp of this article a while ago and my opinion at the time was that there was little in his pre-1929 career that merited much attention beyond the basics that showed up in the article. There is a big misunderstanding here about his career. He was a minor reporter of no significance until those few years in which he did the reporting he won the prize for and also did the writing which subsequently got him into trouble. His early 1930s career is the only reason anyone published his years-old baltic memories. And after he left the soviet union, he gradually become obscure again. The other problem anyone who tries a major revamp is going to run into is the problems of writing about any journalist. You typically have their account in their own words and the account of their critics with nothing inbetween. I think given all the problems associated with any change to the article that I did a good job with it compared to what I started with. 75.41.200.14 (talk) 09:43, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

1944
Tidbit from the Gregorovich site WALTER DURANTY

"In the first fortnight of January (1933) ... Stalin made a speech 'What is wrong,' Stalin asked in effect, 'on the agrarian front? We are wrong, my comrades -- we, not the peasants nor the weather, nor class enemies, but we Communists, who have the greatest power and authority the world ever saw, yet have made a series of blunders ... We miscalculated the new tactics of hostile forces of boring from within, instead of engaging in open warfare.'"

"In April, 1933, I travelled through Ukraine to Odessa, and ... a Red Army brigade commander (General) told me: 'We had a communal farm in Ukraine attached to my regiment ... Everything went well until a year ago (1932). Then the whole set-up changed. We began to get letters asking for food. Can you imagine that, that they asked food from us?  We sent what we could, but I didn't know what had happened until I went to the farm only a month ago (March 1933).  My God, you wouldn't beleive it.  The people were almost starving. Their animals were dead.  I'll tell you more, there wasn't a cat or dog in the whole village, and that is no good sign ... Instead of two hundred and fifty families there were only seventy-three, and all of them were half-starved.  I asked them what happened. They said 'Our seed grain was taken away last spring.'  They said to me, 'Comrade Commander, we are soldiers and most of us are Communists. When the order came that our farm must deliver five hundred tons of grain, we held a meeting. Five hundred tons of grain! We needed four hundred tons to sow our fields, and we only had six hundred tons. But we gave the grain as ordered."

What was the result? I asked the brigade commander.

"Barren fields," he told me. "Do you know that they ate their horses and oxen, such as was left of them? They were starving, do you know that?  Their tractors were rusty and useless; and remember, these folks weren't kulaks, weren't class enemies.  They were our own people, our soldiers.  I was horrified ..."

USSR: The Story of Soviet Russia, by Walter Duranty, New York, 1944, pages 194-5 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vecrumba (talk • contribs) 02:16, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Coatracking
I support the tag remaining until we remove some of the repetitive rehashing of the Holodomor and reorganize it and add more information about Duranty's career outside the area of controversy. His Times report ostensibly filed from Paris of the Red Army being poised to invade the Baltics was certainly not apologetic. We need to insure we fairly represent his career and reporting both before (Baltic independence) and after (WWII including the Baltics) the Holodomor. Contemporary perceptions I think are best dealt with in a separate "Legacy" section so "what Duranty did/wrote" and "what others say then or today about what Duranty did/wrote" are dealt with as separate topics. —PētersV (talk) 19:55, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

 * I think the tag is totally invalid. There are around 20 lines in the article about the Holodomor. His career prior to those events is already covered in detail including his time in the Baltics and in Paris. As is his interview in 1929 with Stalin. His publications over his entire life are also covered in the article. The significant portion of his career was his reporting in the Soviet Union from the 1929 interview with Stalin until his eventual move to the US and the associated journalistic prize. The controversies with the prize over the years also cannot be ignored. For you to sustain your argument, your going to have to make a better case as to what is missing and why it is of greater significance than what is presently in the article. The tone of your comments raises concerns because if your objective is to use his world war one reporting from the baltics to make a case about his "fairness" overall in reporting the soviet union, that would seem to be moving in the direction of serious POV problems. 75.41.200.14 (talk) 09:11, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

 * I was only looking to build a bit more of the continuum. I don't have any preconceptions about whether that makes any difference positive or negative (though indications are some positives--which may or may not be significant), only that "more complete" leaves the article less open to criticism. I agree that the significant portion of his career is also the one over which people take the most issue with Duranty. I thought that the article would have more balance if rearranged to separate career and legacy, and it really could do with a few more words on the more benign, earlier, parts of his career so the reader can get to know something about Duranty--right now, what is said about Duranty before the big mess is a mere afterthought in the intro. The main body of the article launches right into a whole section on Duranty's prejudices, which is what gives rise to the appearance of coat-racking. —PētersV (talk) 21:37, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

