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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
For half a century, Australian journalists and academics have fought bitterly over the legacy of journalist Wilfred Burchett. Burchett broke the US embargo to report on radiation from Hiroshima in August 1945, calling it “the atomic plague, then controversially covered the Korean and Vietnam Wars from “the other side”. “Could anything justify the extermination of civilians on such a scale?” he pondered of Hiroshima.
[1] Robert Manne, ‘Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett’, Monthly, June 2008. Among the many who have offered their invaluable advice on this project, the author would like to especially thank John Pilger and Bernard Porter for taking time out of their busy schedules to comment on a draft of this article. All errors are my own.
[2] Tom Heenan, Ben Kiernan, Greg Lockhart, Stuart Macintyre, Gavan McCormack, ‘Manne of Influence’, On Line Opinion, 4 July 2008.
[3] ‘New brawl over Burchett's reputation’, Age (online), 7 July 2008.
[4] For more information on Burchett's life see Tom Heenan, From Traveller to Traitor (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2006). For more detail on other issues, particularly the Government persecution of Burchett and the 1974 court case, see Jamie Miller, “Without Raising Problems of Proof or Refutation”: Wilfred Burchett and Australian Anti-communism, unpublished thesis, University of Sydney, 2007.
[5] It should be noted that the term ‘communist’ is used here for ease of reference. Burchett's politics were far more complex and dynamic than others perceived, as should be evident from this article.
[6] ‘The Atomic Plague’, Daily Express, 6 September 1945
[7] NAA A6119, 15/Reference Copy, Burchett, Wilfred Graham, 1948-55, unnamed person on behalf of Spry to E. J Hook, Secretary of the Attorney-General's Department, 15 September 1964
[8] The issue of whether or not Allied troops engaged in biological warfare was a critical propaganda battleground during the Korean War. This has traditionally been referred to as ‘germ’ warfare, though this article uses the more current ‘biological’ to more accurately convey the nature of the warfare and therefore the gravity of the charge against Burchett.
[9] David Bradbury, Public Enemy Number One (1981).
[10] Burchett's passport was immediately restored by the new Whitlam Government in December 1972: Graham Freudenberg, A Certain Grandeur: Gough Whitlam in Politics (Melbourne and Sydney: Macmillan Australia, 1977), p. 246. His children were registered as citizens in 1970: NAA A6980/6, S201945, Wilfred Burchett Part 6, 1970-3, Peter Heydon, Secretary of the Department of Immigration, to Alan Renouf, Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, 17 March 1970.
[11] Australian, 21 May 1968.
[12] NAA A6119, 14/Reference Copy, Spry to Jack Spicer, Attorney-General, 8 January 1954.
[13] See for instance NAA A6119/XR1, 13, Burchett, Wilfred Graham, cable from Alan Watt, Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, to Ronald Walker, Australian Ambassador to Japan, 10 September 1953.
[14] For the best examples of this, see Wilfred Burchett, People's Democracies (Melbourne: World Unity Publications, 1951) on Eastern Europe; Wilfred Burchett, China's Feet Unbound (Melbourne: World Unity Publications, 1952) on China; Wilfred Burchett, This Monstrous War (Melbourne: Joseph Waters, 1953) and Wilfred Burchett and Alan Winnington, Plain Perfidy (London: Britain-China Friendship Association, 1954) on the Korean War; and Wilfred Burchett, Come East Young Man! (Berlin: Seven Seas, 1962) on the Soviet Union.
[15] A great deal of the witnesses were assembled before the Whitlam Government came to power in late 1972. The actionable article was ‘The Burchett Revelations’, Focus, November 1971.
[16] Jamie Miller, “Without Raising Problems of Proof or Refutation”: Wilfred Burchett and Australian Anti-communism, unpublished thesis, University of Sydney, 2007
[17] Burchett v Kane [1976], New South Wales Law Reports, Volume 2, 1980, per Justice Samuels, p. 273.
[18] Hayden White, ‘Historical Pluralism’, Critical Inquiry 12 (1986), p. 487.
[19] Heenan, From Traveller to Traitor, p. 146.
[20] NLA MS 9489, Papers of Denis Warner, 1949-1997.
