"But several reliable, well-informed sources". Using bullshit unnamed and non-existent sources to push crap and lies even back then. The Left knew. They awarded a flipping Pulitzer Prize in journalism to a writer having repeatedly denied that the Holdomor was happening. And before Hitler invaded Poland, a based Ameripedes wrote a book called "You Can't Do Business With Hitler"; he worked in Germany for years and witnessed the government cannibalizing citizen businesses, and hinted at the fanaticism to come. I wanted to be a journalist as a teen, until I met a then world-famous one, and I was appalled to learn the press had no love for truth, and decided right then to not pursue that goal.