 * P.S. Editors can pillory Duranty deservedly, but if that's all the article does because the only significant thing he did was that for which he is being deservedly pilloried, then the article is a coatrack. Even a biography of Stalin can cover childhood and schooling and early career before getting to the ruthless genocidal despot part. If there's not a whole lot of information out there on Duranty prior to Stalin/Ukraine/famine, than we should state that and simply cover what bits we know. —PētersV (talk) 21:42, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

 * Just a note that I'm slowly piecing together some narrative based on Duranty's autobiography. I expect that will take care of the coat-racking issue. Frankly, his earlier reporting makes his later (the famine controversy) all the more puzzling. Nor is Duranty uniformly the Bolshevik sycophant. —PētersV (talk) 00:32, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

 * Still, supporting the worst Western regime in history does rather discredit you. 68.84.224.36 (talk) 07:37, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

 * I must say I am completely confused by 68.84.224.36's comment. I'm not supporting anything. What "regime" are we discussing? I would think that someone interested in history and its participants would welcome something beyond the same denial phrases already quoted everywhere--and which no one is defending or disputing (aside from those who have noted that if one pillories Duranty, one should at least quote him in full while doing so) . —PētersV (talk) 16:14, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * IP was talking about Duranty, I believe, not you. Ostap 20:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, working on a double espresso to make up for my apparent caffeine deficiency. :-) —PētersV (talk) 20:51, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Pulitzer what and when
Just a note, correct, the effort is to strip Duranty posthumously out of righteousness, not to do with the reporting that actually garnered the Pulitzer. —PētersV (talk) 18:42, 4 July 2008 (UTC) PELECH RESPONDS: Some have ignored the Pulitzer Admin's, Sig Gissler's, statement that the prize was only for the articles of 1931. I have taken that at face value and shown deception in those articles. When presented with my article on the HNN site, Gissler, without ever proving his case, pointed back to the unsubstantiated assertion of 2003. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.221.215.194 (talk) 04:34, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Pelech
Please (several editors) stop reinserting Pelech as conclusive proof of Duranty's heinous conduct and deception in apparently everything he ever wrote. Pelech is (a) an anti-Duranty activist (letter writing), (b) it is a self published work, and (c) Pelech's document is already referenced in an appropriate manner in the article lead. Thanks! —PētersV (talk) 00:12, 11 July 2008 (UTC) Pelech responds: My proof of deliberate deception may be self-published, but it contains citations of materials which can be referenced. The Pulitzer Board gave no substantiation for the claim that there was "no clear or convincing evidence of deliberate deception" in Duranty's Pulitzer winning articles. I make no claim of "deception in apparently everything he ever wrote." That would require a much longer study. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.221.215.194 (talk) 04:13, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Disappeared reference
No longer valid for article, reference and commentary removed. If a copy exists elsewhere, we ca re-reference... Thanks, PētersV (talk) 18:55, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Richard Oppel, "How the Pulitzer Prizes are Chosen." This item has disappeared from the Austin American-Statesman website. Perhaps the uncomfortable questions about Oppel's participation in the Duranty Hoax 'embarassed' the management of the newspaper and the Cox newspaper organization.

Intro, including Pelech redux
I am no Duranty fan, however, I have taken the time to actually read some of what he wrote. His monograph on the state of European politics before the war is quite insightful. A couple of things with regard to recent changes to the intro and including our anonymous IP friend(s): PELECH RESPONDS: I do not claim that anything that Duranty wrote about the famine invalidated his Pulitzer prize. If you read my study, you would see that it deals with his prize-winning articles only. The board declared deception the relevant standard for revocation of the prize. Deception in the articles has been proven. The prize is invalidated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.221.215.194 (talk) 04:25, 1 January 2009 (UTC) Please discuss changes to the intro before making them. —PētersV (talk) 22:19, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) Pelech is an anti-Duranty activist, nothing is "proven"; also what Duranty wrote that received the Pulitzer had nothing to do with the Holodomor; please stop giving Pelech undue weight in the intro. There is also no scholarly evidence that has been provided who if anyone in particular on the Pulitzer Board did or did not make a decision. If you wish to add, then please provide appropriate evidence. Pelech's self-published correspondence with the Board is not the proper source.
 * 1) As for Stalin's reputation, it was quite good as no one really knew what he was doing domestically and it was good into WWII, culminating with Stalin being TIME magazine's Man of the Year in 1939  and 1942. Today we look on U.S. ambassador Davies as naive for thinking so highly of Stalin, but that's our 20:20, it was typical at the time. I'm removing the dubious tag.

