WILFRED BURCHETT 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 o Malcolm Salmon OBITUARY

■ a a ilfred Burchett grew up in Throughout his life as a journalist, it It was not just the I/I# Gippsland, . He was was common for Burchett to be up and Australian left which was WW born in 1911. The date is at his typewriter as early as three or saddened by the recent significant. It meant, for example, that four o'clock in the morning. He Burchett was 19 in 1930, that in thefirst attributed this, quite simply, to his death of Wilfred Burchett. years of his manhood, he experienced habit of getting up in time to milk’the During a lifetime of all the rigors of the Great Depression. cows when he worked as a live-in farm hand on a Gippsland dairy property committed and courageous The experience marked him tor life during the depression. — but not in the sense of embitterment, struggle, Burchett won the I had reason to be grateful for respect of socialists or anything of the kind. On the Burchett's early-morning ways when contrary, it seems to have we were together in Paris in 1968. I'd throughout the world, and strengthened him. earned the hatred of given him a list of questions for an Writing in his autobiography At the interview for Australian Left Review, conservatives in similar Barricades of his gruelling and he still hadn't given me his replies proportions. ALR here pays experiences behind the lines with the when we wound up at a party together tribute to the man who took National Liberation Front forces in the evening before he was due to take South Viet Nam in the early 1960s, off from Paris on an overseas trip. We an unshakeable stand with Burchett revels in telling how strong were both determinedly knocking back the world's oppressed and his legs were proving, and goes on to large quantities of Ricard, a fearsomely those struggling for "thank his lucky stars" for his strong yellow potion flavoured with experiences trudging around aniseed, like Ouzo. Parting at one freedom and change — a looking for work 30 years before. o'clock, we were both quite drunk. But true internationalist. Another important characteristic of I still remembered the interview, which the man dates from those early years. I mentioned to him. "You'll have it in ALR Su m m er 83 43 the morning," he said. I knew his flight after the dropping of the left at noon, and mentally wrote the atomic bomb in August 1945. He thus whole thing off. became the first person in history to But there he was at the office next write on the mysterious radiation morning, his replies neatly typed. sickness that afflicted survivors of the "You're bloody lucky to get this," he bombing. said, tossing the typescript on my Let one of his colleagues of that time, desk. "After last night I overslept, and Jim Vine, of the Courier-Maii, didn't wake up till five o'clock .... " tell the story. I certainly couldn't tell it I have another, rather idle, as well. Harry Gordon printed Vine's recollection of Wilfred which is closely report in his remarkable 1976 book on associated with booze. In Peking in Australian journalism, An Eye-Witness 1959 for the 10th anniversary of the History of Australia. G o rd o n revolution, Gavin Greenlees, Wilfred introduced it as follows: and I were drinking in my hotel room. Once in a while, a reporter becomes a After days spent in an excess of figure of news himself. Such reporters banqueting, Wilfred lay down on my included Ernest Morrison, William bed for a rest. He was soon fast asleep, Donald, Banjo Paterson; and much firmly clutching his near-full whisky later, for various reasons, Douglas glass. Gavin and I watched enthralled Wilkie and Alan Ramsey. as the liquor lapped the side of the glass, and we started laying bets as to There is justification, occasionally, for how long it would be before he spilled one journalist to take a published look some. He slept for just a few minutes at another — as Paterson once did at short of two hours, woke, sat up, and Morrison. Here Jim Vine, the Courier carefully placed the glass — with its Mail , wrote about contents intact — on the bedside table. Wilfred Burchett. Greenlees and I were amazed. We'd Burchett had a flair for making news always known Burchett as a steadfast even in 1945 when he became the first character, but this was something else newspaperman to enter Hiroshima, ven after decades in journalism, and later "liberated" five prison camps. Burchett's hands still looked like Years later, reporting the E those of a working man, large from the communist side, he made and strong, moulded by the millionsnews of again. And again, in his long and movements they had made during his finally successful battle to win back his years of manual labour of various kinds Australian passport. during the depression years. Jim Vine's report was published in Of course, the depression left marks Australian newspapers on 11 of a moral and political kind as well. He September 1945. developed a spirit of identification with the underdog, and a healthy Jim Vine's report said: scepticism about a social system A pocket handkerchief-sized capable of producing economic Australian, Wilfred Burchett, left all cataclysm such as Australia was other correspondents standing in enduring at the time. These covering the occupation of Japan. characteristics never left him either. Armed with a typewriter, seven packets One final point about his formative of K. rations, a Colt revolver, and years: as well as milking cows early in incredible hope, he made a one-man the morning, he studied until late at penetration of Japan, was the first night. His brother Winston, who ran a correspondent into atomic bomb- lending library at the time, had given blasted Hiroshima, and "liberated" five him books. These he proceeded to prison camps. devour, in particular