In 1932-33, somewhere between 7 and 14 million Ukrainians died in a famine engineered by Josef Stalin. To mark the 50th anniversary, a Canadian film company had produced a documentary, Harvest of Despair. It won prize after prize at international festivals, but not a single American television network had seen fit to broadcast it. And so Firing Line undertook a special, with the first 15 minutes devoted to recapping the historical events, the next 55 minutes to viewing the film, and the final 50 minutes to commenting on it. A harrowing but riveting two hours. Mr. Conquest: "There are famines everywhere. But you look at this as the only famine where you don't see relief workers. No food, soup kitchens, nothing. Even in Ethiopia you see relief work." Mr. Kitchens: "I think that probably by 1933 one still hadn't entered the period of the 20th century when people were more inclined to believe the worst-I mean, would naturally believe that an atrocity was most likely to be true. I have a feeling that it was still relatively innocent."
- Hoover ID: Program FLS001
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- Hoover ID: 80040.947
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