[21] Denis Warner, ‘Who is Wilfred Burchett?', Quadrant, July-August 1967; also published in The Reporter, 1 June 1967. Warner also published much shorter articles on Burchett in the Melbourne Herald on 5 October 1951, 21 June 1952, 19 April 1955, and 4 February 1969. He also wrote the ‘The Spy Who Came in for the Gold' series in Seiron, a Japanese publication, in March 1975 and in the National Review, 11 April 1975; and wrote the pamphlet The Germ-Warfare Hoax in 1977.
[22] Warner, ‘Who is Wilfred Burchett?‘, pp. 71-2.
[23] Warner, Not Always on Horseback: An Australian Correspondent at War and Peace in Asia 1961-1993 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1997), p. 132; NAA A432, 1952/1677, Wilfred Burchett – Question re Prosecution, 1951-70, 2 November 1953, agents Tuck and Hunter to Spry, referring to interview with Warner.
[24] NAA A6717/5, A70 PART 1, Wilfred G. Burchett – Australian Passport and Citizenship, 1952-68, report of interdepartmental meeting circulated to all Departments, 16 July 1968.
[25] Burchett wrote that Warner was ‘notorious for his close association with the CIA and its Australian equivalent, ASIO’: Wilfred Burchett, Passport: An Autobiography (Melbourne: Thomas Nelson (Australia) Ltd., 1969), p. 291. See also Wilfred Burchett, Memoirs of a Rebel Journalist: the Autobiography of Wilfred Burchett, George Burchett and Nick Shimmin, eds., (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2005), p. 742; and NAA A1209, 1969/7897, Ronald East, a member of the Burchett Passport Committee and Burchett's cousin, to Arthur Lee, National President of the Returned Servicemen's League, 5 March 1969.
[26] Ross Fitzgerald recently claimed that Warner was an ASIO agent: Australian, 3 December 2005. Warner denied this: Australian, 10 December 2005. Warner's access to classified material was certainly remarkably extensive. A ‘List of Support’ for his defence in the defamation suit brought by Burchett features both Interpol and the CIA: NLA, MS 9489/11, Papers of Denis Warner, Box 69.
[27] NAA A6119, 13/Reference Copy, Principal Section Officer, B1, to the Director, NSW, ASIO, 2 November 1953.
[28] ‘Some Notes on the Activities of Wilfred Burchett’, February 20 1970, in NAA M58, 191, [Personal Papers of Prime Minister McEwen] [Wilfred] Burchett – Confidential, 1952-70.
[29] How he did so will be expanded upon in the analysis of Gavan McCormack's revelation of Warner's misuse of the affidavits.
[30] Warner, ‘Who is Wilfred Burchett?‘, p. 75.
[31] NAA A6119, 13/Reference Copy, ‘Note for discussion with the Solicitor-General’, Spry to Bailey, 12 October 1953.
[32] NAA A432, 1952/1677, report from agents Tuck and Hunter to Spry, 2 November 1953, referring to interview with Warner.
[33] See for instance, Warner, Not Always on Horseback, p. 134.
[34] The only other detailed articles on Burchett between the Korean War and his return to Australia in 1970, a full seventeen years, appear to be Alan Reid, ‘A Dual Standard for Wilfred Burchett’, Bulletin, 11 January 1968; and B. A. Santamaria, ‘Views on South-East Asia’, 14 August 1966, in B. A. Santamaria, Point of View, pp. 148-9; B. A. Santamaria, ‘Irresponsible Press Activity’, 28 March 1965, in B. A. Santamaria, Point of View, pp. 49-51; B. A. Santamaria, Sunday Telegraph, 1 March 1970. All were based on much the same inside material as Warner's articles.
[35] NAA A432, 1969/3072, Attachment 2, Wilfred Graham Burchett, 1953-70, Address to National Press Club, 2 March 1970.
[36] Hansard, House of Representatives, 5 March 1970, pp. 181-2.
[37] Melbourne Herald, 28 October 1974.
[38] ‘Burchett loses libel action’, Melbourne Herald, 2 November 1974, emphasis added. The man in question was To Minh Trung.
[39] Warner, Not Always on Horseback, pp. 138-9; see the extensive transcripts of Warner's interviews with witnesses Tom Hollis, Walker Mahurin, Paul Kniss and Derek Kinne in NLA, MS 9489/11, Papers of Denis Warner, Box 69. A previous writ had been issued against Warner in response to ‘Who is Wilfred Burchett?‘, so he had a financial, as well as personal and ideological, interest in assisting Kane.
