An Editorial in THE TIMES recently was headed “VALIANT FOR TRUTH”.
I didn’t read the Editorial, anymore than I read John Bunyan’s “PILGRIM’S PROGRESS” which features a Mr. Valiant who describes his own pilgrimage from darkness to the light of Christian truth.
I understand that the title was bestowed by some enlightened folks on Conor Cruise O’Brien, who, after half a century battling against the imperialist warmongers of the Free World, forsook childhood friends and sincerely held beliefs, to win the plaudits of the CIA and the unprecedented title of Editor- in Chief of THE OBSERVER, a London organ which was happy to give cover to Kim Philby when it believed him to be a loyal agent of Her Majesty the Queen. It would be a strange coincidence if the paper had repeated their mistake when they commissioned the Cruiser.
The earth hadn’t settled on those murdered on Bloody Sunday in Derry when O’Brien and his wife described them in their book “A CONCISE HISTORY OF IRELAND” as rioters. It was many decades later that Prime Minister David Cameron was obliged to admit that they were not
rioters or involved in violence. But the chief Officers responsible for that pre- planned massacre retained the “Gongs” awarded them by their Monarch at the time. A time when that gracious lady was mightily well pleased.
THE TIMES rejoiced in the prospect a Final Solution of the Irish Question ascribing to Divine Providence the Great Starvation, when food in abundance was exported under British military escort. The potato had failed in Ireland and much of Europe, But Ireland was not a one-crop country any more than any European country is. THE HEART OF THE TIMES WAS WARMED BY GENOCIDE.
THE TIMES printed and defended a forgery to indict Parnell for incitement to murder. The forger could not face the shame of his unmasking and shot himself. But THE TIMES remained and remains to this day shameless. Poor Judas Iscariot showed more remorse.
In February 1982 THE TIMES was found guilty by the PRESS COUNCIL of refusing to correct an untruthful front page story the previous May, attributing all violent deaths arising from British misrule in Ireland during the previous 12 years to the IRA.
The evening the adjudication was published, the Editor, Harold Evans, was awarded the accolade EDITOR OF THE YEAR, by the Editors of the leading British papers. The Editor, and another who published the identical untruth in hIs paper were awarded Knighthoods together..
When THE TIMES and the BRITISH MEDIA trumpet their virtue I am reminded of the lines by Ralph Waldo Emerson –
THE LOUDER HE TALKED OF HIS HONOUR,
THE FASTER WE COUNTED OUR SPOONS
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