Talk:John H. Noble

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The entry of John H. Nobel is as important or more important than the only other US born citizen which has written a well read book about the Soviet Gulag as a former inmate. Since the father and son apparently ushered in the SLR camera and were the inventors of a well known brand, Practica, it more than matches in importance the source Alexander Dolgun has as a former low-level Moscow US embassy employee. Note the wikipedia entry on Alexander Dolgun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Dolgun.

John H. Nobel, not to be confused with John Nobel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Noble of Australia, is for some reason called Sir John Nobel in German language pages regarding his return to Germany. This needs to be researched.

I originally put this page up several years ago, and from one of the earlier sources, from a Washington D.C. Non Government Organization, it stated that the 'Sir' was a French honorific title. I personally did not know that the French government gave such titles, but it gives some direction to research. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.230.136.186 (talk) 03:40, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Further, Alexander Dolgun was allowed to leave the USSR 19 years later than John Nobel, and did not give timely information of the Gulag's true nature, as an American citizen. Dolgun was also, technically, a dual citizen, though under dictat, unlike the undisputed US citizenship of John Nobel, by the USSR authorities themselves.

The story is comparible Nien Cheng http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nien_Cheng as an account of the methodology and to Victor Belenko http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belenko in regard to delivering timely information of Soviet Russia, though of vastly different type. The US servicemen leaving USSR at the same time were all border personnel who left their posts to visit, etc. and were not significant/discredited.

Readers' Digest has his work as a featured book section in the 1950's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Dolgun

Perhaps the page needs to be spruced up, but otherwise it should stand basically as is.

Sir John

As noted above, he seems to be called "Sir" at certain websites. As an American, his knighthood is at best honorary. Is there any substance to this? Varlaam (talk) 02:26, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]