[40] Sydney Morning Herald, 23 October 1974.
[41] Age, 15 October 1974.
[42] Melbourne Herald, 23 October 1974.
[43] Kane, ‘Burchett on Trial?‘, Quadrant, October 1981, p. 40.
[44] Warner, ‘Who is Wilfred Burchett?‘, p. 75.
[45] Gavan McCormack, ‘An Australian Dreyfus? Re-examination of the Case Against Journalist Wilfred Burchett’, Australian Society, August 1984.
[46] Gavan McCormack, ‘Burchett in Korea’, Australian Society, September 1985; Gavan McCormack, ‘Korea: Wilfred Burchett's Thirty Years War’, in Ben Kiernan, ed., Burchett Reporting the Other Side of the World: 1939-1983 (London, Melbourne, New York: Quartet Books, 1986); Gavan McCormack, ‘The New Right and Human Rights: Cultural Freedom and the Burchett Affair’, Meanjin, September 1986. It should be emphasised that the examples cited here are only the most salient examples of the many challenges McCormack's work posed to the dominant narrative of Burchett's life.
[47] Both Warner and Santamaria said the interviews revealed that Burchett had ‘interrogated’ the Australian POWs: Warner, ‘Who is Wilfred Burchett?', p. 73; Santamaria, Sunday Telegraph, 1 March 1970. They did no such thing. See NAA A6119, 14/Reference Copy, joint statement by Donald Buck, Ronald Parker and Thomas Hollis, 17 December 1953; and NAA A6119, 14/Reference Copy, statements by John MacKay, 3 December 1953; John Davis, 2 December 1953; Brian Thomas Davoren, 24 March 1954; and Glen Brown, 4 December 1953. See McCormack, ‘Korea: Wilfred Burchett's Thirty Years War', p. 196, and McCormack, ‘An Australian Dreyfus?', p. 8. It should be noted that Warner later stated in his autobiography that ‘the Australians… had not been subjected to protracted interrogation, nor had they been persuaded to make confessions of any sort', which was a complete disavowal of his earlier claim but was not accompanied by any admission of mistake: Warner, Not Always on Horseback, p. 137.
[48] Warner, ‘Who is Wilfred Burchett?‘, p. 73.
[49] ‘Treatment of British Prisoners of War in Korea’, British Ministry of Defence, 1955. Burchett is mentioned in passing on p. 26.
[50] McCormack, ‘An Australian Dreyfus?‘, p. 10.
[51] ‘Burchett was employed by the Peking Government in helping to brainwash British and Australian soldiers’: Santamaria, ‘Views on South-East Asia’, 14 August 1966, in Santamaria, Point of View, p.149. Santamaria correctly identified the date of the Report as 1955.
[52] It is unclear which of the two had actually seen the report, if either. A copy can be found in Warner's collection at the National Library, however he may have acquired it after he wrote ‘Who is Wilfred Burchett?‘: NLA MS 9489/12, Papers of Denis Warner, Box 70.
[53] Warner, Not Always on Horseback, p. 137.
[54] ‘Treatment of British Prisoners of War in Korea’, p. 27; McCormack, ‘Korea: Wilfred Burchett's Thirty Years War’, pp. 192-3
[55] Warner, Not Always on Horseback, pp. 137-8, 190-1.
[56] McCormack, ‘Korea: Wilfred Burchett's Thirty Years War’.
[57] Walker M. Mahurin, Honest John: The Autobiography of Walker M. Mahurin (New York: G. L. Putnam's Sons, 1962).
[58] Burchett v Kane [1974] transcript, p. 93.
[59] Burchett v Kane [1974] transcript, p. 97.
[60] Mahurin, Honest John, p. 244, quoted in McCormack, ‘Korea: Wilfred Burchett's Thirty Years War’, p. 191.
[61] Chicago Daily News, 9 September 1953, quoted in McCormack, ‘Korea: Wilfred Burchett's Thirty Years War’, p.191, emphasis added.
[62] Melbourne Herald, 25 October 1974 and Sydney Morning Herald, 25 October 1974.
