Mark Gayn

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Gayn in 1978

Mark Gayn, born Mark Julius Ginsbourg (21 April 1909 – 17 December 1981) was an American and Canadian journalist, who worked for The Toronto Star for 30 years.[1][2][3]

Background[edit]

Mark Julius Ginsbourg was born in 1909 in Barim, Manchuria, in the Qing Empire (today Balin [巴林鎮], Yakeshi in Inner Mongolia, China) to Russian-Jewish parents who had migrated from the Russian Empire.[1] He went to school in Vladivostok in the Soviet Union and then in Shanghai, China.[1] He was accepted to Pomona College in Claremont, California, in the United States where he majored in political science.[1] Following his graduation from Pomona, he entered the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, graduating in 1934.[1]

Career[edit]

Ginsbourg got into his career in the 1930s as a stringer for The Washington Post in the Shanghai. He returned to the U.S. shortly after World War II broke out in Europe, changing his name to Gayn to prevent Japanese reprisals against his brother Sam, who remained in Japanese-occupied Shanghai.[1] Gayn also went on to write for Collier's and was arrested in the FBI raid on the offices of the Institute for Pacific Relations' Amerasia office in June 1945, on charges of illegally procuring and publishing secret government information. At the time of his arrest, he was reporting not only for Colliers but also the Chicago Sun as well as TIME Magazine.[4]

However, the charges were dropped shortly thereafter—The New York Times described him as "quickly vindicated in the courts."[3] The State Department refused to admit his Hungarian-born wife Suzanne Lengvary to the United States, on the grounds of her alleged Communist sympathies, so he moved to Canada and continued his work as a foreign affairs correspondent.[citation needed]

At the end of November 1945, Gayn was sent to Tokyo by the Chicago Sun as its bureau chief for Japan and Korea, a position he held until early 1947, when the paper dissolved its foreign news syndicate. During his assignment in Japan, Gayn wrote critical reports on the policies of the United States military government under General Douglas MacArthur, covered the first democratic elections held since the surrender, and examined the implementation of land reform in the countryside. He also reported on events in Korea, making a trip to that country in October 1946.

In the early months of 1947, Gayn was sent by the tabloid PM Daily to China, where he was able to interview several leaders of the Communist Party in their mountain stronghold at Yenan. Upon his return to New York in mid-1947, Gayn wrote a book based on his experiences in Japan and Korea entitled Japan Diary. [5]

In 1948, Gayn travelled to Europe, accredited by several publications including The Star Weekly (Toronto) and the New York Star. With Paris as his base, Gayn spent the next four years travelling throughout Europe, including eighteen months behind the Iron Curtain. Among the stories he covered were the anti-Communist campaigns in the Grammos Mountains of Greece and the show trials in Bulgaria and Hungary. His articles appeared in the London Daily Telegraph, the New Republic and, under the byline Thomas Ballard, in Le Monde. While in Hungary, Gayn met Suzanne Lengvary, an actress whom he married in 1950, his wife Sally having died two years previously. In order to protect Suzanne's relatives in Budapest from possible reprisals, Gayn used the name of Ballard when writing on Communist matters.

Gayn returned to the United States at the end of 1952 and the following year he and his wife emigrated to Canada. During the 1950s, Gayn wrote articles and book reviews for a number of publications including The Star Weekly, The Nation and the Japanese newspaper, Yomiuri. In 1959, he joined the staff of the Toronto Daily Star as its eastern affairs expert and editorial writer. During his twenty-two years as a Star reporter, Gayn made frequent trips to the U.S.S.R. and several visits to China. His return to China in the spring of 1965, his first visit since 1947, resulted in a series of articles which appeared in many leading newspapers including The New York Times. In addition, he received a large number of offers from American publishers to write a book on China, which unfortunately he never completed.

Between 1966 and 1972, Gayn was stationed in Hong Kong as the chief of the Star's Asia bureau. He covered events in China and other parts of Asia, particularly the Cultural Revolution, the war in Vietnam, and the creation of Bangladesh. During this period Gayn's columns were syndicated in the United States by the Chicago Daily News. Before his return to Canada in 1972, Gayn was one of four correspondents allowed to visit North Korea.[6]

He filed reports on North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung's repression and, as one of the first Western journalists admitted into China in the mid-1960s, he managed to criticize the country's Maoist regimentation.[citation needed]

Within the U.S., Gayn's work appeared within The New York Times as well as in Newsweek and in Time magazine.[citation needed]

Death[edit]

At the time of his death from cancer on December 17, 1981, Gayn was still the senior foreign affairs correspondent for the Toronto Star in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.[citation needed]

Legacy[edit]

The Mark Gayn Papers—covering his 50 years as a journalist—were given to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto before his death in 1981.[nb 1]

Works[edit]

During his life, Mark Gayn wrote four books:

  • The Fight for the Pacific. W. Morrow and Company. 1942.[10]
  • Journey From the East: An Autobiography. Alfred A. Knopf. 1944.[11]
  • Japan Diary. Tuttle Publishing. 1948.[12]
  • New Japan Diary. Tuttle Publishing. December 1981. ISBN 9780804813693.

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ There is a typescript guide to the contents: Collection Guide to the Mark Gayn Papers (MS Col. 215), prepared by Graham S. Bradshaw.[1] An exhibition and catalogue with material from this collection were created in 2016, Reading Revolution: Art and Literacy during China's Cultural Revolution, by Jennifer Purtle and Elizabeth Rodolfo, with contribution by Stephen Qiao[7][8][9]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Bradshaw, Graham S. (1988). "Guide to the Mark Gayn Papers" (PDF). Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto. Retrieved 13 October 2023.
  2. ^ "Mark Gayn Dead at 72". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 28 December 1981.
  3. ^ a b "Mark J. Gayn, 72, Journalist; Specialist on Foreign Affairs". The New York Times. 24 December 1981.
  4. ^ Klehr, Harvey; Radosh, Ronald (1996). The Amerasia Spy Case. University of North Carolina Press. pp. 50–1 (bio). ISBN 9780807822456.
  5. ^ "Guide to the Mark Gayn Papers" Graham S. Bradshaw.Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, 1988, p. ix
  6. ^ "Guide to the Mark Gayn Papers" Graham S. Bradshaw.Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, 1988, p. ix
  7. ^ "Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library Reading Revolution: Art and Literacy during China's Cultural Revolution". Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library. 20 June 2016. Retrieved 27 June 2023.
  8. ^ McEvilla, Joshua. "Reading Revolution: Art and Literacy during China's Cultural Revolution. By Jennifer Purtle, Elizabeth Ridolfo, and Stephen Qiao. Toronto: University of Toronto and Coach House Press, 2016. 114 p. SHARP News".
  9. ^ "Reading Revolution: Art and Literacy during China's Cultural Revolution". YouTube.
  10. ^ Howard, Clinton N. (1 March 1942). "Review of The Fight for the Pacific and The Armed Forces of the Pacific: A Comparison of the Military and Naval Power of the United States and Japan". Pacific Historical Review. 11 (1): 114–116. doi:10.2307/3633026.
  11. ^ Krasnow, Beatrice (1 November 1944). "Review of Journey from the East". Far Eastern Survey. 13 (22): 210–210. doi:10.2307/3023111.
  12. ^ Braibanti, Ralph J. D. (February 1949). "Review of Japan Diary". American Political Science Review. 43 (1): 164–166. doi:10.2307/1950340.

External links[edit]

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