New Zealand Journal of History, 35, 1 (2001) Ann-Marie Brady

The Curious Case of Two Australasian 'Traitors', or, , and the Cold War*

ON 21 AND 22 DECEMBER 1972 respectively, Australia and New Zealand established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of (PRC). The proximity of the two dates implies a concomitant closeness in foreign policy- making, especially on such a sensitive issue as the diplomatic recognition of China. On paper, particularly in the Cold War era, Australia and New Zealand had historically strong strategic links, both together and with the US, recognized in such treaties as UKUSA, ANZUS and SEATO.1 A careful comparison of the foreign ministry archives of both nations, however, reveals that despite the outward unity, they held differing levels of enthusiasm for the Western position in the Cold War, in particular on such matters as the recognition of China and allegations of germ warfare in the . Almost 30 years after diplomatic relations were established, it is timely to consider the years prior to recognition of the Peking government and the political climate of that period. Utilizing public and private documents gathered in China, New Zealand and Australia, this paper discusses the differing experiences of two Cold War 'traitors' — an Australian, , and a New Zealander, — interpreting their experiences in terms of the attitude of their respective countries to communism in Asia in the Cold War period, and implicitly, their respective countries' support for US foreign policy at that time. In considering the treatment the two men received from the two governments, my aim is neither to lionize nor demonize them. Rather it is to provide a critical appraisal of New Zealand and Australia's relations with Asia and to illustrate the tensions between being faithful allies of the US and maintaining national identity.

Wilfred Burchett (1911-1983) was born in Poowong, a rural suburb of greater . He had minimal high school education and joined the ranks of the unemployed when he left school. He came to public attention initially for his humanitarian activities. In the late 1930s he helped Jewish refugees to escape from Germany, assisting many of them to settle in Australia, as a result of which he and his family came to the attention of police for 'sinister' activities. It was this work that started Burchett in journalism, writing about Hitler's Germany. Burchett became a well-respected journalist for his reporting on the . His most famous scoop described the effects of the nuclear bomb in 1945. He was the first Western journalist to travel to Hiroshima and 86 ANN-MARIE BRADY the first to mention radiation sickness.2 His report on the effects of the nuclear bomb earned him the disfavour of the US Occupation Forces. His greatest notoriety came from his public support for Chinese and North Korean allegations that the UN forces in the Korean War used germ warfare and his criticism of UN participation in the war and its negotiators' behaviour during the extensive peace talks. By this stage in his career, Burchett had become a decidedly partisan journalist, reporting from the 'other side' for the left-wing media. Burchett first visited China in 1942 as a , and there he made important connections with (CCP) cadres responsible for dealing with foreigners. It is most probably these links that enabled Burchett to go as a correspondent to China after the 1949 revolution.3 By 1951, when Burchett returned to China, most other foreign correspondents from Western countries had been forced, or had chosen, to leave the PRC. At the time of his second visit, however, Burchett had well-established socialist credentials, writing many approving reports on the Peking government that were published in Chinese papers, as well as his book, China's Feet Unbound.4 Though never a Marxist or a communist party member (his son George called him an 'Australian bush socialist'5), Burchett wrote from the communist side. By the early 1950s he was an outspoken supporter of the communist governments in Europe and emerging ones in Asia. This stance had evolved out of his dissatisfaction with the post-World War II world order and an attraction to the idealism of the new regimes. Within a few months of his arrival in China, Burchett moved to to report on the armistice negotiations at Kaesong for Ce Soir, the French communist paper. His articles were also published by Xinhua, and broadcast on Peking Radio (the PRC's shortwave station). He wrote to his father that he was on the supply system: 'luxury needs are not catered for but basic needs are'.6 All clothing, food, accommodation and a small living allowance were provided. Burchett and another Western journalist, , who reported for the British Communist Party paper, the Daily Worker, soon attracted the disapproving attention of the UN Negotiating Team for reporting discrepancies between the account of the talks the UN was giving to the Western press and the communist version. Burchett was popular with the other Western journalists: they regarded the information he passed on to them as more reliable than that they were given by the UN. The US General, Matthew Ridgeway, became so irate at Burchett and Winnington's activities that he attempted to ban all contact between them and other Western journalists, a ban that was pointedly ignored.7 In contrast to the rather leaden prose of his reports on New China (much of which he wrote from Chinese press releases), Burchett's writing on the Korean War was exciting and impassioned. Burchett excelled at on-the-spot coverage; he was at his best when describing injustice or treachery seen at first hand. His greatest crime in the eyes of the US military in Korea was his support for communist claims that US forces had used germ warfare in Korea and Northern China. In early 1952, Burchett wrote to a friend in Australia that he had seen evidence of germ warfare with his own eyes:

Our big story at the moment is biological warfare, there is no doubt about it. They unloaded flies infected with cholera and fleas carrying bubonic plague at a place just 30 THE CURIOUS CASE OF TWO AUSTRALASIAN 'TRAITORS' 87 miles from here 2 weeks ago. I spoke with someone this morning who was on the spot at the time. American troops had been withdrawn unaccountably the night before. They saw what looked like clouds of smoke coming from the tails of three planes which circled the area a number of times. An hour later when they got to the spot they found clusters of dopey looking flies and fleas from all over the snow. In one square yard they found 1,000 fleas. Peasants from the area said they had never seen such fleas and that flies never appeared until the end of March. Impossible for flies to be about when snow is on the ground. The fleas were handed over to medical research workers and sure enough, they were carrying bubonic plague bacteria.8