 * HELLO anon IP. The place for discussion is HERE! NOT insisting on edit-warring. —PētersV (talk) 15:42, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

In response to (2), you are completely wrong. First, you are mixing up the early 1930s with the period of the second world war. In the early 1930s, views on stalinism were strong either one way or the other. The left had strong views in favor of Stalin and of Soviet Union. The right had equally strong views against the soviet union. Duranty's rise and eventual prize was tied up in the politics of US recognition of the soviet union at the time. As far as Time in 1939, you would have done well to read the material about why he was man of the year. In particular "History may not like him but history cannot forget him." He was man of the year in 1939 because of the pact with the germans, his attack on Poland and his attack on Finland. Time magazine was not positive toward any of the things he was doing in 1939. He was man of the year for the change he had brought to the world, not because he was seen as a good man. We have no basis to say anything about Davies. You can no more excuse him as ignorant as explain why Vice President Wallace visited and praised the Stalinist Siberian Gulag in 1944. 70.234.199.105 (talk) 06:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Fixes today to the article
I made major fixes to the article today. There were several major problems:

1) Its is highly inappropriate for the article to argue with itself or to make political arguments. It is appropriate to say what the review effort found. It is completely inappropriate to repeatedly claim in the article that the board was "wrong" or "incorrect" in its decision.

2) The introduction is not an appropriate place for a long paragraph arguing the merits of the pulitizer prize. The placement in the article is not appropriate. The length of the material is inappropriate for an introduction as is the multiple attempts to draw POV conclusions about the matter.

3) Conspiracy garbage has no place in the article. Claims that source to deranged or irrational materials with no credibility have no place in the article. That specifically means all the Crowly occult conspiracy stories have no place in the article.

4) The article is not an appropriate place to debate issues related to the soviet union. The article has to be about Duranty and cannot present unsubstantiated conclusions about how the soviet union was viewed or original research as regards views of the soviet union.

5) This article is not a forum for avocating for Duranty's prize to be taken away. Its also not a forum for the defense of the soviet union in the 1930s.

70.234.199.105 (talk) 06:29, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

 * Apologies for my oversimplification to make a point on Stalin. However, Davies was not the only 20:20 hindsight useful idiot--and I'm more than well aware of (later) a U.S. VP visiting Siberia and complimenting the Soviets on their accomplishments while Lend-lease tractors buried Stalin's victims in mass graves over the hill. (Only slight exaggeration for rhetorical effect.) I've cut down the Pulitzer Prize controversy numerous times in the intro only to have it reappear, including having what people contend being represented as fact. I've requested semi-protection for the article as the result of the latest round of edits. Thanks for your comments and changes (already reverted, unfortunately). —PētersV (talk) 15:52, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Marriage to Jane Cheron?
I've run across a couple of disreputable sources that claim Duranty was married to Jane Cheron. Does anyone know if this was true or more importantly know the years of the marriage? 66.226.193.82 (talk) 18:28, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

 * Definitely garbage. Duranty's wife was Russian, they had a son, and the family lived in the USSR while Duranty was stationed there. —PētersV (talk) 06:16, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

PELECH RESPONDS: Duranty's major biographer, S.J. Taylor, states that Jane Cheron was Duranty's wife. Katya was Duranty's mistress. They had a son, Michael. After leaving the Soviet Union, Duranty abandoned them to their own devices and had nothing more to do with them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.221.215.194 (talk) 04:40, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

 * Taylor appears to be the original source. Taylor bases herself on an interview with George Seldes, who claims that Cheron lived with Duranty in Moscow in the mid-1920's and was considered his wife. But its all tied up in various weakly supported claims by Taylor that Duranty was involved with Alaster Crowley. A non-Taylor source for the marriage would be extremely interesting because it would establish the ties between Crowley and Duranty in a much more credible way. 66.226.193.82 (talk) 17:09, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

In her autobiographical The Laughing Torso, Nina Hamnett includes a graphic of a portrait called "Madame Walter Duranty."

While it's right to be very cautious about anything to do with Aleister Crowley (someone actively involved all his life in promoting himself and creating a smokescreen of mystic nonsense around his person, his acolytes and activities), if S.J. Taylor has evidence of a link and of a form of marriage between Duranty and Cheron then it cannot be dismissed. Nor can the suggestion that their way of life in the Soviet capital was unconventional.

In the 1920s Moscow was a very different city where the avant-garde, the proletarian and a bohemian lifestyle were all considered compatible. By the mid-1930s Stalin and the puritan Komsomol had put an end to that existence.

That leaves me curious: what did Duranty write about in the 1920s?

