Just thought of it, didn’t the Times, or one of it’s reporters, get the Nobel prize, or some such, for that same time period?
Lincoln Steffens reporting from Russia for the New York Times, got the Pulitzer Prize. He was famous for coining the phrase, “I have seen the future, and it works.” to describe the Soviet Union. He was probably aware of the Ukranian famine. Steffens was a disgrace, but just about the only reporting out of the Soviet Union in those days was happy talk. It would have been difficult for countervailing ideas to get out.
It was Walter Duranty who reported for the NYT. My bad. Lincoln Steffens was that other jerk, who made the infamous, “I have seen the future...” comment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty