Book Review: The Man Who Knew Too Much
ARTICLES of GENERAL INTEREST
BOOK REVIEW: THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
This lavishly illustrated book published by the Welsh Academic Press was authored by Martin Shipman the Political Editor at Large of the Western Mail. It tells the life story of Gareth Jones who was born in Barry in 1905. His parents were the head teachers of the Boys and Girls Grammar Schools in the town and with seemingly such a genetic advantage he was to achieve high academic success.
Drawing upon Jones’ articles, notebooks and private correspondence, Shipton reveals the remarkable yet tragically short life of this fascinating and determined Welshman who pioneered the role of investigative journalism
Jones, a graduate of Aberystwyth and Cambridge universities, was fluent in Welsh, English, Russian, French and German. He was talented, well-connected and determined to discover the truth behind the momentous political events following the First World War. He travelled widely to report on Mussolini’s Italy, the fledgling Irish Free State, the Depression-ravaged United States, and was the first foreign journalist to travel with Hitler after the Nazis had taken power in Germany.
Jones’ quest for truth also drew him to the Soviet Union where his reporting of famine in Ukraine which led to the deaths of millions – the “Holodomor” – incurred the wrath of Stalin who banned Jones from ever returning. Within two years, on the eve of his 30th birthday, Jones was shot dead by Chinese bandits with links to the NKVD, the Soviet Union’s secret police. His ashes were interred in the family grave in Barry Cemetery.
His early career included work as a foreign affairs adviser to former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, a role that gave him access to political elites and sharpened his understanding of international power dynamics. However, Jones’ true vocation was journalism, and it was this calling that led him to challenge one of the greatest deceptions of the interwar period: the Soviet Union’s denial of famine in Ukraine.
In 1933, Jones travelled independently through the Soviet Union, defying official restrictions by leaving his guided route and venturing into the Ukrainian countryside. What he witnessed there contradicted the glowing reports published in much of the Western press. Millions were starving as a result of forced collectivisation and grain requisitions under Stalin’s regime. Villages were silent, food was non-existent, and death was everywhere. Jones recorded these observations meticulously and, upon leaving the USSR, published articles describing the famine in stark, unembellished terms.
The response was swift and brutal. Soviet authorities denounced Jones, banning him from re-entering the country. More damaging, however, was the reaction of fellow journalists. Influential correspondents such as Walter Duranty of The New York Times dismissed Jones’s reports, downplaying the famine and lending credibility to Soviet denials. In an era when access journalism and political sympathies often outweighed factual reporting, Jones found himself isolated, his reputation undermined for telling the truth too clearly and too early.
Jones continued to report on international affairs, including the rise of Nazi Germany, warning of Hitler’s expansionist ambitions. Yet his career never fully recovered from his confrontation with the Soviet narrative. His legacy is one of moral clarity and journalistic integrity. For decades, his warnings about the Ukrainian famine were overshadowed by denial and political convenience. Only later did history vindicate him, confirming the scale of the Holodomor and the accuracy of his reporting. Mr Jones – The Man Who Knew Too Much is therefore not only a description of one man’s fate but a broader indictment of systems that punish truth-tellers. Jones’s life reminds us that knowing the truth is rarely enough; courage is required to speak it, and even more to endure the consequences. To this day he is a National Hero in Ukraine.
Tony Hodge