[InMemoriam]

It's hard not to notice that Ralph Parker, who writes for the Times, constantly seems to take the Soviet press releases as gospel truth for many of his articles on the Russo-German war. I did a fast search of his name and nothing much comes up about him but there was a Ralph Parker, also a journalist, who defected to the Soviet Union in the late 40's. Wonder if it's the same guy?

I've been keeping an eye on this bird since his panegyric to political commissars in the Red Army a few months back. Has to be the same guy. He had to defect; how else could he pick up his Stalin Prize?

[Homer_J_Simpson]

My bing search didn't yield any more information, though I did learn a Ralph Parker did a translation of "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" for a 1963 publication. If that is the Ralph Parker formerly with the NYT then he is probably not the defector. I don't think translating Solzhenitsyn is what the newcomer was set to work on by his new masters.

The defecting Ralph Parker was British, which doesn't mean he wasn't a Times correspondent. I don't know where I would start looking if I was really going to dig into this question. Probably the reference desk.