John Crowfoot (talk) 13:33, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Anon IPs
If you want to seriously discuss and contribute to the article, please register as a WP user so we can have some continuity of discussion. Is there some reason everyone is hiding in anonymity? This is hardly the most controversial topic on WP. —PētersV (talk) 06:16, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

 * Its one person (me) using different IPs and I'm about done with the topic for now. I check in about once every six months or so on the state of the article. In its current state the article is more in need of constant protection than improvement in my opinion. I know the anon IPs are annoying, but I have my reasons for using them. 70.234.231.226 (talk) 15:32, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Requested Citations
The citation for Zara Witkin should be: "An American Engineer in Stalin's Russia: The Memoirs of Zara Witkin, 1932-1934," University of California Press.

A citation for UK intelligence would be "The Foreign Office and the famine: British documents on Ukraine and the Great Famine of 1932-1933 (Studies in East European nationalisms)". 70.234.208.206 (talk) 02:57, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
 * No page is referenced from this book and a search on the google books snippet preview doesn't show any mention of Witkin in this book. A more exact reference and/or a partial citation is needed regarding Witkin's supposed involvement with the UK intelligence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.10.151.63 (talk) 06:48, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

This sentence: "The kulaksa were a fiction invented in the fevered mind of Lenin and exploited by Stalin, who needed scapegoats and 'class enemies' to keep the rest of the population in control." is neither attributed nor explained in context. The paragraph could well do without it, if it's not attributed.

69.181.145.11 (talk) 03:13, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Proof that the Liberal Media Lacks Objectivity
The New York Times has called the articles slovenly, and it is admitted that Duranty's reports, denying the famine, were false. Yet, the Pulitzer Board refuses to revoke the prize "there was not clear and convincing evidence of deliberate deception." Several million dead bodies from the famine, and the Pulitzer Board does not think there is clear and convincing evidence. If Duranty was there, and was in a position to see what was going on, he had to know, and therefore fabricated the articles. If he did not know what was going on, he had no basis upon which to write what he did, and therefore fabricated the articles. See? It comes out the same either way. Thus, the only conclusion which we can reach is that the Pulitzer Board (which, after all, is named for the Yellow Journalism king, Joseph Pulitzer, likes liars and frauds like Duranty.

John Paul Parks (talk) 09:49, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

 * Among the many problems is that the prize was not given for his writing on the famine exclusively and specifically. Therefore, it is not an easy manner to revoke the prize. 66.226.193.82 (talk) 22:10, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Lifetime achievement award? Then all the articles he wrote in his lifetime can be considered when deciding to revoke the prize. Have a look at his claim that Trotsky was conspiring with Hitler, and that Stalin's show trials were an exposure of a Fascist trojan horse.

http://books.google.com/books?id=e4jnk4vVdpUC&pg=PA60&dq=they+were+there+the+moscow+trials#v=onepage&q=they%20were%20there%20the%20moscow%20trials&f=false

71.198.177.48 (talk) 17:37, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

 * No, he did not write that Trotsky and Hitler were personally conspiring together. You're reading what you want to read because you don't care for Duranty (by your tone), not what Duranty wrote.  PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА  ►talk 22:35, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Jane Cheron and Crowley claims
The claims of marriage to Jane Cheron and ties to Alestar Crowley have been removed. There is no credible source for any of those claims. S.J. Taylor makes the claims in his book, but provides no supporting evidence or confirming primary documentation. 174.46.28.58 (talk) 19:25, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Lawrence Sutin also links Jane Cheron and Crowley to Duranty in his book. Ekem (talk) 21:35, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

 * He does so with no references to primary sources. He doesn't explain, for example, why a reference to "A.B." should be taken as being a reference to Duranty. The marriage to Jane Cheron is even more problematical because there is simply no documentation anywhere for it that I've seen. 174.46.28.58 (talk) 16:36, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

 * The most direct association between Crowley and Duranty is in Crowley's letters collected in "MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS". Crowley calls him an "old friend" and quotes from Duranty's book "I write as I please" twice. I added a new section covering this.174.46.28.58 (talk) 16:53, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

 * Taylor could be considered herself a primary source, as well as a secondary source, regarding Duranty's marriage to Cheron. She says it was verified by Duranty's contacts that she interviewed for the book. IP 174 did insert this material in the article, but unfortunately failed to include sourcing footnotes. Another editor deleted it a few years later. I have restored it, along with sources and page citations. JerryRussell (talk) 21:26, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Deletion of Blackmail claims
I have deleted the claims made about black mail since the reference provided is blank and has been purposely adjusted to give the impression that there is a source for these claims. I've had a brief look around the internet and cannot find any such claims. If someone can provide a source that's fine, but until then it should remain of the article as misinformation. Peter (talk) 02:14, 21 October 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Psmith43 (talk • contribs) 02:05, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Here is a source: Reflections on a Ravaged Century, by Robert Conquest, page 123  Ekem (talk) 03:43, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Could you please specify the page. Thanks. 87.75.143.69 (talk) 04:53, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

