Hitler, Stalin and Mr. Jones

In this film George Carey is searching for a site of murder which took place in Inner Mongolia, Northern China, nearly 80 years ago. The only video of the man who died is just a few seconds taken at a meeting with Adolf Hitler. The murdered man was a brilliant Welsh journalist called Gareth Jones. He was trying to find out what the Japanese army was plotting in China.

His greatest scoop had been to expose the story few dare to put their name to. It made him enemies among those who wanted to hide the truth. So was he a victim of a Soviet vendetta or the chance casualty of a life lived dangerously? He was last seen somewhere in the intimidating landscape of Northern China, prisoner of bandits whose language he couldn't speak. For most of his adult life his gift for languages had opened every door, but among these Chinese bandits singing in Welsh was his last resort.

Gareth Jones had trespassed into a snake pit of international intrigue. What came back from China was his ashes, fading photographs of him in strange company and an echo of his final days through a letter he never posted. His last week had been the most exciting he ever had in his life, packed with adventures and strange encounters. And before long he was forgotten.

Now a story of an extraordinary life has emerged. At its center is not Wales where he lived, nor China where he died, but Russia. By the time he made his first trip to Russia there had been revolution against the Czar and a bloody civil war. Gareth by then was 25; he just left Cambridge and spoke Russian well. At one level he was making a sentimental journey into his mother's past, but it was also a journey into a present that Gareth found fascinating.