American journalist (1930?2005)
John Daniel Barron
(January 26, 1930 ? February 24, 2005) was an American journalist and investigative writer. He wrote several books about
Soviet
espionage via the
KGB
and other agencies.
Early life
[
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]
John Barron was born January 26, 1930, in
Wichita Falls
,
Texas
, the son of a
Methodist
minister.
He graduated from the
University of Missouri
and studied
Russian
at the
United States
Naval Postgraduate School
in
Monterey, California
. He served in
Berlin
as a
naval intelligence
officer.
Journalistic career
[
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]
In 1957, he joined the
Washington Star
as an investigative reporter. In 1964, he and fellow
Star
reporter Paul B. Hope were given the
Raymond Clapper Memorial Award
"for their work on the
Baker
case, which was presented to them during an awards dinner in Washington, by guest speaker
Alfred Hitchcock
."
[1]
In 1965, Barron joined the Washington bureau of
Reader's Digest
. There he wrote more than 100 stories on a wide variety of subjects—notably a 1980 story concerning unanswered questions surrounding the drowning death of
Mary Jo Kopechne
at
Chappaquiddick
in a car driven by
Ted Kennedy
.
After Barron published his 1974 book
KGB: The Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents
, the
KGB
attempted to discredit him by faking claims that Barron was part of a
Zionist
conspiracy as well as "...made much of his Jewish origins...".
[2]
In 1996, Barron published a book detailing the saga of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation
's Operation SOLO, involving the infiltration of the top leadership of the
Communist Party, USA
by the FBI's secret informant
Morris Childs
. From 1958 through 1977, Childs traveled to Moscow over 50 times, acting as a courier between the CPUSA and
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
.
[3]
Childs was instrumental in helping with the transfer of over $28 million from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the Communist Party of the US to help fund its activities, with each transaction painstakingly reported by Childs to his FBI handlers.
[4]
This story had been told, in fictional form, in
Baynard Kendrick
's 1959 novel
Hot Red Money
.
[5]
Barron's and co-author Anthony Paul's 1977 book
Murder of a Gentle Land: The Untold Story of Communist Genocide in Cambodia
was important in overturning the
Cambodian genocide denial
and the myth that the
Khmer Rouge
rulers of
Cambodia
were benign agrarian reformers.
[6]
Death and legacy
[
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]
John Barron died in
Virginia
on February 24, 2005. He was 75 years old at the time of his death.
Barron's papers are held by the
Hoover Institution
Archives at
Stanford University
in
Palo Alto, California
.
[7]
Works
[
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]
- KGB: The Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents
. New York: Reader's Digest Press, 1974. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1974. [pb] New York: Bantam Books, 1974.
- Murder of a gentle land: the untold story of a Communist genocide in Cambodia
, Authors John Barron, Anthony Paul, Reader's Digest Press, 1977.
- MiG Pilot: The Final Escape of Lieutenant Belenko
, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980.
- "The KGB's Magical War for 'Peace'" in
Ernest W. Lefever
and E. Stephen Hunt (eds.),
The Apocalyptic Premise: Nuclear Arms Debated: Thirty-one Essays by Statesmen, Scholars, Religious Leaders, and Journalists.
Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1982.
- KGB Today: The Hidden Hand
. New York:
Berkley Books
, 1983.
- Breaking the Ring: The Bizarre Case of the Walker Family Spy Ring
,
John Anthony Walker
. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.
- Operation SOLO: The FBI's Man in the Kremlin
, Washington, DC: Regnery, 1996.
See also
[
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]
- ^
Wilson, Gary (Jul 8, 2009).
"Portrait of a 'Star' reporter"
.
Perry County Tribune
.
- ^
Andrew, Christopher; Mitrokhin, Vasili (1999).
The Sword and the Shield
. Basic Books. pp. Chapter 1, p 19.
ISBN
0-465-00310-9
.
- ^
Richard Gid Powers,
"Double Agent,"
New York Times
, April 21, 1996.
- ^
John Earl Haynes
and
Harvey Klehr
,
In Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage.
San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2003; pg. 69.
- ^
Baynard Kendrick (1959),
Hot Red Money
, New York: Dodd, Mead.
- ^
Thompson, Larry Clinton
Refugee Workers in the Indochina Exodus, 1975-1982
, Jefferson, NC: McFarland Publishing Co., 2010, p. 131
- ^
Lora Soroka and Xiuzhi Zhou,
"Register of the John Barron Papers, 1927?1996,"
Palo Alto, CA: Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, 1999.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Christopher Andrew
and
Vasili Mitrokhin
(1999),
The Sword and the Shield:
The Mitrokhin Archive
and the Secret History of the KGB
, New York: Basic Books.
- Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin (2005),
The Mitrokhin Archive II: The KGB and the World
, New York: Allan Lane.
- Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin (2005),
The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World
, New York: Basic Books.
- Anthony Cave Brown
and
Charles B. MacDonald
(1981),
On a Field of Red: The Communist International and the Coming of World War II
.
- Baynard Kendrick
(1959),
Hot Red Money
, New York: Dodd, Mead.
External links
[
edit
]
- Lora Soroka and Xiuzhi Zhou,
"Register of the John Barron Papers, 1927?1996,"
Palo Alto, CA: Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, 1999.
- Matt Schudel,
"John Barron Dies; Espionage Reporter"
,
The Washington Post,
March 9, 2005; Page B06.
- John Miller,
"He shot down Commies"
,
National Review
online.
- William Schultz,
"Remembering long time Communist conspiracy fighter John Barron"
,
Human Events
.
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