 * Page 123, end of first paragraph. Ekem (talk) 13:18, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Source: Paul Hollander, Anti-Americanism: Critiques at Home and Abroad - Page 462

Move/return to the United States
Article says "...  returning to the United States in 1934", but that is the first mention of the United States in the body of the article. We start with him being born in Liverpool, then moving to Paris, then Latvia, then the Soviet Union. Open4D (talk) 04:46, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Reporting the famine
The first 2 paragraphs in the "Reporting the famine" section are not in chronological order, making the section confusing. 66.66.149.221 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:01, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Gaps in the story
This article offers a good introduction to Walter Duranty and the mystery that surrounds him. At the same time there are a couple of gaps that need filling.

If he really went to Harrow and then to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, those two educational institutions will have a record of his attendance. Did Sally Taylor look into that curious and unsubstantiated claim? The interesting description by Muggeridge in his memoirs suggests that Duranty invented much of his own biography.

Two, there is an interesting hiatus in his biography between completing his education (at Cambridge University or "in the school of life") and starting to work as a journalist. Eight of these years were spent in the USSR before, in 1929, he somehow got an exclusive interview with the Leader at the very moment that the latter turned 50 and began to establish his cult.

When did the New York Times start publishing him? When did he become their regular Moscow correspondent? How did he earn a living before then?

John Crowfoot (talk) 20:08, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Neutrality tag
Wondering why there is a neutrality tag in this article, dated November 2015, as I see no related discussion. Unless there is a bona fide neutrality dispute on this talk page the neutrality tag should come off.

Also I see edit-warring over the word "man made" in relation to the famine. I do not believe that is necessary. Coretheapple (talk) 13:12, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
 * The revert was my mistake. I didn't look at the structure of the sentence properly, and the editor who reverted me was correct (although, for the sake of the reader, I'd consider that the lead needs a bit of a spruce up as it doesn't adequately address the highest-profile issue for which he is notable: "...again later for his denial of widespread deaths by the (1932–33) famine in the USSR, most particularly the Holodomor, the mass death by starvation of Ukrainians, Tartars, Kazakhs, and other ethnic groups in the Ukraine, the south, and Siberia." doesn't make sense in that it sounds as if it were all about a conventional famine).

 * As regards the neutrality tag, it was placed here by an IP using a spurious ES. As you say, there's no discussion anywhere on the talk page about this bio not being neutral. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 05:14, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I've found the long-standing, terse lead prior the POV refactoring here and have restored it. I'm also about to remove the disputed neutrality tag. If any editors have concerns about the neutrality of this article, they should bring them here to discuss them rather than engage in drive-by tagging. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 05:38, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Socialism First Aim in Soviet's Program
The names only prove that the prize should be revoked. He wasn't able to know secret Soviet aims, so he dispersed Soviet propaganda.Xx236 (talk) 09:21, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

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Strange Inconsistency
I was reading this article out of general interest and there is a serious inconsistency. It states that Duranty went to Bedford College in the late 1800s, but the link to the article on the college says that no men were admitted until the 1960s. One of these articles is wrong, and I suspect that it is this one. What's more, the text of this article has been copied all over the web and into translated articles on Wikipedia. There does not seem to be any source for the claim. Tharoth (talk) 08:28, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

 * It now seems to say Bedford School, which is wikilinked as an English public school, founded in 1552.
 * The paragraph is sourced, but I don't know if the source (a printed book) supports the Bedford School claim. MrDemeanour (talk) 21:20, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

blackmailed over his sexual proclivities
That's a rather coy phrase.

In the film Mr. Jones, he's portrayed as hosting a large and lavish orgy, with drugs and so on. It's hard to see how he might be blackmailed over something like that; it seems to be very open, with a lot of guests. It's hard to blackmail someone, unless their activities are secret.

Should the film be mentioned (e.g. "In popular culture")? Does anyone know what sources the filmmakers relied on? MrDemeanour (talk) 21:13, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Walter Duranty


text: User talk:207.12.183.31

title: User talk:207.12.183.31


text:
User talk:Clindahl

Student engineer....fucked up on cytoplasmic membrane the first time.

title: User talk:Clindahl