Increasingly disillusioned by his close observation of communism in practice, Muggeridge decided to investigate reports of the famine in Ukraine by travelling there and to the Caucasus without first obtaining the permission of the Soviet authorities. The revealing reports that he sent back to "The Manchester Guardian" in the diplomatic bag, thus evading censorship, were not fully printed, and those that were published (on 25, 27 and 28 March 1933) were not published under Muggeridge's name. Meanwhile, fellow journalist Gareth Jones, who had met Muggeridge in Moscow, published his own stories. The two accounts helped to confirm the extent of a forced famine, which was politically motivated. Writing in "The New York Times" Walter Duranty denied the existence of any famine, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Jones wrote letters to the "Manchester Guardian" in support of Muggeridge's articles about the famine.