[63] NLA, MS 9489/11, Papers of Denis Warner, Box 69, Denis Warner interview with Mahurin and Paul Kniss. This confirms McCormack's earlier suspicions: McCormack, ‘Korea: Wilfred Burchett's Thirty Years War’, p. 191.
[64] NAA A6717/5, A70 PART 6, Wilfred G. Burchett – Australian passport and citizenship, 1970, G. L. V. Hooton, Prime Minister's Department to Lenox Hewitt, Secretary of the Prime Minister's Department, 24 February 1970; see also Mahurin's September 1953 statement: NAA A1838/370, 852/20/4/114, Korean War Germ Warfare Allegations.
[65] Warner, Not Always on Horseback, p. 142. For the Government's role, see NAA A1838, 1542/616 PART 5, James Cumes, Assistant Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, to McMahon, 25 June 1970 and NAA A1838, 1542/616 PART 5, report of interdepartmental meeting, 24 June 1970.
[66] Manne's essay won the George Watson Essay Prize for Quadrant's best essay of 1985, which McCormack described as ‘a revealing comment on contemporary Australian political culture’: McCormack, ‘The New Right and Human Rights: Cultural Freedom and the Burchett Affair’, p. 394. The essay was republished as Agent of Influence: The Life and Times of Wilfred Burchett (Toronto, Canada: Mackenzie Institute for the Study of Terrorism, Revolution and Propaganda, 1989); as ‘He Chose Stalin’ in The Shadow of 1917: Cold War Conflict in Australia (Melbourne: Text Publishing, 1994); and in Left, Right, Left: Political Essays, 1977-2005 (Melbourne: Black Inc., 2005).
[67] Age, 1 June 1994. See also the extensive acknowledgement of Spry's assistance and the voluminous references to Spry throughout Robert Manne, The Petrov Affair: Politics and Espionage (Sydney: Pergamon Press Australia, 1987), pp. xiii, 309.
[68] Robert Manne, ‘Pol Pot and the Persistence of Noam Chomsky’, Quadrant, October 1979; see McCormack's response in the Letters section of the January-February 1980 edition.
[69] Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 27.
[70] Also notable was Manne's insinuation that ‘Dr’ McCormack being an academic working in a university somehow detracted from his credibility on the given issue rather than adding to it. This tactic would be repeated by Santamaria when he implored Burchett's supporters to abandon their cause because ‘they will do little for their academic reputations or for that of the universities which employ them’: Santamaria, ‘The Burchett Case: Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy’, Quadrant, January-February 1986, p. 73.
[71] This would be repeated when Manne republished his essay as ‘He Chose Stalin’ in 1994.
[72] Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 28.
[73] Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 28.
[74] Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 40.
[75] Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 27.
[76] Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, pp. 37-8.
[77] In his memoirs, Kane would also claim that ‘Burchett's exile was largely self-imposed’: Jack Kane, Exploding the Myths: The Political Memoirs of Jack Kane (Sydney: Angus & Robertson Publishers, 1989), p. 216; Santamaria would likewise say that Burchett ‘carefully kept himself outside jurisdiction’: ‘The Burchett Case: Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy’, p. 73. See also Reid, ‘A Dual Standard for Wilfred Burchett’; Melbourne Herald, 29 November 1968; Age, 2 December 1968; Australian, 31 December 1968; Sydney Morning Herald, 11 August 1969.
[78] See for instance NAA 6119/13, which Manne refers to extensively throughout his article.
[79] NAA 6119/13, statement of Lachie McDonald to ASIO, 28 October 1953; Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 31.
[80] Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 31.
[81] Charlie Barnard of the Associated Press, ‘Antifreeze’, Stars and Stripes, 10 Feb 1952.
[82] NAA A6119, 14/Reference Copy, statement of James Greenfield to ASIO, 18 November 1953.
[83] NAA A6119, 14/Reference Copy, letter from Senior Security Officer, ASIO, to Spry, 14 December 1953.
[84] Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 32.
[85] Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 33.
[86] Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 34.
[87] Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 33.
[88] Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 32; see also p. 33: ‘The truth of falsity of this accusation [of brainwashing] is largely a question of semantics’.
[89] State Library of Victoria MS 10254, Papers, Wilfred Burchett to George Burchett, his father, 16 April 1951; Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 29. Santamaria also made much of this letter: ‘The Burchett Case: Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy’, p. 69.