The allegations received world-wide attention and immediately became politicized. The US and its allies denounced the claims as mere propaganda, while the , China and its allies began a propaganda or 'verbal war', shezhan, attacking germ warfare and other UN atrocities in the Korean War. Within China, a massive sanitation campaign was begun, under the slogan 'to be sanitary is patriotic'.9 Residents of Liaoning, Jilin, Peking and Tianjin were vaccinated against various diseases the infected insects were believed to be carrying.10 Propaganda materials of the period carried cartoons of strapping Chinese scientists killing insect-like foreigners, a symbolic representation of the process of eliminating the physical and psychological foreign presence in China." Whether true or not, the allegations were a major blow to Western propaganda in the Cold War. Recent research seems to prove that the germ warfare allegations were, in fact, false.12 To slur the US crusade in Korea with the taint of germ warfare, which previously only the Nazis had attempted, would be a major blow to the West's credibility.13 Burchett not only reported the germ warfare allegations, he also took part in the visit of a group of communist journalists to interview American POWs who had confessed to their participation in germ warfare. Fatefully for Burchett, Xinhua, the Chinese news service, reported this visit as an 'interrogation'. This gave rise to the claim that Burchett had been involved in the 'interrogation' of POWs and in editing their confessions. The 'interrogation' by Burchett and other journalists of the US airmen was regarded both by the communist side and the US allies as important evidence. The captured US airmen's confessions were crucial to the Chinese case.14 It was extremely threatening to US prestige that a Western journalist was seen to be colluding with and supporting these statements. The Australian government files on Burchett only have the original English- language broadcast of Burchett's visit to the POWs." A close reading of this text, as well as later investigations by the Australian government, reveal no evidence to prove that Burchett 'interrogated' the prisoners as such.16 Rather, it is more likely that he interviewed them, as did the other journalists. The word 'interrogate' can be rendered in Chinese as xunwen, meaning 'to interrogate a prisoner', shenwen 'to carefully question someone', or ti wenti, 'to ask questions', as a reporter would. The report on Burchett's participation in the 'interrogation' was initially taken from a Chinese radio broadcasting, first in Chinese and later in English. It is quite possible, given the generally awkward prose of CCP foreign language propaganda of the 1950s, that the use of the English word 'interrogate' was either a mistranslation or asserted deliberately for propaganda purposes. It 88 ANN-MARIE BRADY was a mistake that would have a major impact on Burchett's life. The Australian government and its overseas posts had been keeping a close eye on Burchett and his activities in Korea. In 1951, a 'Burchett file' was opened in the Immigration Department after an article complaining of Burchett's in the Eastern bloc appeared in a Melbourne paper.17 In September 1953, a memorandum from the Australian embassy in Tokyo warned the government that it should try and keep Burchett out of Australia because of 'public opinion'. The memorandum commented, if a 'notorious communist sympathiser returned — particularly with government assistance or guarantee — there would be public outcry, especially from men who fought in Korea or their relatives'. The memorandum stated the government 'may have no legal power to exclude [Burchett]; but will do what it can'.'8 In 1953 the New York-based newspaper U.S. News and World Report published a sensational three-page story on Burchett and his fellow newsman, Alan Winnington, entitled 'A Strange Case of Two Traitors'. The article called Burchett and Winnington 'a new kind of traitor,' who 'worked actively for the enemy': 'They are the ones, it now appears, who made a success of the "germ warfare" hoax. It was they who processed "confessions" extracted from American aviators by torture. They aided the enemy, too, with tape-recorded broadcasts, with a propaganda movie, with reams of written propaganda. After World War II, a Briton who did less was hanged. But these two, so far, remain in good standing at home."9 Though the story denounced Burchett and Winnington as 'traitors', even the anonymous author of the piece had to admit that since Australia and Britain had not declared war on Korea, there was no legal case for describing them as such. The article was also an oblique criticism of the two governments for their apparent lack of action over the activities of their respective citizens. The choice of words is telling: 'Neither nation sees a case for reprimand or action against a citizen who took an active part in aiding the enemy and who is continuing, during an armistice period, to speak for the Chinese communists'.20 Who wrote this story and what their motives were is not known. It is my guess that, judging by the language and context, it came from a pro- lobby group, rather than the US government. The story was full of falsehoods and misrepresentations, but it caused great anxiety to the Menzies government, concerned that US antagonism about Burchett's activities might hinder good relations between the two countries, particularly the security relationship that had only recently been formalized under the ANZUS Treaty. The Solicitor-General commissioned a secret report to establish grounds for accusing Burchett of being a traitor. This report categorized his traitorous activities under three headings: propaganda, activities among prisoners of war, and association with the enemy.21 The evidence given for perfidy was flimsy, featuring such items as: 'he appears to arrive at the talks each day in a Russian vehicle with the communist delegation, and... he appears to be primarily concerned with reciting communist propaganda and attacking the actions of the British and the Americans', and claims that articles written by him (in magazines such as China Pictorial and China Reconstructs) were made available to Australian POWs.22 Burchett's association with the communists in Korea was considered to be especially sensitive because of the 'considerable international reputation' he THE CURIOUS CASE OF TWO AUSTRALASIAN 'TRAITORS' 89 had achieved before the Korean War as a journalist and war correspondent. Hence, the report concluded, 'his presence at the peace talks, in itself was such as to lend "aid and comfort" in that it must be taken to have had a disturbing effect on prisoners of war in communist hands, members of the United Nations forces generally, and the people of the countries contributing to the United Nations force, thus tending to weaken United Nations resistance to, and attack upon the enemy'."None of the 'evidence' was enough to convict Burchett as a traitor, the most fundamental problem being, as the US newspaper story had stated, that Australia was not officially at war with China or Korea. Moreover, since Burchett had worked outside Australia, he could not be accused of treason under the Crimes Act. Senior government officials considered charging him under an English statute, which enabled citizens to be prosecuted for treasonable acts outside their countries, but this option was not taken up.24 Burchett was placed on a Migration Warning List in 1953 at the request of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).25 The Australian government became even more concerned about his activities when it heard that he had been boasting publicly about his ability to critique Western participation in the Cold War while travelling on an Australian . A circular was posted to Australian consular posts to ascertain Burchett's passport status.26 The following year, Attorney-General Harold Holt notified overseas Australian posts that no future travel documents were to be made available to Burchett.27 In 1955, as he was returning from the Bandung Conference of Non-Aligned Nations, Burchett's passport disappeared, and he concluded that it had been stolen. He believed that it was stolen by a Western security organization, probably the CIA. The Menzies government refused to issue Burchett with a replacement passport, and also refused to issue the children from his second marriage with . The Australian governments of the 1950s and 1960s considered they had the authority to deny its citizens travel documents on 'moral grounds'; for the next 17 years, successive governments would deny Burchett a right to a passport.28 Despite the official antagonism towards Burchett, he did have a few notable sympathisers within the foreign service who thought he should be given a hearing. J.K. Waller, the Australian ambassador in Moscow in the late 1950s, supported Burchett's case (Burchett by this stage had moved to the Soviet Union), to no avail. Waller wrote to his superiors in Canberra: 'I feel it is wrong that an Australian citizen should be condemned to permanent exile in the Soviet Union without being given the chance to defend himself. This is especially so when members of the Communist Party whose conduct is known to be traitorous, are allowed to travel without let or hindrance.'29 A 1959 request by Burchett to have his passport reinstated had been denied: 'The government had no desire for Burchett to return, although as an Australian citizen it might not be possible to exclude him'.30 The government position was further clarified in 1961 when the Department of Immigration noted 'the Prime Minister decided that, having regard to Burchett's activities, no documents which would in any way ease his return to Australia, should be given to Burchett. Therefore no Australian travel facilities of any sort have been issued to him.'31 In effect, Prime Minister Menzies acted as judge and jury on Burchett's case, despite the fact that, repeatedly, the government's officials admitted that evidence 90 ANN-MARIE BRADY against him was slim. A Moscow embassy report concluded 'the whole case is permeated with illogicalities'.32 Government officials were clearly aware of a double standard since it was widely known that Australian Communist Party leaders were allowed to travel to and from the Soviet Union on Australian passports, and a number had even studied for several years in the PRC in a school for foreign revolutionaries.33 The government's 'evidence' of Burchett's continued perfidy was his record in Korea and Indochina, his writing, his residence in Eastern bloc countries, his assumed communist party membership, and his 'continued' work for the communists.34 Yet Burchett had never been a communist party member; he resided in Eastern bloc countries because only they would provide him with the necessary travel documents and allow him to reside without a passport. Burchett's reporting in the 1950s and 1960s showed that he was not an agent of any of the communist countries, but rather followed his own views and acted as independently as possible, given the restrictions the lack of a passport imposed on him. As to his writing, many of his allegations had proven to be true; they were no more biased than propaganda coming from the US side.35 Burchett was not completely uncritical of China and other communist countries that he supported. While he had a high regard for China's domestic achievements, he gradually became disillusioned with China's foreign policy, particularly with regard to China's involvement in Kampuchea and Vietnam during the late 1970s.36 Nevertheless, whether it wanted to or not, it would have been hard for the Menzies government to backtrack on its stance towards Burchett. To do so would have been to raise questions about Australia's role in the Cold War and its close identification with US foreign policy. It would also seriously undermine the anti-communist hysteria which Menzies and his party had deliberately engineered since the late 1940s in an effort to stay in power.37 On top of the denial of a passport, a perhaps even greater trial for Burchett occurred in 1960 when Soviet defector Yuri Krotkov accused him of being a KGB agent. Krotkov hoped to gain asylum in the US, and in addition to accusing Burchett, he also accused Jean-Paul Sartre, and John Gailbraith, among others, of working for the Soviet spy agency. Krotkov's allegations were not taken seriously by the British intelligence agents to whom he first reported them. They gave him £100 and had him sign a document that he would not repeat the allegations publicly.38 However a US Senate sub-committee, which Krotkov asked to appear before, brought these allegations into the open. While the American press virtually ignored the claims, Australian Democratic Labour Party (DLP) Senator Vincent Gair took advantage of parliamentary privilege to read the accusation against Burchett into Hansard.39 A slanderous article was also published in the DLP magazine Focus, under the headline 'Burchett KGB Agent'. Although Burchett later sued and won the case for defamation against him, because the magazine quoted from Hansard, the libel was protected by parliamentary privilege. Burchett had been proven innocent of the slander, yet the trial costs were awarded against him. Technically, the magazine had merely reported a parliamentary speech and had not made the allegation itself. Burchett was unable to pay the court costs and as a result was forced to stay out of Australia for the rest of his life to avoid bankruptcy. In the eyes of the Australian administration, Burchett's crime was to promote THE CURIOUS CASE OF TWO AUSTRALASIAN 'TRAITORS' 91 embarrassing allegations about US forces' behaviour in Korea, then to continue to criticize US foreign policy, and, implicitly, that of its close ally Australia. It was, as the government admitted, particularly damaging when someone of Burchett's calibre came out in support of the communist side. Burchett's work hit right at the heart of the Western powers' effort to convince their citizens that the Cold War was necessary.

While, outwardly, the West was united in its fight against communism, the case of Rewi Alley, guilty of remarkably similar 'crimes' to Burchett, demonstrates some of the tensions that existed beneath the show of unity. Rewi Alley (1897- 1987) was born in Springfield, in the South Island of New Zealand. Alley's father was a schoolmaster and his mother one of the country's early suffragists; he was the only one of his brothers and sisters not to complete high school and go on to higher education. Alley joined the ANZAC40 forces in World War I, serving for a time in and becoming wounded in the process. After the war he took up a farm under a returned soldiers' land scheme. In 1927, Alley gave up farming and went to China. As he told his sister Gwen, there was a war on, and 'War is the only thing I know anything about.'41 On arrival in Shanghai, instead of the military work that he had initially sought, Alley found employment in the Fire Service of the International Settlement. From this he soon branched out into factory inspection, as a means to earn extra money. What Alley saw in the factories of Shanghai in the late 1920s and 1930s would influence his thinking, and led him to make a lasting commitment to working to improve living conditions in his country of adoption. At the outbreak of the Japanese War in China in 1937, Alley joined with a group of Chinese and foreigners in setting up the industrial co-operative movement (CIC) as a means to deal with the refugee problem. As symbolic leader of CIC, Alley became an internationally renowned humanitarian figure. In 1945 he took the job of headmaster of the Shandan Bailie School, a technical training school within the co-operative movement. He continued to have a high international profile and much of CIC's international fund-raising was centred on his work at Shandan. After 1948 when UNRRA42 pulled out of China, the main sponsor of CIC was the Council of Relief Services and Organisations (CORSO), the New Zealand aid organization. In 1949, Alley announced his support for the Chinese communist government, receiving much coverage in his home country. Whereas in the past Alley had been discreet about politics, he now openly stated that he was an admirer of the CCR Alley asked friends and family to send him copies of articles which reported his political views.43 After the Korean War broke out, Alley joined with the other foreign teachers at the school in writing an open letter of support to American POWs who had publicly denounced 'the American invasion in Korea'; it was published widely in the Western world.44 He later spoke out in support of Chinese allegations that the US was using germ weapons in Korea and Northern China. Copies of everything that was published by or about Alley were kept on his security file at the school.45 This was important as evidence of his stance on 'New China'. In New China everything was on 'new' terms and everyone's position had to be renegotiated. Foreigners who wished to stay had to prove their revolutionary credentials. In addition to the letters and articles he sent to 92 ANN-MARIE BRADY be published in New Zealand, Alley published pro-CCP poems written prior to 1949, in order to convince his supporters that he genuinely approved of the party and had done so for some time.46 It was important to his future credibility to prove that this dramatic change in political profile was not a recent one. Alley and Burchett gave joint broadcasts on Peking Radio on 13 April 1951 in a shortwave message to Australia and New Zealand about life in New China. The broadcasts were recorded and passed on to the New Zealand Ministry of Defence by 'concerned citizens'.47 In his broadcast, Alley warned New Zealanders of the 'disastrous results' if New Zealand continued to be an American puppet: 'Slavish following of America would mean being dragged into one adventure after another, all for the purpose of enslaving foreign people on the Hitler pattern to American commercial power'48 Regarding a Press editorial on recent purges in China he railed: 'It is interesting to see the disregard for truth and relative facts it displays. In all the years of the imperialist-supported KMT there was no note of anger in the big papers of solid, comfortable countries like New Zealand. The probable 10 million progressive people who perished in the 23 years political struggle for China's liberation, the thousands of millions who died in often man-made famines did not evoke your disgust and indignation.'49 Notwithstanding Alley's public support for the Chinese government, CIC's major donor, CORSO, continued to assert that Alley was not a communist, and indeed had strong links to the former Nationalist government and to missionary organizations in China. In 1951, 20% of all CORSO funds were directed towards Alley's school, and it could not afford to alienate New Zealand donors. In a newspaper report, the chairman of CORSO stated:

[Alley] was appointed national organiser of the Villages Co-op ... by General Chiang Kaishek himself, and still remains chief adviser to the Government on co-ops. The school for training leaders, to which Mr Alley is now giving his whole time, was conceived by one missionary, begun by another, and corresponds closely to missionary initiated co-op enterprises in India and elsewhere ... the idea of permanently raising the standard of living of China's millions of farmers by helping them to form small-scale industries is regarded in some quarters as a barrier to communism, in that it transforms misery and unemployment into security and shared ownership.50

Alley's close friend and editor, Shirley Barton, counselled him on how to adjust to the new political situation. Barton was particularly concerned about the necessary reconstruction of Alley's public image — from apolitical humanitarian to outspoken supporter of communism. She advised: 'I would agree that you should continue the blunt, outspoken line which is natural to you and which you have already started, but merely cut out in your writings anything which would suggest that you have been an underground communist all along and deceived those who gave support to CIC and Shandan by pretending you were a neutral humanitarian and not "political". This idea, that you deceived them into "aiding communism", (in their language) would antagonise many.'51 Barton worried that Alley's overseas supporters might think that he had become a communist under duress or for opportunist reasons. She encouraged him to write that 'your experience through these many years of working in China and seeing the evils under colonial-imperialism ... has led you bit by bit to realise THE CURIOUS CASE OF TWO AUSTRALASIAN 'TRAITORS' 93 that a radical change had to come' ,52 The new tack in his public image did not come easily to Alley and his letters at this time reflect the despair he felt. On 11 and 12 June 1952, Alley read a speech on Peking Radio criticizing New Zealand's participation in the Korean War, a speech which was broadcast to Australia and New Zealand. Alley stated:

New Zealand as part of Australasia, can have only one real interest, and that interest must be for peace, and the security she needs to develop herself. To have a lasting peace in New Zealand there must be a just peace in Asia. Factual, geographical links of our country with Asia makes that an imperative necessity. Yet the recognition of that necessity is too often obliterated by considerations that would link New Zealand only with the old Europe, instead of with our immediate neighbours whose destiny must finally be our destiny ... there are economic and cultural links that can be forged to bring the peoples of Asia and Pacific together and make for a new base for understanding . . . New Zealanders must ask themselves: 'Why have the old militarists been brought back in Japan? Why are the Japanese people's organisations suppressed? What may that mean to New Zealand? Why do Americans oppose a settlement in Korea, while giving it lip service? Who wants to kill whom? Who wants to make money by war?5-1

Alley's comments on New Zealand's relationship to Asia seem reasonable in the current political and economic climate, where even conservative governments have made the claim that New Zealand is a part of Asia. Indeed, his views seem visionary when one considers how intertwined the New Zealand economy has become with its Asian partners. But this shift only came about when New Zealand's favoured relationship with British markets was cut off after Great Britain entered the European Community. In 1952, Alley's comments were regarded by the New Zealand government as radical and dangerous: in that year New Zealand was closely tied to the US and its foreign policy through the UKUSA and ANZUS security agreements and was soon to sign SEATO; it engaged in an undeclared war against the communist countries of China and North Korea through its participation in the UN forces in Korea; McCarthyite communist hysteria was in full swing in the US. As an obedient member of the Western alliance, New Zealand could not afford to step out of line and publicly question why former Japanese militarists were being re-armed or why New Zealand was fighting a war in Korea.54 Alley's opinions on China and New Zealand-China relations had weight in New Zealand at this time. Many New Zealanders did not feel comfortable with the idea of being part of a close military alliance with the US. They believed that US militarism was as much a threat as Soviet militarism. A writer to the Press in Christchurch, Alley's home , signing him/herself 'Not a Communist', responded to Alley's earlier comments: 'It is a relief to see that some New Zealanders and men of other countries have the common sense and broad outlook to "denounce the American invasion of Korea". Who can grasp the Korean campaign better than the world famous Rewi Alley?... And for those who will say that this Chinese report is propaganda, it is no more propaganda than any exhortatory American report.'55 Another writer commented: 'To this student of current affairs most of the news we get about China is obviously influenced by the Dollar Barbarians and such as Rewi Alley can put fresh air into the sewer gas'.56 The letters supporting Alley's viewpoint on China and the Korean War 94 ANN-MARIE BRADY outweighed those opposing it. If he was to have a role under the new regime, this was just the sort of support that would help him to achieve it. Alley's associate, Courtney Archer, travelled back to New Zealand in mid-1952 to drum up support for the Asia-Pacific Peace Conference to be held in Peking in October that year. At the same time Archer did his best to introduce Alley's new image to the New Zealand public. Archer's views were reported favourably by the New Zealand Communist Party (NZCP) paper People's Voice, less so by other papers. Archer wrote to Barton, still in China at this time, 'We asked the Auckland papers if they were interested in a story and they said NO. There is a blanket of silence over all peace work in this country.'57 Archer's statement, 'Rewi Alley's 25 year struggle for the betterment of the Chinese race has found embodiment in the present People's Government',58 fitted in well with standard communist party tactics to get hitherto apolitical public figures to espouse the revolutionary cause. Alley and his perceived close links with the CCP would be an important connection for the NZCP in the future. The New Zealand government was concerned about Alley's influence on New Zealand public opinion. Alley's criticism of New Zealand's participation in the Korean War was a threat to the nation's new security arrangements. Yet the government could not afford to oppose him directly, since as late as December 1951, they had allocated £4,000 to the Shandan school and on many occasions had endorsed Alley's work in China. In mid-1952 the government was still debating whether or not to send more money to the school.59 It was only when CORSO's representative in China informed its New Zealand office that the school was now being fully supported by the Chinese government that the organization decided to stop sending money to China. All other international aid to the school had stopped after the Korean War began.60 The New Zealand government had benefited from the favourable international attention that 'Rewi's school' at Shandan and his work with CIC had brought to New Zealand in the past 15 years. In 1951, a senior diplomat had advised the government with regard to the CORSO assistance to Alley and Alley's criticism of New Zealand's participation in the war in Korea: 'I don't think there is anything we can do, unless it be discourage CORSO activities in China, and I don't see why we should do that' ,61 The government's concern with public image played a part in its leniency but, compared to some of the extremist politicians in Australia and the , it also took a relatively tolerant attitude to the threat of international communism.62 The comments of Ronald Algie, Minister in Charge of Broadcasting, to Fintan Patrick Walsh, President of the New Zealand Federation of Labour, in 1953 typify the government's position. Algie wrote: 'the best way I know for helping our people to reject communist philosophy is not to turn one's back upon it but to get it out into the open and meet it with the better way of life we have been lucky enough to inherit'63 The government had to be mindful of the popular support that Alley enjoyed in New Zealand. In the 1940s and 1950s, he was a folk hero and his work in China had much support and prestige. Shirley Barton described the attitude of New Zealanders to Alley's support for the germ warfare allegations in a letter to a New Zealand fundraiser. As a Peace Council member in Christchurch had written to her: 'Rewi is just about worshipped by the workers here.' The Christchurch students' newspaper had reprinted a Chinese article on germ warfare THE CURIOUS CASE OF TWO AUSTRALASIAN 'TRAITORS' 95 on their front page, and reported that Rewi Alley, 'the great New Zealander', testified the charges were true. In the words of a worker at a peace meeting: 'If Rewi Alley believes that germ warfare is being used by the Americans, I believe it too!' Barton concluded that the New Zealand government was 'in rather an amusing spot there, having built up Rewi for years as a "great humanitarian" and given big material support during the relief years, so cannot very well refuse him a hearing now and still claim to be unprejudiced. Moreover he has a number of very respectable relatives in educational positions and comes of a well-known middle-class pioneering family. Anyhow these contradictions can be made good use of by the peace movement and they are busy making hay.'64 Commenting on an editorial in the Press on 20 June 1952 regarding Alley's claims of germ warfare in Korea, Barton wrote to him: 'They are much too clever to denounce you as a "communist agitator" as some have done. This might alienate and sow doubt in the minds of many people in New Zealand who have been taught to regard you as a man of integrity. So they leave you your "humanitarian" reputation, and even "intelligence" This attitude would be very convincing to the average New Zealand reader unless he had a factual answer on each point.'65 Even the arch-conservative, pro-British Empire organization the Legion of Frontiersmen (of which Alley had once been a member) turned down a remit to dissociate itself from Alley's pro-communist statements because, they said: 'He may think his school is of supreme importance, and we do not know in effect whether he made those broadcasts with a pistol at his back' Nevertheless, Alley's support for the Chinese intervention in the Korean War and his support for germ warfare allegations were taken more seriously by the New Zealand government than his earlier declaration of support for the new Chinese government. At first it was said that Alley had made his statements on germ warfare 'under compulsion'. Some observers speculated that he had either been impersonated, or brainwashed, or perhaps was not quite in touch with events, living in a remote part of China.67 All these claims were emphatically refuted by Alley: he stated publicly that he had not written under any compulsion other than his own heart, and that he was well aware of what was going on in the world.68 The Publicity and Information Division of the Department of Tourism and Publicity reported to the government the alarming news that a survey conducted in had demonstrated that many people were more likely to believe Alley's viewpoint on germ warfare in Korea than they were to accept the governement's denials.69 This Orwellian division of the department was responsible for providing the government with information on communism, peace movements and other 'subversive-type' activities. It also provided disinformation, often received from British or American sources, which New Zealand newspapers were asked to print without the source being disclosed. The division watched closely the activities of Alley's associate Archer, who, a report stated, had returned to New Zealand with the purpose of trying to 'build up Rewi Alley and use Rewi Alley's attitude to the communist government in China, which is one of admiration, as proof of the goodness of the communists'.70 The New Zealand government was seriously concerned by the germ warfare allegations and the threat they posed to the credibility of New Zealand's involvement in the Korean War. A report was prepared for the government entitled 'Germ Warfare: Reasons for Disbelieving Communist Propaganda'.71 96 ANN-MARIE BRADY

