No, I don't marvel at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Matthews

I think any major English language periodical would publish his editorial, which generates more high-brow interest in the English speaking world than in his own country. He has absolutely no influence in Russia today, or for quite some time.

I once had a Ukrainian immigrant barber, who maintained Gorbachev's Russian was very pedestrian, but he had a great English interpretor who could translate on the spot into prosaic English. He (the barber) was very opinionated, and I have never seen anyone make this claim in print.