[90] McCormack, ‘The New Right and Human Rights: “Cultural Freedom” and the Burchett Affair’, p. 396.
[91] Burchett, This Monstrous War, (Melbourne: Joseph Waters, 1953), pp. 300-1. However, as McCormack later pointed out, Mahurin's own account of the conditions of his POW camp suggests that Burchett's description was perhaps not quite as fanciful as it first appears: Mahurin, Honest John, p. 244, quoted in McCormack, ‘Korea: Wilfred Burchett's Thirty Years War’, p. 170. This is supported by NAA A6119, 14/Reference Copy, statement by Glen Brown, Australian POW, to ASIO, 4 December 1953.
[92] Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 31.
[93] Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 42. Emphasis added.
[94] Frank Knopfelmacher, ‘Wilfred Burchett's Treason: Drifting into the Morass of Equivalence’, Quadrant, September 1985; Edwin Morrisby, ‘Wilfred Burchett of the KGB?', Quadrant, October 1985; B. A. Santamaria, ‘The Burchett Case: Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy'; Edwin Morrisby, ‘My Reply to Madame Burchett’, Quadrant, July-August 1986. Former National Secretary of the Communist Party of Australia Laurie Aarons contributed a riposte to Manne's charges with ‘The Life and Times of Wilfred Burchett: A Reply to Robert Manne’, Quadrant, December 1985. No other view from the opposing camp of the Forgotten History War was published, and one suspects that Aarons' invitation was motivated by the Editors' belief that the intersection of his heretical political beliefs with a pro-Burchett line would actually help their cause rather than damage it. In the event, Aarons' article was far more comprehensive and knowledgeable than expected – Manne called it ‘longwinded’ - prompting the need for a response from Manne in the same issue.
[95] Knopfelmacher, ‘Wilfred Burchett's Treason: Drifting into the Morass of Equivalence’, p. 32. See also Santamaria referring to Manne and Morrisby in an unpublished letter to the Editor of the Age, 22 September 1986, in B. A. Santamaria, Your Most Obedient Servant: Selected Letters: 1938-1996, Patrick Morgan, ed.,(Carlton, Victoria: The Miegunyah Press, 2007), pp. 430-1.
[96] Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 30.
[97] Knopfelmacher, ‘Wilfred Burchett's Treason: Drifting into the Morass of Equivalence’, p. 33.
[98] Knopfelmacher, ‘Wilfred Burchett's Treason: Drifting into the Morass of Equivalence’, p. 33.
[99] Santamaria, ‘The Burchett Case: Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy’, p. 67.
[100] Morrisby, ‘Wilfred Burchett of the KGB?‘.
[101] Santamaria, ‘The Burchett Case: Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy’, pp. 68, 71.
[102] Morrisby, ‘Wilfred Burchett of the KGB?‘.
[103] Santamaria, ‘The Burchett Case: Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy’, p. 70.
[104] Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 38; Kane, ‘Burchett on Trial?', pp. 38-9; Morrisby, ‘Wilfred Burchett of the KGB?', p. 30.
[105] Santamaria, ‘The Burchett Case: Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy’, pp. 68-9; Warner, Not Always on Horseback, p. 198; Morrisby, ‘My Reply to Madame Burchett’, pp. 36-7. Santamaria had described Burchett as ‘an agent of some kind’ as far back as 1970: Santamaria to George Albertini, 28 February 1970, in Santamaria, Your Most Obedient Servant, pp. 279-80.
[106] SLV MS 10254, Papers, Wilfred Burchett to George Burchett, his father, 28 March 1963: ‘There is no doubt at all in my mind that [China] is right and not just 80-90 per cent right but 100 per cent right’. Burchett also supported China's policy on India, in contrast to the Soviet Union's, three years earlier in 1960: Burchett, Memoirs of a Rebel Journalist, pp. 502-510. See also Kiernan, ‘The Making of a Myth: Wilfred Burchett and the KGB’, in Kiernan, ed., Burchett Reporting the Other Side of the World: 1939-1983, p. 298.
[107] Wilfred Burchett, New York Guardian, 5 May 1976.
[108] Manne, ‘Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett’, p. 28.
[109] McCormack, ‘The New Right and Human Rights: Cultural Freedom and the Burchett Affair’, p. 401, emphasis added.
