A Failure of Journalism
We last ran into the Metropol Hotel in Amor Towles’ “A Gentleman in Moscow.” (See: My Amazon Review of Amor Towles' "A Gentleman in Moscow") Here we revisit the hotel as the home of foreign journalists covering the Eastern Front during World War II. We meet such stalwarts Quentin Reynolds, Margaret Bourke-White, Walter Kerr, Cyrus Sulzberger, and Edgar Snow among others. They are all there to cover the war under the very strict hands of Soviet censorship. Hence, for the most part, they have become organs of Soviet Propaganda.
The journalists are aided by a corps of female interpreters who in addition to there nominal duties are there to spy, influence and sometimes perform sexual services for mostly male reporters. One of those interpreters was Nadya Ulanovskaya who with her husband Alex are the true protagonists of the book. Both Nadya and Alex as teenagers were revolutionaries in 1917 and, in fact, they met Stalin. After the revolution both move up in nomenklatura and by 1926 they are working as GRU agents in China under the legendary master spy, Richard Sorge. (See: Shulmaven: My Amazon Review of Owen Matthews' "An Impeccable Spy: Richard Sorge, Stalin's Master Agent )
By 1932 Alex had moved over to the NKVD and worked as its rezident in New York. In that capacity he recruited Whitaker Chambers who years later would blow the whistle on the Soviet spy ring in the United States. (See: Shulmaven: My Amazon Review of Calder Walten's "Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West" )
However, by the late 1930’s both are disillusioned
with communism and are initially saved from the purges by an old friend from
the NKVD. Nadya worked for Australian journalist Godfrey Blunden. She travels
with the journalistic crew to see what the Soviets want them to see at the
front. The journalists live high on the hog while all of Russia is starving.
Author Alan Philps gives us a great sense of the fear in Moscow as Hitler’s
armies approached as the journalist were evacuated further east.
Nadya’s luck runs out in 1948 when she is arrested. It
seems the KGB figured out that she was the protagonist in a novel Blunden
wrote. She spends time in Lubyanka, Lefortovo and the Gulag and serves eight
years. She is released early under Khrushchev's general amnesty. I didn’t realize
what a big deal that was. Also released were her husband and daughter.
She immediately acts as a rebel by being a leader in
“samizdat” movement which published previously forbidden tracts. Ultimately,
she and her daughter move to Israel.
What we learn from Philp’s book is that journalists
working under dictatorships cannot really do an honest job. In this case the
journalists in Russia lived on their expense accounts, paid no taxes and
eagerly awaited writing books that would bring them a royalty stream. To write
out of line would mean having their visas revoked. Thus, in no way could they
be considered independent. This is a lesson for a reader of reports emanating
from Russia, Iran, China, and Palestine. Take all of them with more than a few
grains of salt. Witness what happened to Evan Gershkovich now imprisoned in
Russia.
Alan Philps has done a great service to the memory of
Nadya Ulanovskaya and has written a work of history that today’s journalists
should not forget.
For the full Amazon URL see: A Failure of Journalism (amazon.com)
