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Wilfred Graham Burchett (16 September 1911 – 27 September 1983) was an Australian journalist known for being the first western journalist to report from Hiroshima after the dropping of the Little Boy, and for his reporting from "the other side" during the Korean War and .
Burchett began his journalism at the start of World War II, during which he reported from China, Burma and Japan and covered the war in the Pacific. After the war he reported on the trials in Hungary, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and on Cambodia under Pol Pot. During the Korean war he investigated and supported claims by the North Korean government that the US had used germ warfare. He was the first western journalist to interview Yuri Gagarin after Gagarin's historic first flight into outer space. He played a role in prompting the first significant Western relief for Cambodia after its liberation by Vietnam in 1979.
He was a politically engaged anti-imperialist who always placed himself among the people and events about whom he was reporting. His reporting antagonised both the American and Australian governments and he was effectively exiled from Australia for almost 20 years before the incoming Whitlam government granted him a new passport.
In the 1970s Burchett launched defamation action after being accused of being a KGB operative.
In 1937 Burchett left Australia for London by ship. There he found work in a Jewish travel agency Palestine & Orient Lloyd Ltd which resettled Jews from Nazi Germany in British Palestine and the United States. It was in this job that he met Erna Lewy, née Hammer, a Jewish refugee from Germany, and they married in 1938 in Hampstead. He visited Germany in 1938 before returning to Australia with his wife in 1939. After his return to Australia he wrote letters to newspapers warning against the danger of German and Japanese militarism. After the declaration of war by England, he became sought after as "one of the last Australians to leave Germany before the war".
Burchett next travelled to the then Chinese capital, Chongqing, becoming a correspondent for the London Daily Express and also writing for the Sydney Daily Telegraph. He was wounded while reporting on Britain's campaign in Burma. He also covered the American advance in the Pacific under General Douglas MacArthur.
On this "scoop of the century", which had a worldwide impact, Burchett's byline was incorrectly given as "by Peter Burchett".
MacArthur had imposed restrictions on journalists' access to bombed cities, and had censored reports of the destruction caused by the bombing of Hiroshima and Fat Man. Civilian casualties were downplayed and the deadly lingering effects of radiation were dismissed. The New York Times published a front-page story with the headline 'No radioactivity in Hiroshima ruin'. Military censors Censorship a 25,000 word story about the bombing of Nagasaki submitted by George Weller of the Chicago Daily News.
Burchett's report was the first in the Western media to mention the effects of radiation and nuclear fallout and was, therefore, a major embarrassment for the US military. In response, US officials accused Burchett of being under the sway of Japanese propaganda. Burchett lost his press accreditation and he was ordered to leave Japan, although this order was later withdrawn. In addition, his camera, containing photos of Hiroshima, was confiscated while he was documenting persistent illness at a Tokyo hospital. The film was sent to Washington and classified secret before being released in 1968.Goodman, Amy. The Exception to the Rulers, Verso - London, 2003 Chapter 16: Hiroshima Cover-up: How the War Department's Timesman Won a Pulitzer US military encouraged the journalist William L. Laurence of The New York Times to write articles dismissing the reports of radiation sickness as part of Japanese efforts to undermine American morale. Laurence, who was also being paid by the US War Department, wrote the articles the US military wanted even though he was aware of the effects of radiation after observing the first atomic bomb test on 16 July 1945, and its effect on local residents and livestock.Goodman, Amy and David, The Baltimore Sun, "The Hiroshima Cover-Up", 5 August 2005.
Burchett wrote about his experiences in his book, Shadows of Hiroshima.
In his autobiography, Burchett later admitted that he began to have doubts about the trials when one of the Bulgarians repudiated his signed confession.Wilfred Burchett, Memoirs of a Rebel Journalist : The Autobiography of Wilfred Burchett (2005), edited by Nick Shimmin and George Burchett, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, New South Wales. , pp 323-24. Hungarian Tibor Méray accused Burchett of dishonesty regarding the trials and the subsequent Hungarian Revolution of 1956 which he opposed.Méray 2008, pp. 113–127, pp. 146–147.
Burchett investigated and confirmed claims by the North Korean government that the US had used Germ warfare in the Korean War. During his investigation, he observed "clusters of flies and fleas on the snow-covered hillsides", which the North Korean military said were infected with bubonic plague. In his 1953 book about the Korean war, This Monstrous War, he wrote:
The US military's Far Eastern Command (FEC) wanted to silence Burchett by "exfiltrating" him from North Korea but its request to the Australian government for permission, which included a $100,000 inducement (over $1,000,000 in 2022 dollars), was turned down. Instead, the FEC established a smear campaign against Burchett with the backing of the Australian government. Australian journalist Denis Warner suggested Burchett had concocted the claim that the USA was engaging in germ warfare and pointed out the similarity of the allegations to a science fiction story by Jack London, a favourite author of Burchett's.Denis Warner, Not Always on Horseback: An Australian Correspondent at War and Peace in Asia, 1961–1993; St Leonards: Allen and Unwin; 1997; pp. 196–197. However, Burchett's former colleague and veteran anti-communist, Tibor Méray, confirmed Burchett's insect observation in his critical memoir On Burchett.Méray 2008, pp. 73–76. Burchett's finding was later supported by a 2010 report by al-Jazeera.