[110] Morrisby, ‘Wilfred Burchett of the KGB?‘, p. 32.
[111] Morrisby, ‘My Reply to Madame Burchett’, pp. 36-7.
[112] Santamaria, ‘The Burchett Case: Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy’, p. 69.
[113] Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 42.
[114] Ben Kiernan, ed., Burchett Reporting the Other Side of the World: 1939-1983 (London, Melbourne, New York: Quartet Books, 1986).
[115] For instance, there were articles on Burchett's time in Portugal and its colonies in southern Africa, and his work in New Caledonia, neither of which had been covered at all by the Right.
[116] Alex Carey, ‘The Bureaucratic Passport War’ in Kiernan, ed., Burchett Reporting the Other Side of the World: 1939-1983, p. 61.
[117] Kiernan, ‘Introduction’, p. xix, xxi; John Pilger, ‘Preface’ in Kiernan, ed., Burchett Reporting the Other Side of the World: 1939-1983, pp. x, xv.
[118] NAA A432, 1969/3072 Attachment 2, interview with Malcolm Salmon of the Sydney Tribune late 1968.
[119] Manne, ‘Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett’, p. 31
[120] See Wilfred Burchett, North of the Seventeenth Parallel (Hanoi: Reed River Publishing Co., 1957); Wilfred Burchett, The Furtive War: The US in Vietnam and Laos (New York: International Publishers, 1963); and Wilfred Burchett, Vietnam: The Inside Story of the Guerilla War (New York: International Publishers, 1965).
[121] See for example McCormack, Cold War, Hot War, pp. 147-158.
[122] Carey, Taking the Risk Out Of Democracy, pp. ix-xvi. See also the dedication of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988).
[123] For the arguments concerning Burchett and the Korean and Vietnam Wars, see respectively Gavan McCormack, ‘Korea: Wilfred Burchett's Thirty Years War’, in Kiernan, ed., Burchett Reporting the Other Side of the World: 1939-1983, pp. 204-5, 162-5, and Carey, ‘The Bureaucratic Passport War’, pp. 74-100. Both significantly underestimated the role played by homegrown anti-communism in Burchett's exile and overplayed the significance of Australia's desire to ingratiate itself with the United States.
[124] McCormack, ‘The New Right and Human Rights: “Cultural Freedom” and the Burchett Affair’, p. 403.
[125] In 1997, Burchett's widow received the North Korean Order of Friendship, Second Class: Agence France-Presse 28 December 1997.
[126] See in particular Kelvin Rowley, ‘Burchett and the Cold War in Europe’, in Kiernan, ed., Burchett Reporting the Other Side of the World: 1939-1983, pp. 41-60; Michael R. Godley, ‘The East Wind in China’, in Kiernan, ed., Burchett Reporting the Other Side of the World: 1939-1983, pp. 148-161.
[127] Roland Perry, The Exile: Burchett: Reporter of Conflict (Richmond, Victoria: William Heinemann Australia, 1988).
[128] Denis Warner, Not Always on Horseback, p. vii.
[129] Ben Kiernan, ‘Justice delayed, justice denied’, Sydney Morning Herald, 14 May 1988; Phillip Knightley, ‘A tireless supporter of the underdog’, Sunday Times, 2 October 1988.
[130] Phillip Knightley, ‘A tireless supporter of the underdog’, Sunday Times, 2 October 1988.
[131] Tom Heenan, From Traveller to Traitor (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2006).
[132] Heenan, From Traveller to Traitor, p. 9.
[133] In one passage, Heenan related Burchett and Winnington's exceptionally controversial allegations of prisoner abuse at the main UN POW camp on Koje Island, Korea, as though it were uncontested fact. Heenan attributes no fewer than sixteen consecutive footnotes to them, even though, as he conceded, Burchett and Winnington never visited Koje Island and relied on others' first-hand accounts: Heenan, From Traveller to Traitor, pp. 110-112; see p. 127 for footnotes
[134] Burchett, Memoirs of a Rebel Journalist, pp. 229-55; Burchett, Passport, p. viii.
[135] Kiernan, ‘Introduction’, p. xxi.
[136] Wilfred Burchett, Memoirs of a Rebel Journalist: The Autobiography of Wilfred Burchett, George Burchett and Nick Shimmin, eds., (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2005). An abridged version of the same manuscript can be found in Wilfred Burchett, At the Barricades (London, Melbourne and New York: Macmillan Australia, 1981).