That the government found it necessary to commission such a report implies some within the administration did not completely accept US refutations. The government believed that the use of Alley's name in the germ warfare allegations was a united front tactic of the NZCP, which used influential non-communist figures to represent communist party goals.72 One report concluded that: 'In fact, it would be true to say that the remarkable progress the campaign has made in New Zealand has been mainly due, first to the build-up given to Rewi Alley, and then to the use that has been made of him'.73 Another report commented that Alley's broadcasts on Peking Radio (reported in the New Zealand press on 17 June 1952) gave considerable impetus to the campaign, since 'many, relying on Mr Alley's reputation as an outstanding welfare worker and politically disinterested, believe it unlikely he will lend himself to further a communist hoax'.74 Analysts in the Publicity and Information Division claimed that the united front on the peace movement was controlled by the international communist movement.75 Although the government's primary concern was with the activities of the New Zealand Communist Party, Alley became a target because his name was being used to influence the public. In response to what the Publicity and Information Division called the 'communist challenge to democracy', the government began to take a more forceful approach. The question of whether Alley and other 'communists' within New Zealand could be accused of treason for their support of the forces against the United Nations in the Korean War was considered.76 It was rejected, however, probably because the move would have been too unpopular. Instead the government began a disinformation campaign against Alley and those who were opposed to the government's foreign policy. Anti-communist material from the British Foreign Office was passed on to New Zealand papers, without the source being disclosed. Editors of New Zealand's major newspapers participated willingly in the anti-Alley campaign. The main newspaper in Christchurch, where support for him had been strongest, likened Alley's activities for the Chinese to the work of Goebbels for the Nazis and called him 'a Moscow agent on a propaganda mission' ,77 The conservative Otago Daily Times, which also printed the student newspaper Critic, admitted censoring an issue which had outlined germ warfare allegations and included a letter from Alley, as well as an editorial which referred to Alley as a 'great New Zealander' ,78 An unofficial ban on mentioning Alley's name on radio operated for a time, as Barton discovered when she returned to New Zealand and tried to publicize Alley's views.79 After 1952, Alley settled into life in Peking as a professional 'friend of China' and 'worker for peace'. He was nominally the New Zealand representative on the Peking-based Asia-Pacific Peace Council. His role was to champion New China to the Western world through his writing and participation in the international peace movement.80 Like Burchett, Alley was initially on the 'supply system', whereby his basic needs were provided. As the economy stabilized, Alley, along with other foreigners who worked for the CCP government, was given a generous salary and comfortable apartment. He had a 'Peking Citizen's Certificate', an internal passport, which he could use as a travelling document.81 As he had not returned to New Zealand since 1937, presumably his previous travel papers had expired.82 When he did finally apply for a THE CURIOUS CASE OF TWO AUSTRALASIAN 'TRAITORS' 97 in 1956, Alley experienced no difficulty in having his travel documents regularly renewed by the New Zealand authorities, unlike Burchett.81 The New Zealand government position on the issue of passports was stated in a paper from the Department of Internal Affairs in 1955, the year Burchett was first denied his . Internal Affairs opposed a proposal that the Department of External Affairs should make decisions on the issue and renewal of passports. An official commented:

A passport is merely a document purporting to establish identity and of the bearer issued for the purpose of travelling outside New Zealand .... It is in no way a certificate of good character ... the issue of a passport to a New Zealand citizen is not a diplomatic act of the Government of New Zealand, but an act of the New Zealand Government towards a New Zealand citizen to facilitate the private purposes of that citizen.84

An earlier test of New Zealand's stance on a citizen's democratic right to hold independent views from the government and express them publicly was the aforementioned Asia-Pacific Peace Conference in Peking in 1952. While the Australian government banned Australians from attending the conference, the New Zealand government made no attempt to prevent its citizens attending.85 From 1955 on, New Zealand citizens were able to participate in Friendship Delegations to China (at that time the only means available for most foreigners to visit there), with little interference from the government. A 1960 SEATO report noted that in New Zealand, unlike its close allies the US and Australia, 'No measures exist to restrict or discourage travel to communist countries'.86 The New Zealand government was kept informed by its American and British allies of Alley's activities both within China and in other countries.87 A US activist, Alfred Kohlberg, well known for his involvement in the pro-Republic of China (Taiwan) 'China Lobby', asked the government to do something to stop Alley's propaganda work. The New Zealand ambassador to Washington wrote:

[Mr Kohlberg] is not the type who appreciates the fact that the New Zealand government has no control over the utterances of Mr Rewi Alley and much less responsible for them. Mr Kohlberg is quite capable of communicating to some Senate committee the poems of Mr Alley and of alleging, if he receives no further communication from me, that the Government of New Zealand has taken no steps to repudiate the sentiments of those poems.88

The Secretary of External Affairs was cool to such pressure. The government politely replied to Kohlberg's request with a reminder of New Zealand's full support for, and participation in, the Korean War.89 Despite official opprobrium for Alley's views, there was strong support for Alley in New Zealand government circles, especially in the Labour party. MPs John A. Lee, Ormond Wilson, Warren Freer, and , among others, all spoke in support of Alley and his stance on China. Lee wrote, 'Rewi Alley is making amends in part for the stupid New Zealand government which refuses to recognise the New China, as if shutting one's eyes tightly obliterated the fact that a 200 year unalterable [sic] has fallen and that a people are building a new 98 ANN-MARIE BRADY normal'.90 Ormond Wilson travelled to China in 1956 with the first Friendship Delegation to visit from New Zealand; he later helped Alley to obtain his New Zealand passport.91 Through his brother Geoff, who was Chief Librarian of the National Library and a National party supporter. Alley also had very good connections with National governments.92 A.D. Mcintosh, founding Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, was a close friend of Geoff Alley and, as he wrote in a letter to Rewi Alley, was greatly appreciative of Alley's work in China.93 Notes on the MFAT files on Alley and CORSO reveal strong support and respect for Alley among diplomats in the 1940s and 1950s. Sir Joseph Heenan, Under-Secretary in the Department of Internal Affairs (the department responsible for issuing passports) supported Alley's work.94 The New Zealand government continued to give out mixed signals to Alley and those who advocated the recognition of the People's Republic of China throughout the 1950s and 1960s. In 1960, on Alley's first visit home after 23 years away, the SIS kept tabs on him, while Alister Mcintosh invited him to give a private talk on China to New Zealand diplomats.95 Alley's knowledge of conditions in China both before and after 1949 were still appreciated in his country of birth, even if his political views were not. The New Zealand government's leniency towards Alley is all the more outstanding when one considers the treatment that some other Westerners who wrote in support of the communist side in the Cold War received from their governments. Burchett's companion at Kaesong, the British journalist Winnington, was declared a traitor by his government and denied a passport for more than 20 years. He wrote in his memoirs, 'I hardly needed to be told . . . that American rancour was behind this petulant act' .96 The US government was equally hostile to its own citizens who had criticized US foreign policy — journalists Bill and Sylvia Powell and Julian Schuman were accused of treason for nothing more than publishing the Shanghai-based China Weekly Review. After 1949, the Review featured idealized portraits of life in New China; both Burchett and Alley wrote articles for it. It was not an influential journal, but the temerity of its editors in opposing US foreign policy was enough to provoke the hostility of the McCarthyites. The charges against the Powells and Schuman were eventually dropped, but only after a lengthy and expensive public trial. The comments of Ormond Wilson give some insights into the reasons for the New Zealand government's equivocal stance:

Once we had blindly followed Britain, right or wrong. After the war, it seemed to me, we were blindly following the United States and thus became enmeshed in the hysteria of American anti-communism which influenced its foreign as well as its domestic policy. I was convinced that communism was no more monolithic than capitalism or Christianity. I was confident that China would go her own way, not Moscow's .... By contrast I saw the policies of Moscow and Washington as mirror images of one another, both obsessed by the theory that political allegiance required an ideological basis, and both convinced that its own security depended on gaining allies with political systems identical with its own. Outside the United States, in those post-war years, only committed communists still based their faith on Stalin's . Elsewhere, radicals might turn to such emerging leaders as , Che Guevara and . For myself, it was from Mao and his China that I hoped the most.97 THE CURIOUS CASE OF TWO AUSTRALASIAN 'TRAITORS' 99

One of the results of popular frustration within New Zealand with the policy of 'blindly following' the US in the Cold War era was that the diplomatic recognition of the PRC became a cause cêlêbre.9S In the early 1950s the National government had considered recognition, but was thwarted by the United States' intransigence on the issue. Prior to a meeting in 1953 with the US ambassador to New Zealand, the National government's Minister of External Affairs, T. Clifton Webb, wrote that it was better not to delay recognition of the PRC, as this would 'only serve to strengthen the ties that unhappily exist between communist China and the USSR'. Webb advocated 'making every effort to detach Peking from Moscow', and argued that the Chinese communists should be taken 'on trust'. He believed it was not correct to assume that the Chinese were completely subservient to 'communist Russia'. However, after Webb met the US ambassador, New Zealand foreign officials stated: 'The US Government earnestly hopes that the question of Chinese representation in UN bodies will not be raised by countries outside the Soviet bloc'.99 But pressure grew on the two leading political parties in New Zealand to make the recognition of China part of their party platform. In 1958 the Labour Prime Minister Walter Nash wrote to Alley's brother Pip (who shared his older brother's political views and was a vocal critic of New Zealand foreign policy in this era) that he was willing to recognize the PRC.100 Nash's desire to take a more independent stance in New Zealand's foreign policy was eventually dulled, however, by further pressure from Washington and . A memo from the then New Zealand ambassador in Washington commented in 1966: 'All New Zealand governments since 1950 have recognised that on this question the attitude of the United States is, and must be, the most important factor. And having in the last few years gone to considerable lengths to strengthen our relations with the United States, it would seem to me unwise for us to place those relations in jeopardy by supporting an initiative for which the US was opposed unless our own vital interests required it."01 Consequently, until 1971, when US President Nixon would decide for 'geopolitical' reasons that it was time to recognize the former foe, New Zealand suborned its national interest to the domestic concerns of its American ally. In December 1972, the Labour governments of New Zealand and Australia finally established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. The decision to recognize the PRC came about mainly as a result of the US- China rapprochement, but it was also an important part of the election manifesto of both newly elected governments. Once the US government changed its policy on China, its allies were free to establish relations with Peking. On 5 December 1972 the Whitlam government announced its intention to seek 'immediate negotiations' with Peking's representatives in Paris to establish recognition.102 Soon afterwards the Kirk government in New Zealand instructed its diplomats to do the same with Peking's representatives in New York. The year 1972 marked the end of an era, and as diplomats continually reminded the New Zealand government in the 1970s and early 1980s, New Zealand needed to give some indication that the 'old era' was over and that it was taking a new, 'essentially humanitarian' position on international relations.103 The commemoration of Alley in some form was seen as an ideal means to demonstrate this attitude.104 The Australian government was fully aware of the 100 ANN-MARIE BRADY

usefulness of Alley to New Zealand. Gary Woodward, Australian ambassador to China, wrote: 'It is generally accepted that Australia was not on the Chinese leadership's map when political contacts were opened in 1972. We had no equivalent of Rewi Alley or Dr Norman Bethune'.105 The Australian diplomat and academic Dr Stephen Fitzgerald told New Zealand foreign affairs officials in 1972 that he regarded Alley as 'New Zealand's greatest asset in China'.106 That Australia would ignore its own 'Rewi Alley or Dr Norman Bethune' figure, Wilfred Burchett, when reworking relations with the PRC would seem extraordinary if one did not know Burchett's bitter history in the Australian political world. The problem with commemorating Burchett, moreover, was that unlike Alley or Bethune, he truly was an independent figure and for political reasons, Peking was unlikely to select him as a symbol of desirable Australian- Chinese relations. Hence Burchett's 'political contacts' with China and other socialist countries did not lead to his political rehabilitation in Australia after 1972. Antagonism to Burchett was still strong in Australia. In response to a request from Burchett in 1970 to attend his brother's funeral in Melbourne, Prime Minister replied, 'Cabinet has decided that the government will do nothing either to grant Mr Burchett an Australian passport or to facilitate his travel in any other way'.107 A Gallup poll in the same year found that 41 % of Australians surveyed said Burchett should be issued with a passport, while 37% said 'Don't issue one', and 22% were undecided.108 Although one of the first acts of the Whitlam government in 1972 was to restore Burchett's Australian travel papers, by no means was Burchett forgiven, exonerated or even publicly apologized to for being denied his passport for so long. The public enmity against Burchett would continue for many more years: he died in , , an undeclared bankrupt. Brigadier B.J. Greville wrote in the Pacific Defence Reporter of his 'satisfaction' at hearing the news of Burchett's death.109 Controversy over the 'Burchett case' surfaced after his death when two Australian academics, Gavan McCormack and Robert Manne, waged a war of words over his reputation. While McCormack referred to Burchett as 'Australia's Dreyfus',110 Manne insisted Burchett was a traitor.111 In the United States, after the Sino-American rapprochement, Burchett's political contacts were recognized by some, although antagonism continued. When Burchett visited the US in 1972 to meet Kissinger and Nixon to advise them on dealing with China, a US Defence Department report recommended that he should be deported back to Australia 'for appropriate criminal action in their courts'."2 As in Australia, Burchett was loathed by some, admired by others. In 1977 he applied for a visa to lecture in the US. The Department of State found him ineligible for a visa 'under Section 212 (a) (28) of the Immigration and Nationality Act for membership in a communist party and written advocacy of communist causes'; however, this was waived and a visa issued. The Department of State commented on the accusations of 'brainwashing' of US prisoners of war and being a KGB agent: 'We have no evidence that Mr Burchett is guilty of these actions'.113 In contrast, Alley's fate after the diplomatic recognition of China was more honourable. The notion that he was an asset for New Zealand in China, rather than a liability, led to a new role for him, that of symbol of the renewed New Zealand-China relationship. China was also in need of improving its image in THE CURIOUS CASE OF TWO AUSTRALASIAN 'TRAITORS' 101

New Zealand and Alley was the figure it selected. From China's perspective, Alley's obedience and loyalty to the twists and turns of CCP politics was a fitting symbol of the style of foreign relations it hoped to have with New Zealand. New Zealand diplomats urged the government to find a means to commemorate Alley in order to make the connection more concrete. A Waikato University request for assistance to set up a Rewi Alley scholarship was repeatedly turned down by Labour and National governments. Both were uncomfortable with Alley's political background, though they acknowledged the value of the connection for New Zealand. A Ministry of Foreign Affairs report commented in 1977 that 'the Labour government, still under some fire for the speed and manner of their recognition of the PRC, were not keen to go too far in acknowledging the work of Rewi Alley, still a controversial figure in New Zealand'.114 As late as 1980 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs felt it necessary to remind Prime Minister Robert Muldoon that 'Rewi Alley is the only New Zealander who has committed his whole life to China and its people .... China has honoured Rewi Alley as it has honoured only a handful of foreigners. It would seem appropriate that New Zealand should do something to recognise his achievements and his peculiar role in our relations with the People's Republic."" Muldoon remained unconvinced, however — at the bottom of the memo he scribbled his opinion: 'I have some doubts as things change from time to time over there'.116 Muldoon's response was indicative of the New Zealand government's general policy and the attitude is reflected repeatedly in the hefty files on Alley in the archives of the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and interviews that the author conducted during the 1990s with New Zealand diplomats. This self-serving policy was characterized, in the first place, by a cynicism towards Alley's work in China and the esteem in which he was held by the Chinese; second, by doubt about the intrinsic value of the Alley connection; and third, by the view that New Zealand would only commemorate Alley so long as the Chinese continued to do so. The esteem with which Alley had formerly been held in New Zealand in government circles in the 1940s and 1950s had gradually ebbed, as those who knew him or his family retired or died. Although by 1972 New Zealand Foreign Affairs officials recognized that Alley was an 'asset' for New Zealand in its dealings with the People's Republic, in the eyes of diplomats of later years, his once-outstanding reputation had become tarnished by decades of pro-communist apologia. To most, whether in 1972 or 2001, having Alley as a symbol of New Zealand-China relations continues to be a source of private embarrassment and disdain. It is only perpetuated because of Chinese insistence on commemorating the role of foreign friends in the Chinese revolution. But in the early years of the New Zealand-PRC rapprochement even cautious politicians and disdainful diplomats recognized that it was advantageous to acknowledge Alley's role in some way. When the Rewi Alley Scholarship in Chinese Studies was instituted at Waikato University in 1977, the government, despite some doubts, was willing to use it to promote closer relations. A ceremony was held to mark the occasion at the New Zealand Embassy in Peking as a means 'to associate the Chinese authorities in Peking with the scholarship'.117 Alley himself was reluctant to accept awards outside China. In 1972 he was 102 ANN-MARIE BRADY persuaded to accept an honorary doctorate from Wellington's University only after the NZCP told him it would be 'good for the cause'."8 Finally, in 1984, he accepted an award that was exclusive to New Zealand, the Queen's Service Medal. With the election of a Labour government in late 1984, the pace of New Zealand-China relations stepped up as the new government saw hope for expanding export markets in the Chinese economy. The Labour government made trade the predominant element in its foreign policy, and in 1988 it emphasized this by changing the name of the government department responsible for foreign policy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to the Ministry of External Relations and Trade. Asia, in particular China, was seen as an obvious new market for New Zealand products. Consequently, the government was only too willing to make use of Alley as a symbolic figure in New Zealand's so-called 'special relationship' with China, if it meant more trade. The change in emphasis was reflected in an update of the New Zealand government's pre-prepared obituary for Alley. Rather than stress the 'friendship' between New Zealanders and Chinese that Alley had helped to foster, the new 'obituary' stated that: 'In honouring [Alley's] memory, New Zealand can look forward to even closer and more broad-ranging friendly relations with the Chinese people from all walks of life.,m Unlike Muldoon, Labour Prime Minister and his Minister of Overseas Trade, Mike Moore, made a point of being photographed with Alley when they visited China. While speech notes from the visits to China of ministers of the previous National government were noticeably lacking in mentions of Alley,120 Labour ministers made a point of drawing attention to Alley's work and his connection with New Zealand. Mike Moore's call on Madame Chen Muhua, Minister of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade, in 1984, was a typical example. In his prepared speech, Moore linked New Zealand's trade interests with Alley's work for the Chinese:

I now have the honour of leading the largest ever trade delegation to leave New Zealand shores, and this Madame Chen is a measure of our intent to boost the level of our involvement in your great and expanding economy to the mutual benefit of both countries. Of course, New Zealand already has a significant presence in China in the form of our dear friend Rewi Alley who has worked so selflessly in your country and has brought a warmth to our relationship that is unique.121

It was in China's interest as much as it was in New Zealand's to maintain the idea that there was a 'special relationship' between the two countries. Two years after Alley's death in Peking, fêted as the 'bridge-builder' of New Zealand- Chinese relations,122 the notion of a 'special relationship' died a rapid death. The events of 4 June 1989 ensured that New Zealand politicians dissociated themselves from the brutality of the Chinese government.

Were Wilfred Burchett and Rewi Alley 'traitors', brave visionaries, or dupes? And why did they receive such differing treatment from their respective countries? The demonization of Burchett and the mythologization of Alley tells us much about the national aspirations and identities of both nations. Both Burchett and Alley were self-educated men in the tradition of New Zealand and THE CURIOUS CASE OF TWO AUSTRALASIAN 'TRAITORS' 103

Australia's early pioneers. Both grew up in liberal families. Both lived in exile from their home countries but maintained their national identity. Both took the communist side in the Cold War, though maintaining that they were 'independent'. Both men were guilty of presenting a rosy view of communism, both wrote in an emotive way that is alien to what in the West is considered the standard of 'objective reporting'. The differences between the lives of the two men are as marked as the similarities. Alley's writing followed the twists and turns of the foreign and domestic policy of the CCP from 1949, whereas Burchett was never solely identified with one country. Alley was regarded as a hero in New Zealand in the early years of the Cold War, even within the New Zealand government. Burchett was described as being a traitor; he was an outcast in Australian society. Alley's family was highly respected in New Zealand society; the Burchett family was spied on. Burchett was accused of being the agent of a foreign enemy government; the evidence given was that he wore cadre-type clothing and arrived every day at the Korean peace talks in a Russian make of jeep. Yet Alley, who lived in China, was paid by the Chinese to write, and in the 1950s also wore a cadre-type uniform, was never accused of being an agent. Alley's passport was renewed with the personal assistance of a New Zealand government minister; Burchett was denied his for 17 years. While Alley joined the New Zealand Communist Party in 1960, Burchett always considered himself a 'liberal'. Alley, even when a target of opprobrium in New Zealand, was a hero to the majority of his compatriots. Burchett, in contrast, was generally regarded as a pariah and villain by his fellow Australians. Why were there differences in their experiences? According to New Zealand public opinion, Alley had long been a 'folk hero', and the Alley family had close links to leading figures in the New Zealand bureaucracy and government. The Burchett family, in contrast, had been under suspicion by the government from the 1930s, and they were regarded as 'sinister'. Both places suffer from anti-intellectualism, but in New Zealand there was pride in the achievements of 'an ordinary New Zealander', schooled in the New Zealand bush. Burchett's intellectual achievements were neither recognized nor appreciated. Alley was primarily pro-China, while Burchett's sympathy was for the 'underdog', rather than any particular country or ideology. Alley's commitment to China, however, was not for ideological reasons; therefore he was able to be flexible when policies changed in China. This flexibility made it easier for the New Zealand government to see him as an asset in its dealings with the PRC. Burchett eventually became alienated from all but one of the communist countries that he had previously supported. His relationships with the leaders of these countries were not utilized by successive Australian governments, but, had they been prepared to make use of it, his insider's knowledge could have been useful. The picture of the experiences of the two men provides a particularly unflattering portrait of the Australian government, following US foreign policy in preference to the rights of its own citizens. But how could Burchett be considered a traitor to Australia when the war was between the United Nations and the North Koreans, and, indeed, war was never declared? The answer to this is that the Australian defence establishment in the Cold War era did not distinguish between Australia and the United States in terms of who were its 104 ANN-MARIE BRADY enemies. The priority of the Australian defence establishment, and the government at the time, was the alliance with the US. Burchett aroused the ire of the Menzies government by promoting germ warfare claims and taking an opposite stance on the UN forces in Korea. The experiences of Burchett and Alley reveal the tensions within the strategic alliance between New Zealand, Australia and the US. These tensions demonstrate differences in outlook, reflecting the sizeable difference in cultures between the three countries. It is not a clear-cut case of 'New Zealand was secretly pro- China' and 'Australia was rabidly pro-US'; politics are never so simple. But there were palpable differences in the stance of the two countries, although outwardly the policy on China and support for the US alliance was identical. There was a remarkably different level of enthusiasm for the Cold War in New Zealand and Australia. I would argue, first, that as a medium-sized power, Australia has pretensions to global-sized influence to which New Zealand does not aspire. Australia also has a tradition of a confrontational political culture, which encourages a parallel style of personal politics. There is also a deep conservatism: Australia has a tradition of strong antagonism towards communism, both at home and abroad.123 Many of Australia's conservative leaders have responded favourably to the goals and aspirations of the US, as well as much of its culture. Alan Renouf argued convincingly in The Frightened Country that:

The advent of the [Korean] war fitted admirably the foreign policy of the Australian Government of the day. It provided convincing evidence of the government's thesis of the aggressive nature of 'international Communism'. It also provided convincing evidence that such aggression could easily occur in the region of greatest concern to Australia from the standpoint of security. Once the US had decided to resist the aggression, it provided the Government with an outstanding opportunity to improve Australian relations with the US and to improve the prospects of obtaining a formal American guarantee of Australia's security.'124

Once Australia hitched its wagon to US security interests in the Cold War era, it was impossible to retreat from that position. Close alliance with the US provided the government with both cheap defence and a high international profile, which suited its medium-sized power pretensions. Gavan McCormack's comment in 1983, that 'the deepest strand of Australian political consensus remains as it was in 1950: the commitment to follow the world and regional leadership of the United States',125 seems all the more apt after the signing of the US-Australian Defence Treaty in 1996. It would take a radical shift in political consciousness in Australia for Burchett to be acknowledged in his own land, let alone to be hailed as a hero. In contrast, New Zealand is a small power with a strong tradition of independence and idealism in both foreign and domestic policy. New Zealand's first diplomats were led by strong individuals such as Carl Berendsen and , who set a tradition in New Zealand's foreign policy of 'speaking of principle' and 'thundering uninhibitedly about the rights of small nations'.126 Though a small country with a tiny population, New Zealanders have managed remarkably well to set their mark on the world through bold politics, economics (acting in one era as a model for the social welfare system, in another as a THE CURIOUS CASE OF TWO AUSTRALASIAN 'TRAITORS' 105 model for the untrammelled market) and, of course, sport. The belief in these achievements and the desire to acquire more, has created a strong tradition of individualism. Unlike Australia, there is a strong sense of anti-Americanism in New Zealand, in particular a disdain for American culture.127 An article outlining the history of New Zealand-Chinese relations written in 1986 by former New Zealand ambassador to China, Chris Elder, and then head of the North Asia Division in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Mike Green, describes the period from 1950-1972 as 'The Wasted Years'.128 Elder and Green write: 'out of its perception of the role of a loyal ally, New Zealand was drawn more and more closely into a process about which it had serious and increasing reservations and which it sought, unsuccessfully, to divert into more constructive channels.'129 The reservations New Zealand politicians and officials felt about certain aspects of US foreign policy are revealed in the response to Alley's high-profile support for the PRC and criticism of New Zealand foreign policy during those 'wasted years'. The high respect in which Alley was held in the 1940s and 1950s meant that government figures were disinclined to attack him publicly, and many of them even sympathized with his views on China. Though they debated the issue behind closed doors, they took no public action on his behaviour, and indeed even facilitated the renewal of Alley's passport, enabling him to continue his propaganda activities on an international level. It was a form of passive resistance to American anti-communist hysteria and to US control of New Zealand foreign policy in the Cold War era, and a position remarkably different from New Zealand's closest ally and defence partner, Australia. ANNE-MARIE BRADY Lund University, 106 ANN-MARIE BRADY