Burchett visited several POW camps in North Korea, comparing one to a "luxury resort", a "holiday resort in Switzerland", which angered POWs who had been held under conditions that violated the Geneva Conventions.Gavan McCormack, "Korea: Burchett's Thirty Years' War," in Ben Kiernan (ed.), 1986, p. 169. Historian Gavan McCormack wrote that Burchett regretted this analogy, but said that the factual basis of the description was confirmed by POW Walker Mahurin.Gavan McCormack, "Korea", in Ben Kiernan (ed.), 1986, p. 170. Similarly, Tibor Méray reports a "Peace Fighter Camp" which had no fences.Méray 2008, pp. 64–65.
On 21 December 1951, Burchett achieved a major scoop by interviewing the most senior United Nations POW, US General William F. Dean and organising for photographs of Dean to be taken. The US had claimed that Dean had been killed by the North Koreans and had intended using his death as leverage in negotiations with the North Koreans. It was consequently angry that Burchett reported he was alive. In his autobiography Dean entitled a chapter "My Friend Wilfred Burchett" and wrote "I like Burchett and am grateful to him". He expressed thanks for Burchett's "special kindness" in improving his conditions, communicating with his family, and giving him an "accurate" briefing on the state of the war.William F Dean and William L Worden, General Dean's Story, The Viking Press, New York, 1954, pp. 239, 244.
In his study of war correspondents, The First Casualty, Phillip Knightley wrote that "in Korea, the truth was that Burchett and Winnington were a better source of news than the UN information officers, and if the allied reporters did not see them they risked being beaten on stories".Phillip Knightley, The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-Maker from the Crimea to Kosovo, (revised edition), Prion, London, 2000, p. 388.
In 1961, Burchett was the first western journalist to interview Yuri Gagarin after his historic space flight. Describing Gagarin, Burchett wrote that "the first impression was of his good-natured personality; big smile -- a grin, really -- light step and an air of sunny friendliness ... His hands are incredibly hard; his eyes an almost luminous blue".
Burchett eventually sided with China in the Sino-Soviet split. In 1963, he wrote to his father George that the Chinese were "one hundred per cent right", but asked George to keep his views confidential.
In 1973, Burchett published China: The Quality of Life, with co-author Rewi Alley. In Robert Manne's view this was "a book of unconditional praise for Maoist China following the Great Leap Forward and the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution".
In a 1983 interview, Burchett said he grew disillusioned with China over its position in Angola in which it was supporting the "same side as the CIA".
During his time in Vietnam he had access to the North Vietnamese leadership and the South's Viet Cong. He tried to help the British and US governments in obtaining the release of captured American airmen. In 1967, he had a significant interview with the North Vietnamese foreign minister, Nguyen Duy Trinh in which Nguyen provided the first indication that the North Vietnamese government was interested in peace talks. He played a role in trying to organise informal talks during the 1968 peace talks in Paris.
Bertrand Russell wrote that "If any one man is responsible for alerting Western opinion to the struggle of the people of Vietnam, it is Wilfred Burchett".
Burchett published numerous books about Vietnam and the war.
As relations between Cambodia and Vietnam deteriorated, and after Burchett visited refugee camps in 1978, he condemned the Khmer Rouge and they subsequently placed him on a death list.Ben Kiernan (ed.), Burchett: Reporting the Other Side of the World, 1939–1983, Quartet Books, London, 1986, pp. 265–267.
Burchett visited Phnom Penh in May 1979 and wrote in The Guardian about the desperate situation there. The Phnom Penh government drew up a list of required emergency relief which Burchett took to London, where he read it out at an all-party meeting in the House of Commons. He said that the governments in both Vietnam and Cambodia had assured him that relief would be welcome and that "a great many human beings are starving and need your help". The UK government did nothing in response to Burchett's request since the newly elected government of Margaret Thatcher had joined the US boycott of Vietnam and suspended all food aid to both Vietnam and Cambodia. However, Jim Howard, a technical officer for Oxfam was at the meeting and was moved to arrange for the first significant Western relief to Cambodia.
After Burchett reported from North Korea about the use of germ warfare by the Americans, the Australian government looked at charging him with treason. It sent ASIO agents to Japan and Korea to collect evidence but in early 1954, conceded it could not prosecute him.
The last attempt was in 1970, when attorney-general Tom Hughes admitted to prime minister John Gorton, that the government had no evidence against him. Hughes said that a prosecution for treason under the Crimes Act "cannot be mounted unless the war is a proclaimed war and there is a proclaimed enemy", and the Australian government had not declared war in Korea and Vietnam.