devoting himself to the study of foreign languages. Burchett, a Sydney Daily Telegraph Indeed, it was his grasp of German, correspondent, was told by his office acquired from the study of Winston's to g?t to Hiroshima somehow, but books, that got him his first break in quickly. London in the mid-1930s, and set him The quickest and only way was by on the first great adventure of his train, a 21-hour journey, but he got career, helping Jewish families to there, after standing all the way, six escape from Hitler's Germany. hours before a special batch of The rest of his story is better Known: correspondents landed in a Super- World War II in Rangoon, Delhi, , Fortress. reporting with the US Pacific fleet on M a c A r t h u r 's i s I a n d - h o p p i n g For those six hours he was the only campaign, and then the event that was white man in Hiroshima, which had the highlight of his career until that had a quarter of its population wiped time, perhaps of his whole career: out in a single bomb raid. The Japs did becoming the first non-Japanese into not exactly strew his path with flowers,

A u s t r a l i a n L e f t R e v ie w 86 and the situation at times was tense. Paris and Washington in the '60s and Before leaving Tokio, Burchett had '70s. "There is little doubt that Through it all he remained arranged with the Japanese news W ilfred B u rc h e tt.... w ill, in agency, Domei, to receive his copy, unflappable, maintaining the calm and which was to be transmitted on the the dignity of the superb diplomatist time, receive his due and Japanese telegraph, but the plans which he had become. Partisan he was, be universally accepted as came unstuck when MacArthur placed yes. But he was absolutely tenacious in the capital out of bounds. his pursuit of the facts, "the true facts" one of the genuinely great as he likes to call them, and intolerant With the roads blocked, Henry Keys, of Australians of our times." of any sloppiness in colleagues less the , London, also an Australian who was teamed with committed to the cause of accurate Burchett, tried three times in a day to reporting than he. get to Tokio from Yokohama by train, There is little doubt that Wilfred but was thrown off each time by Burchett, the man whose memory we provosts. honor here today, will in time receive his due, and be universally accepted as Burchett and Keys solved the problem one of the genuinely great Australians by hiring an English-speaking of our times. Japanese to act as runner between Already, in the days since his death, Tokio and Yokohama, but the delay many people who have it in themselves cost Burchett his scoop. to rise above the political pornography As it was, he broke even with the of the Cold War are acknowledging Super-Fortress group, who had flown Burchett's achievements in terms their stories back. hardly heard from them before. After Hiroshima, Burchett embarked Peter Robinson, one of the keenest on his one-man liberation tour of minds in Australian metropolitan prison camps, visiting two on the West newspaper journalism, writes that, Honshu coast and three on the Inland together with Richard Hughes, Sea, before official rescue parties Burchett was "among the most reached them. significant journalistic interpreters of Asia to the West over the past 40 At Tsuruga camp he sprang a masterly years". He goes on: "Curiously, it is piece of bluff which caused hundreds through the eyes of these two of Japanese to lay down their arms and Australians that a significant part of the gave the inmates their first steak dinner world's newspaper readership came to in three and a half years. know a bit more about Asia." Here the inmates were alarmed at the Robinson describes Burchett (whom increasing concentration of Japanese he met at the Panmunjom Korean soldiers, all fully armed. Burchett sent armistice talks) as "an intelligent and for the camp commandant, known as free spirit". He quotes Richard Hughes "The Pig", refused to answer his salute (whose politics would be several light and bow, and, with delighted American years to the Right of Burchett's) as Marines for an audience, upbraided nominating Wilfred "one of the best him soundly for not seeing that the and bravest correspondents I've ever surrender terms were carried o u t.... known". Already, before Burchett's death, When I first read Vine's report in that quirky conservative Max Harris Gordon's book back in 1976, I had conceded that, in terms of immediately sent a photocopy to authentically worldwide repute, Wilfred in Paris. He '"rote back Burchett just had to be acknowledged ecstatically, saying he'd been hunting Australia's "most famous" journalist. for a copy of Vine's report not only for The memory of the persecutions to years, but for decades, and here I'd which he was subject through the sent it to him just when he needed it pettiness of Australian officialdom, most (for a book he was writing for a anxious to score their Brownie points London publisher). He went on to pay with Washington in the Cold War, will quite unwarranted tribute to my shrink to nothing. "telepathic powers .... " Given the magnitude of his life's achievement, the stature of Wilfred uch, much more could be said Burchett can only grow. about Wilfred Burchett: about his behind-the-scenes role in Malcolm Salmon was a correspond­ M ent in Viet Nam in the 1950s and again a dozen different historical-diplomatic situations — with Wingate in India in the 1970s. He is the assistant editor during the war, with Chou En-lai in of Pacific Islands Monthly. Chungking a little later on, with Pham This tribute was one of several Van Dong at the Geneva Conference in given at a meeting of friends and 1954, and, most notably of all perhaps, colleagues of Wilfred Burchett held in with the Vietnamese and Americans in Sydney on October 14, 1983.