NOTES

*I am grateful to Gavan McCormack for allowing me access to his extensive collection of papers relating to Wilfred Burchett, as well has his encouragement and inspiration which has helped this paper come to fruition. The research on Alley is based on my forthcoming book, Friend of China: The Myth of Rewi Alley, Curzon, 2001. 1 UKUSA, United Kingdom-United States Security Agreement. The 1948 treaty on security intelligence links the UK, the US, Australia, New Zealand and in a network of signals intelligence. ANZUS, the 1951 treaty on defence co-operation signed between Australia, New Zealand and the US, is now defunct as a result of New Zealand's non-nuclear stance since 1984. SEATO, the anti-Communist South East Asian Treaty Organization, was set up in 1954 by the Manila Treaty; the signatories were the US, UK, France, Thailand, the Philippines, Pakistan, Australia and New Zealand. It has been defunct since 1977. 2 Richard Tranter, 'Voice and Silence in the First Nuclear War: Wilfred Burchett and Hiroshima', in , ed., Burchett: Reporting From the Other Side of the World 1939-1983, London, 1986, pp. 13-40. 3 Michael R. Godley, 'The East Wind in China', in Kiernan, ed., Burchett, p. 151. 4 Wilfred Burchett, China's Feet Unbound, Melbourne, 1952. 5 'The Burchetts,' Sydney Morning Herald, 8 October 1988. 6 Wilfred Burchett to Winston Burchett, April 1951, cited in Gavan McCormack, 'The New Right and Human Rights: "Cultural Freedom" and the Burchett Affair', Meanjin, 45, 3 (1986), p.396. 7 Gavan McCormack, 'Burchett's Thirty Years' War', in Kiernan, ed., Burchett, p. 171. 8 Extract from an intercepted letter by Wilfred Burchett to Alexander Robertson, 29 February 1952, A619/XR1, item 12, National Archives of Australia (NAA), Canberra. 9 See' 'Dui Nie Rongzhen, Su Yu guanyu di ji zai Dongbei diqu sa xijun he wo fang cuoshi de baogao de piyu' (Minute to Nie Rongzhen and Su Yu Regarding the Scattering of Germs by Enemy Planes in the Northeast Region and Announcements on the Measures We Will be Taking to Deal With It), 5 March 1952, Jianguo yilai wengao Jianguo yilai Mao Zedong wengao (Mao Zedong's Writings After 1949), (13 volumes), , 1993 (hereafter JGYL), Vol. 3, p.318; 'Dui xinhuashe ziyuanjun zongfenshe shangbao de fangyi gongzuo ziliao de piyu' (Minute on Xinhua News Service Chinese People's Volunteers Central Bureau's Report on Materials Regarding Epidemic Prevention Work), 16 March 1952, JGYL, Vol.3, p.339; 'Dui Hua bei yibing fangzhi qingkuang baogao de piyu' (Minute on Report on Conditions of Epidemic Disease Prevention in Northern China), 17 March 1952, JGYL, Vol. 3, p.341. 10 'Guanyu Fushun shijiao faxian dapi kunchong deng de piyu (Minute Regarding the Discovery of Large Numbers of Insects in the Suburbs of Fushun City) 4 March 1952, JGYL, Vol.3, p.303; 'Zai Nie Rongzhen guanyu guonei fangyi gongzuo baogao shang de piyu' (Minute on Nie Rongzhen's Report Regarding National Epidemic Prevention Work), 9 March 1952, JGYL. Vol.3, p.328; interview with former waishi cadres, 26 March 1999. 11 Fensui Meiguo xijun zhan (Crush the American Bacteriological Warfare), Dongbei yixueyuan chubanshe, 1952. Harold Rigney also mentions this in Four Years in a Red Hell: The Story of Father Rigney, Chicago, 1956, p.145. 12 See 'Deceiving the Deceivers: Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, and the Allegations of Bacteriological Weapons in Korea', Cold War History Project, Bulletin 11 - Cold War Flashpoints, March 1999; Milton Leitenberg, The Korean War Biological Warfare Allegations Resolved, Center for Pacific Asia Studies at Stockholm University, Occasional Paper 36, May 1998. For an example of scholarship supporting the germ warfare allegations see Stephen L. Endicott, 'Germ Warfare and "Plausible Denial'", Modern China, 5, 1 (1979), pp.79-104; Stephen L. Endicott and Edward Hagerman, The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea, Bloomington, 1999. 13 In the 1950s Russian allegations that the Japanese had also been involved in germ warfare were not widely accepted. 14 In the standard work on the foreign relations of the People's Republic of China, the main evidence given as proof of germ warfare in the Korean War is the airmen's confessions. See Xie Yixian, ed., Zhongguo waijiao shi 1949-1979 (A Diplomatic History of China 1949-1979), Kaifeng, 1988, p.99. The POWs later denied the veracity of their confessions. Pilot Kenneth Enoch wrote, 'Everything I stated relative to offensive bacterial warfare while in a camp was an out and out lie. I would certainly never have signed their statements had I not been forced to do so THE CURIOUS CASE OF TWO AUSTRALASIAN 'TRAITORS' 107

under threat of prolonged torture, which so far as I knew meant only to death.' Enoch, 23 September 1953, Parks Airforce Base, California, Papers in the possession of Gavan MacCormack, ANU, Canberra. The US government later admitted that the airmen were not brainwashed or ill-treated. 15 'US Germ Warfare in Korea is Undeniable: A Report of Interrogation of Two American POWs, Flights Lieutenants Kenneth L. Enoch and John S, Quinn, by a group of 24 Korean and Chinese specialists, news correspondents and cameramen, between May 1 and 8, 1952, broadcast by Peking Radio in its Kuo-yu programme overseas on May 17, and released by Hsinhua in its English and Chinese Morse Casts from Peking on the same day', 69/3072, Department of External Affairs, Australia (DEA). 16 A transcription from the US Japanese Liaison section of the Peking Radio report of 14 September 1952 described Burchett's meeting with another US pilot Lt. O'Neal as an 'interview', 68/8712 pt 7, A1209/XR1, NAA. 17 Gavan McCormack, 'Burchett's Thirty Years' War', in Kiernan, ed., Burchett, p. 194. 18 10 September 1953, 131/6, Department of External Affairs, NAA. 19 'Strange Case of Two Traitors', U.S. News and World Report, 2 October 1953. 20 ibid. 21 26 September 1953, 69/3072, the Solicitor-General's Office, NAA. 22 ibid.; 'Wilfred Graham Burchett,' Brief for CGS, CDR 3/1435 Folio 13, NAA. 23 26 September 1953, 69/3072, the Solicitor-General's Office, NAA. 24 ibid. 25 AACRS 1984,460 XRI, Department of Immigration, NAA; also noted in 'Wilfred Burchett', report to the Prime Minister's Office, 10 September 1959, NAA. 26 21 May 1954, 131/6, Department of External Affairs, NAA. 27 'Wilfred Burchett,' report to the Prime Minister's Office, 10 September 1959, NAA. 28 7 March 1961, 500/62/1/2/1, Department of External Affairs, NAA. 29 See 31 May 1961, 1957/16, Department of External Affairs; and 5 March 1963, 131/6, Department of External Affairs, NAA. 30 19 August 1959, 191/6, Department of External Affairs, NAA. 31 9 March 1961, 61/1300, Department of Immigration, NAA. 32 24 April 1961, 131/6, Department of External Affairs, NAA. 33 7 March 1961, 500/62/1/2/1, Department of External Affairs, NAA. 34 24 April 1961, 131/6, Department of External Affairs, NAA. 35 See for example Edward Hunter's Brainwashing in Red China, New York, 1951, a mixture of truths and half-truths written in high polemic. 36 Joseph Miller, 'The West Wind Blows Back', in Kiernan, ed., Burchett, p.241. 37 The official antagonism toward Burchett was further reinforced throughout the 1960s and 1970s by the activities of the Australian journalist . Warner, who worked for the London paper the Daily Telegraph and the Melbourne Herald, had known Burchett from their days together reporting on the Pacific War. Warner met with a DFAT official in 1953 who reported, 'He has kept a sort of BURCHETT "file", consisting largely of monitored reports from the Peking radio, and promised to dig the most incriminating examples out for me in Singapore and send them back'. In an effort to dredge up further 'evidence' of Burchett's misdeeds, Warner told the official, '[Burchett] is very fond of women and for some reason not apparent, is a great success with them'. 2November 1953, A6119/XR1 Item 19, NAA. Warner had a long-standing grudge against Burchett that originated out of Burchett's 'success' with women, and he used his position as an influential journalist to write defamatory articles about Burchett and pressure the Australian government to take action against his rival. See McCormack 'Burchett's Thirty Years' War', in Kiernan, ed., Burchett, pp. 194-204. 38 Kiernan, ed., Burchett, p.xiv. 39 ibid. 40 Australia New Zealand Army Corps. 41 , Sunshine and Shadows, Auckland, 1988, p.4. 42 United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency. 43 Rewi Alley to Pip Alley, 9 May 1951, 3/22, Alley papers, Alexander Turnbull Library (ATL), Wellington. 44 Xinhua, 17 January 1951. 45 Rewi Alley to Pip Alley, 18 September 1951, 3/22, Alley papers, ATL. 46 Rewi Alley to Pip Alley, 13 June 1951, 3/22, Alley papers, ATL. 47 'Australian and New Zealander Broadcast to their Peoples', New Zealand Army to External Affairs Dept, 23 May 1951, 104/264/9, National Archives, Wellington, New Zealand (NANZ). 108 ANN-MARIE BRADY