[137] Wilfred Burchett, Rebel Journalism: The Writings of Wilfred Burchett, George Burchett and Nick Shimmin, eds., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
[138] Stuart Macintyre, The History Wars, (Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 2004), pp. 67-8.
[139] Tibor Meray, On Burchett, (PO BOX 293, Belgrave, Victoria: Callistemon Publications, 2008).
[140] Australian, 22-23 March 2008.
[141] See, as just one of many examples, Burchett, Memoirs of a Rebel Journalist, p. 757.
[142] Peter Kelly, ‘Comrade Burchett was a party hack’, Australian, 7 January 2006; Peter Hruby, ‘A Private Scribe for Hire: Wilfred Burchett’, personal communication, received 24 July 2007; Manne, ‘Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett’, p. 26.
[143] This presented an unusual contrast with the anti-communists' insistence that Burchett not being a formal KGB agent, as once argued, should have little impact on how he should be understood today.
[144] When I questioned the significance and meaning of the ‘smoking gun’, both Kelly and Hruby responded with invective: Peter Kelly, private communication, 10 July 2007; Peter Hruby, private communication, undated, late 2007.
[145] Manne of Influence, p. 1.
[146] Most of the concerns in this article were communicated to Manne by email in late 2007, long before his Monthly piece.
[147] Manne, ‘Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett’, p. 22.
[148] Manne, ‘Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett’, p. 32.
[149] Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 33.
[150] Manne, ‘Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett’, pp. 26, 29.
[151] Morrisby, ‘Wilfred Burchett of the KGB?‘, p.31
[152] Morrisby, ‘My Reply to Madame Burchett’, p.36
[153] Kiernan, ‘The Making of a Myth: Wilfred Burchett and the KGB’, pp. 296-9; Heenan, From Traveller to Traitor, p. 271.
[154] Manne, ‘Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett’, p. 28.
[155] Manne, ‘Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett’, p. 30.
[156] NAA A1838/370, 852/20/4/114, statement by Paul R. Kniss, September 1953. Burchett was also absent from statements made at the same time by Kniss' fellow pilots. All of this was mentioned in Heenan, From Traveller to Traitor, pp. 152-3, and in the thesis I sent Manne.
[157] NAA A6119, 15/Reference Copy, Far Eastern Command Report.
[158] M 3787/1, 55, [Personal Papers of PM Gorton] Burchett, Wilfred, 1952-70, Burchett to Kniss, 30 November 1952. See McCormack, ‘Korea: Wilfred Burchett's Thirty Years War’, p. 190.
[159] NAA A432, 1952/1677, Australian Embassy, Tokyo, to Department of External Affairs, 16 July 1954.
[160] For this last claim, see Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 36. The others are covered above.
[161] Manne, ‘Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett’, p. 29.
[162] Manne, ‘Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett’, p. 30.
[163] This was despite Manne's recent admission that when re-reading his 1985 article he ‘found in it only one seriously discordant note’: Sydney Morning Herald, 13 November 2004.
[164] Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 42.
[165] Manne, ‘Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett’, p. 32.
[166] Manne, ‘Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett’, p. 28.
[167] George Orwell, ‘Politics and the English Language’ (1946).
[168] ‘Manne of Influence’, p. 1.
[169] ‘New brawl over Burchett's reputation’, Age (online), 7 July 2008.
[170] Manne, ‘Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett’, p. 22.
[171] Manne, ‘Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett’, p. 24.
[172] Manne, ‘Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett’, p. 22.
[173] Manne, ‘Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett’, pp. 22, 24.
[174] Manne, ‘Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett’, p. 24.
[175] Manne, ‘Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett’, p. 31.
[176] ‘Manne of Influence’, p. 1. For Manne's response see ‘New brawl over Burchett's reputation’, Age (online), 7 July 2008.
[177] Manne, ‘The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett: A New Assessment’, p. 42. See also Knopfelmacher, ‘Wilfred Burchett's Treason: Drifting into the Morass of Equivalence’, p. 32: ‘tortured with Burchett's help’.
[178] ‘New brawl over Burchett's reputation’, Age (online), 7 July 2008.
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