'The higher you fly the harder you fall' is a term that fate will mockingly whisper in the ears of the intelligent and forward thinking. Every so often fate is right. Gareth Jones was a Welsh journalist and his sense of adventure left no room for cowardice. But his life was cut short. Far from home and travelling along life's journey to the Orient Gareth's spirit of youthful exuberance crossed paths with the hands of merciless bandits. A promising British writing talent was brutally and regrettably laid to rest in a prematurely prepared grave.

Philip Colley, Gareth's great nephew and editor of Gareth Jones' Website explained to UAnews "He was very forward with those that he met, and he used his relationship with Lloyd George to open doors to meetings with some of the twentieth Century's biggest names. He was the first foreign journalist to fly with Hitler after David Lloyd George was made Chancellor in February 1933. But his direct approach in a later interview in Tokyo, with the Japanese War Minister, where he asked: 'So, What are you up to in Northern China?' did not do his survival chances much good."

It was only one month after that meeting with Adolf Hitler that Gareth Jones would expose the reality of genocide in Ukraine. On his travel to Kharkiv he manifested both his sense of adventure and his determined quest for the truth.

The wheels of Stalin's death machine had moved into gear. Any hint of a resurgence of Ukrainian nationalism was being methodically quashed. Private small holders were having their food and lands stolen in the collectivisation process, and although collectivisation was the term understood to mean 'to communally produce, collect and redistribute food' Stalin was busy producing and collecting his Ukrainian quota of human corpses that had died through his enforced starvation.

Travel was restricted in Ukraine and strictly controlled by Stalin and his secret police - the NKVD. Gareth Jones sensed that something was disastrously wrong, and eventually witnessed the the truth of Stalin's dealings with Ukraine's peasantry. He travelled to Kharkiv and saw what really happened, but he did so without the neccessary travel permits. In the villages outside of Kharkiv he saw the effects of the famine gradually moving towards the most painful days. At it's peak Stalin's murder campaign by famine was to claim 25 000 victims a day. Philip Colley confirmed: "Gareth 'got away' with flaunting the Soviet Secret Police ban on private travel within Ukraine in March 1933".

In he process of his observations Gareth took hand-written notes and recorded the testaments of starving Ukrainian villagers. One pefectly preserved hand-written document is on display at the Gareth Jones website.

Once he had witnessed developments on Ukraine's Soviet stage Gareth Jones had himself developed his own personal rack record. He went on to interview the Japanese War Minister, and bluntly asked about affairs in China. Phillip Colley added "he stayed in Tokyo with Gunter Stein, Richard Sorge's (a major Soviet spy) radio operator - who would probably have readily informed the Japanese of his previous damaging expose in the Soviet Union."

Soon after, and as a result of Gareth Jone's premature death, Malcolm Muggeridge was able to accept more of the journalistic glory surrounding Ukraine's horrific holocaust, but historically, at the time, Gareth, appeared to take the hardest and dirtiest of Walter Duranty's flak. See: RUSSIANS HUNGRY, BUT NOT STARVING Duranty clearly undermined Jones: "Since I talked to Mr. Jones I have made exhaustive inquiries about this alleged famine situation. I have inquired in Soviet commissariats and in foreign embassies with their network of consuls, and I have tabulated information from Britons working as specialists and from my personal connections, Russian and foreign....All of this seems to me to be more trustworthy information than I could get by a brief trip through any one area."

Gareth's great nephew, Phillip Colley, concluded: "it is our hope that one day Gareth may be remembered as a 'hero' of Ukraine, for his courage to publicly take on the might of Stalin's regime; which may well have eventually cost him his life."

In the eyes of many Ukrainians Gareth Jones has already earned himself the status of nothing less than a Cult Hero. A Welshman in Ukraine is one matter: a Welshman taking the fight for Ukrainian social justice to Stalin and the rest of his world's gullible is already far greater than many Ukrainians were prepared do for their own nation at that time. Gareth Jones was a clean and honourable journalist, but he soon became surrounded by a developing world of modern, professional and most definately dishonourable spies.

Essential Reading: Newspaper Articles relating to Gareth Jones' trips to The Soviet Union (1930-33) ( http://colley.co.uk/garethjones/soviet_articles/soviet_articles.htm )

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