In September 1971, Democratic Labour Party leader Vince Gair accused Burchett, in the Senate, of being a KGB operative and tabled Krotkov's testimony. In November 1971, the DLP published details of Gair's speech in its pamphlet, Focus. In February 1973 Burchett filed a one-million-dollar libel suit against DLP senator Jack Kane, who was Focuss publisher.Heenan, Tom, "Burchett, Wilfred Graham (1911–1983)" in Australian Dictionary of Biography Online (206). In preparing his case, Kane received support from The Herald and Weekly Times, Philip Jones and Robert Menzies. Australia's military chiefs-of-staff appeared as witnesses for Kane. ASIO provided the names of Australian POWs whom Burchett had met in Korea and Kane put thirty of these on the stand. The former prisoners testified that Burchett had used threatening and insulting language against them and in some cases had been involved in their interrogations.Denis Warner, Not Always on Horseback: An Australian Correspondent at War and Peace in Asia, 1961–1993, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, 1997, pp. 189–193. North Vietnamese defectors, Bui Cong Tuong and To Ming Trung, also testified at the trial, claiming that Burchett was so highly regarded in Hanoi he was known as "Comrade Soldier", a title he shared only with Lenin and Ho Chi Minh.Denis Warner, Not Always on Horseback, 1997, pp. 142, 194.
The jury found Burchett had been defamed, but considered the Focus article a fair report of the 1971 Senate speech by Gair and therefore protected by parliamentary privilege. Costs were awarded against Burchett. Burchett appealed and lost. In their 1976 judgement, the appeal court judges found that Kane's article was not a fair report of the Senate speech. The jury's verdict, however, they concluded, arose out of the failure of Burchett's lawyer to argue his client's case and was not an error of the court. It was also impractical to recall the international witnesses for a retrial.Gavan McCormack, "Korea", in Kiernan (ed.), 1986, p. 198.
Historian Gavan McCormack has said in Burchett's defence that his only dealings with Australian POWs were "trivial incidents" in which he "helped" them.Gavan McCormack, "Korea", in Kiernan (ed.), 1986, pp. 186–187. With regard to other POWs, McCormack stated that their allegations were at variance with earlier statements which either explicitly cleared Burchett or blamed someone else.Gavan McCormack, "Korea", in Kiernan (ed.), 1986, pp. 190–194.
For his part, Tibor Méray alleged that Burchett was an undercover party member but not a KGB agent.Tibor Méray, On Burchett, Callistemon Publications, Kallista, Victoria, Australia, 2008, pp. 92–93, 198, 202–203.
The July memorandum was written by the chairman of the KGB and addressed to the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party. It mentioned that Burchett had agreed to work in Moscow on "condition" that he receive "a monetary subsidy, and also the opportunity of unpublicised collaboration in the Soviet press". The memorandum also contained a description of Burchett's background and a request for him to be paid "a one-time subsidy in the sum of 20,000 Soviet rouble and the establishment for him of a monthly subsidy in the sum of 4,000 roubles". On 25 October, the Central Committee accepted the KGB's request but reduced the monthly payment to 3,000 roubles.
In 2013 Robert Manne used these documents to update "Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett", his 2008 article in which he examined Burchett's relationship with a number of communist governments in Europe and Asia.Robert Manne, "Agent of Influence: Reassessing Wilfred Burchett", The Monthly (Australia), June 2008 (No. 35). Manne concluded in 2013 that "Every detail in the KGB memorandum is consistent with the Washington testimony of Yuri Krotkov". Manne wrote that Krotkov "was not a liar and a perjurer, but a truth-teller". Tom Heenan, from the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University, was not convinced by the evidence Manne quoted and wrote that, if the KGB had given money to Burchett, it had been shortchanged, since Burchett had moved away from Soviet Communism and towards the Chinese by the 1960s.
A documentary film entitled Public Enemy Number One by David Bradbury was released in 1981. The film showed how Burchett was criticised in Australia for his coverage of "the other side" in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and posed the questions: "Can a democracy tolerate opinions it considers subversive to its national interest? How far can freedom of the press be extended in wartime?" Public Enemy Number One (1981) at Frontline Films
In 1997, journalist Denis Warner wrote: "he will be remembered by many as one of the more remarkable agents of influence of the times, but by his Australian and other admirers as a folk hero".Denis Warner, Not Always on Horseback: An Australian Correspondent at War and Peace in Asia, 1961–1993, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, 1997, p. 198.
Nick Shimmin, co-editor of the book Rebel Journalism: The Writings of Wilfred Burchett said "When he saw injustice and hardship, he criticised those he believed responsible for it".
In 2011 Vietnam celebrated Burchett's 100th birthday with an exhibition in the Ho Chi Minh Museum in Hanoi. "Hero, traitor, critic – Vietnam celebrates Burchett's centenary in pictures , The Sydney Morning Herald, Lindsay Murdoch, 22 September 2011, p. 9.
Burchett was the uncle of chef and cookbook writer Stephanie Alexander.
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