Report on the Russians: The Controversy Surrounding William Lindsay White's 1945 Account of Russia

Abstract

In 1944, William Lindsay White accompanied the president of the US Chamber of Commerce to the Soviet Union. White's account of the trip, Report on the Russians, detailed the Katyn Forest Massacres, a raid on an American air base at Poltava, slave labor, and the Russian retreat from Moscow. The book stayed on the bestseller lists from March to September. However, it attracted bitter criticism from such diverse groups as the State Department, the National Council of Soviet–American Friendship, and well-known foreign correspondents. This article examines the interrelated issues of media objectivity, the role of the reporter during wartime, and the desire of reporters to be considered credible by their own government and by intellectuals considered fashionable at a given time.