A L R S u m m e r 8 3 45 Hiroshima, which was atomic bombed on August 6, Ipoks as though a monster steam-roller had passed over and squashed it out of existence. In this first testing ground of the atomic bomb I have seen the most terrible and frightening desolation of four years of war reporting. Thirty days after the atomic bomb destroyed the city and shook the world people are still dying mysteriously and horribly from its effects. People who were not injured in the explosion are dying from something unknown which could only be described as the atomic plague. Hiroshima does not look like a normally bombed city at all. The damage is far greater than any photographs can show. After you find what was Hiroshima, you can look around for about 25 square miles, and there is hardly a building standing. It gives you an empty feeling in the pit of your stomach to see such man-made devastation. I picked my way to a shack used as a temporary police headquarters in the centre of the vanished city. Looking south, I could see about three miles of reddish rubble. This is all that the bomb left of dozens of blocks of city z buildings, homes, factories, and human beings. > Nothing stands except about 20 factory chimneys > without factories. 0 > Looking west, there are half a dozen gutted ruins, then CO01 nothing for miles. w The Bank of Japan is the only building intact in the c o entire city, which had a population of 310,000. I saw people in hospitals who apparently suffered no injury, but are dying uncannily from the effects of the bombing. For no obvious reason their health seems to fail. They lost their appetites, their hair fell out, and bluish spots appeared on their bodies. They then began bleeding from the ears, nose and mouth. Doctors first diagnosed them as sufferers from general 5 ;* debility, and gave them vitamin injections. C The results were horrible. 0 1 Their flesh began rotting away from their bones, and in cn every case the victim died. :r c Minor insect bites developed into great swellings, 37T which would not heal. o Slight cuts from falling brick or steel splinters caused =r acute sickness. ' The victims began bleeding from the gums, then they vomited blood and died. Nearly every scientist in Japan has visited the city to try to relieve the people's sufferings, but they themselves became, victims. A fortnight after the bomb was dropped they found that they could not stay long and suffered from dizziness and headaches In the day I stayed in Hiroshima — nearly a montn after the bombing — 100 people died. \MOn\unMS \HOrVMlM \MOn\unMS KIKUCHI Shunkichi the streets. the h bm itself. bomb the split the by released radio-activity with soaked earth ever have I anything unlike odor peculiar a more. any see detected to want don't I and dropped ever h erh cuig hs a-ae plague. man-made this causing earth, the se isaty yaoi heat. atomic by instantly ashes explosion. the sex. of their distinguish to impossible was the bombing of Hiroshima and that of Nagasaki, attacked attacked Nagasaki, later. of that days and two Hiroshima of bombing the parachute. by descend bomb the watched and attack. shelters of normal a in leading was bomb the dropped which noses. and mouths their over masks gauze with before. smelled are dying at the rate of 100 daily, and will probably all die. all probably will and 100 daily, of rate the at dying are topee oe ail .... rapidly more atmosphere high. feet three rubble of heap a is building, it that bomb the by generated heat terrific the in burned Hiroshima the people who survived it have hated the white white the hated have it man. survived who people the Hiroshima atom. uranium wreckage. from recovered being were bodies dead. certainly are they means which missing, ae en o fe-fet lk hs a Hiroshima. at those like after-effects no been have reaction. believe the radio-activity was dissipated into the the into dissipated was radio-activity the believe afterwards. soon developed rainstorm big a and bad, The Imperial Palace at Hiroshima, once an imposing imposing an once Hiroshima, at Palace chemical by Imperial poisoned The been has to city burned the were in they water that The is Hiroshima in theory The centre the near were who thousands of trace no is There When the bomb dropped on Hiroshima the weatherwas weatherwas the Hiroshima on dropped bomb the When out came thousands sight of out passed Super-Fortress plane the the When that thought as authorities Japanese frightening as almost is hatred their of intensity The city their of desolation the through afraid. and forlornly bewildered walk still are They Hiroshima of people The the from issuing still gas by off given is it say Japanese I rubble of wilderness this through walking man bomb While atomic first the of effects the of one is That They were some of the 13,000 seriouslywoundedwho seriouslywoundedwho 13,000 the of some were They At Nagasaki the weather was perfect, and scientists scientists and perfect, was weather the Nagasaki into At driven was radiation uranium the believe Scientists of effects the in difference agreat noted have Scientists Counted dead number 53,000 and another 30,000 are are 30,000 another and 53,000 number dead Counted Death came swift and sudden at Nagasaki, and there there and Nagasaki, at sudden and swift came Death From the moment this devastation was loosed on on loosed was devastation this moment the From deserted. still is or everything where it smouldering smell also still were could I fires where it smell could I ot huad epewr sihl injured. slightly were people thousand Forty Hundreds and hundreds of people were so badly badly so were people of hundreds and Hundreds It exploded when nearly everyone in Hiroshima was in was Hiroshima in everyone nearly when exploded It quite. not but sulphur, like something is It yny al Telegraph, Daily Sydney etme, 1945. September, 6 lrd Bur tt e h rc u B ilfred W , 1 < >- CO < X CO * < D O) 0) 0 03 CO (C > o

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