48 'Rewi Alley Tells New Zealand,' People's Voice, 25 April 1951. 49 'Conditions in China — Mr Rewi Alley's Comments —The Press Criticised", Press, 24 July 1951. 50 'Rewi Alley Not A Communist, Says CORSO Chairman', April 1951, unsourced newspaper clipping, 2/17, Alley papers, ATL. 51 Shirley Barton to Rewi Alley, 20 July 1952, Barton papers, ATL. 52 ibid. 53 6/24, Alley papers, ATL, also published, excerpted, in Shanghai News, 15 June 1952. 54 For example note the following meeting between Australian, New Zealand and UK representatives in Canberra in 1949: 'We felt... that the price which the Americans are prepared to pay for maintaining Japan as a bastion against Communism — and that probably only as long as it suits Japan — will be at the expense of our security . . . recognition would tend to increase the Americans' determination to strengthen Japan at the expense of the security of Australia and New Zealand'. A.D. Mcintosh, Notes for file, 10 November 1949, PM 264/3/14 part 1A, NANZ. Ann Trotter has written extensively on this topic, see Ann Trotter, New Zealand and Japan 1945-1952: The Occupation and the Peace Treaty, London, 1990. 55 Press, 22 January 1951. 56 Press, 27 July 1951. 57 Courtney Archer to Rewi Alley, 30 June 1952, Barton papers, ATL. 58 'Rewi Alley's Secretary is having Big Meetings,' People's Voice, 27 August 1952. 59 'Note For File,' 3 June 1952, 104/264/9, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), Wellington. 60 'Alley's Work in China Unaffected By New Plans,' 7 March 1951. 104/264/9, MFAT. 61 Foss Shanahan, 2 June 1951, EA 1 109/3/3, MFAT. 62 This tolerant attitude was not universal, see George Fraser, Seeing Red: Undercover in New Zealand, Palmerston North, 1995, the confessions of a New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (SIS) agent in the 1950s whose job was to spy on the NZCP. 63 R.M. Algie, Minister in Charge of Broadcasting to F.P Walsh, President of the New Zealand Federation of Labour, 14 May 1953, 22/1, Marshall papers, ATL. 64 Barton to D.F. Springfield, 19 August 1952, Barton papers, ATL. 65 Barton to Alley, 6 July 1952, Barton papers, ATL. 66 The Frontiersman, 1953, pp.9-10. 67 For example see 'Corso Tells Why Help is Given Work of Rewi Alley', Dominion, 13 May 1952; New Zealand Ambassador, USA, memo to Ministry of External Affairs, 14 August 1951, 104/264/9, MFAT; Memorandum for Mr Shanahan, Ministry of External Affairs, 6 February 1951. 104/264/9, MFAT. 68 Alley to the editor, Dominion, 15 November 1952, 3/21, Alley papers, ATL. 69 'The Germ Warfare Campaign in New Zealand', confidential report. Publicity and Information Division, Department of Tourism and Publicity, 30 April 1952, Marshall papers. 22/1, ATL. 70 'Courtney Archer,' confidential report, Publicity and Information Division, Department of Tourism and Publicity, 22/2, Marshall papers, ATL. 71 'Germ Warfare: Reasons for Disbelieving Communist Propaganda', 22/1, Marshall papers, ATL. 72 The 'united front' was a tactic originated by the Comintern, whereby communist parties formed temporary alliances with non-communist forces in support of a common goal. 73 'Organisation for the Propagation of the "Germ Warfare Campaign in New Zealand'", Publicity and Information Division, Department of Tourism and Publicity, 22/1. Marshall papers, ATL. 74 ibid. 75 ibid. 76 'A Review of Facts and Opinions Concerning the Communist Challenge to Democracy'. Publicity and Information Division, Department of Tourism and Publicity, p.14, 22/1, Marshall papers, ATL. 77 Rewi Alley to Pip Alley, 21 March 1952, 3/21, Alley papers, ATL. See also Rewi Alley, letter to the editor. Dominion, 1 June 1952, 3/21, Alley papers, ATL. Alley was protesting an article headlined 'Propaganda From Rewi Alley' which criticized his stance on germ warfare. 78 'Germ Warfare Exposure Was Censored By Daily Paper in Otago Students' Journal', People's Voice, 27 August 1952. 79 Barton to Nan Green, 6 May 1954, Barton papers, ATL. 80 For more on this topic see Anne-Marie Brady, 'Who Friend, Who Enemy? Rewi Alley and the Friends of China', China Quarterly, 151 (1997), pp.614-32. THE CURIOUS CASE OF TWO AUSTRALASIAN 'TRAITORS' 109

81 Ces English, interview with the author, 2 February 1997. 82 Until 1948 New Zealanders held British passports as British subjects. 83 Rewi Alley to Pip Alley, 11 October 1961, 4/6, Alley papers, ATL. 84 'Notes on Issue of Passports', 1955, Passport desk files 1934-1960, IA 69/3, NANZ. 85 'Banned from Leaving', People's Voice, 8 October 1952. 86 'SEATO Security and Anti-subversion Measures, Travel to Communist Countries', Agenda Item 4 (c), PM 120/7/18 part 1, 23 September-27 October 1960, NANZ. 87 'Note for File: Rewi Alley,' 8 June 1956, MERT 104/264/9, MFAT. 88 NZ Ambassador, Washington, 'Memorandum for the Secretary of External Affairs, Wellington', 23 January 1953, 104/264/9. MFAT. 89 A.D. Mcintosh, 'Memorandum for the Ambassador, NZ Embassy. Washington, Publication of Rewi Alley's Poems in "Masses and Mainstream"', 13 February 1953, 104/264/9, MFAT. 90 John A. Lee's Fortnightly, 19 March 1952. 91 Rewi Alley to Pip Alley, 10 August 1956, 4/2, Alley papers, ATL. 92 James Bertram, interview with the author. 28 January 1993. 93 A.D. Mcintosh to Rewi Alley, 9 March 1950, 104/264/9, MFAT. 94 Joseph Heenan to Colin Morrison, CORSO, MS Papers 1132, Folder 138, J.W.A. Heenan Collection, ATL. 95 'Rewi Alley', 30 January 1973, 58/264/6, MFAT. 96 Alan Winnington, Breakfast With Mao, London, 1986, p. 166. 97 Ormond Wilson, An Outsider Looks Back, Wellington, 1982, p. 157. 98 Recognition of China was also a major issue in Australia. A New Zealand government report on the situation in Canberra in 1953 observed: ' It is interesting to note that, while informed Australian opinion is in favour of the admission of Communist China to the United Nations — whether with or without Formosa is unknown — it is unlikely that the Government would regard this opinion as of such weight that they would take any initiative in persuading the US that such a development is desirable.' 22 June 1953, PM 264/3/14, NANZ. 99 15 June 1953, Meeting between Ambassador Scott and Minister of Foreign Affairs T. Clifton Webb. PM 264/3/14, NANZ. 100 Walter Nash to Pip Alley, 24 October 1958, 2/25, Alley papers, ATL 101 NZ Embassy, Washington, memo for Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 10 November 1966, PM 264/3/14 part 24, MFAT. 102 John Scott, 'Recognising China, 'in Malcolm McKinnon,ed„ New Zealand in World Affairs Volume Three 1957-1972, Wellington, 1991, p.249. 103 Bryce Harland, Ambassador NZE, Peking, to Frank Corner, MFA, 14 July 1975, 58/264/6 Vol.1, MFAT. 104 For example see Frank Corner, 'Draft Memorandum for Cabinet: Rewi Alley Scholarship in Modern Chinese Studies', 12 March 1973, 58/264/6 Vol.1; and Harland to Corner, cited above, n. 103. 105 Gary Woodward, cit. in Lindsay Watt. New Zealand and China Towards 2000, Wellington, 1992, p. 17. Norman Bethune was a Canadian doctor who died while working for CCP forces in the Sino-Japanese War. Mao Zedong cited Bethune as a symbol of the Internationalist spirit. 106 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, memo for , PM, 30 January 1973. 'Rewi Alley', 58/264/6, MFAT. 107 12 February 1970, Canberra, PM 27/1970, NAA. 108 Sydney Morning Herald, 12 May 1970. 109 Brigadier B.G Greville, 'Wilfred Burchett', Pacific Defence Reporter, November 1983, p.39. 110 McCormack, 'An Australian Dreyfus'.'" Australian Society, 3,8 (1984). See also McCormack, 'The New Right and Human Rights', pp.389-422; McCormack, 'Treason, Citizenship and Reputation: The Strange Case of Wilfred Burchett', Australian Society, 3, 8 (1984), pp.6-12. Subsequent articles in the controversy occasioned by this article appeared in Australian Society 4, 5 (1985), p.26 and 4,9 (1985), pp. 17-20; also Sydney Morning Herald, 8 August 1985; Australian, 2-3 November 1985. 111 Robert Manne, 'The Fortunes of Wilfred Burchett', Quadrant, August 1985, p.42. 112 Cited Australian, 27 March 1985. 113 Department of State letter to Abe Weisburd, 29 November 1977, copy in the possession of Gavan McCormack. 114 'Rewi Alley Scholarship'. 1 December 1977, 58/264/6, MFAT. 115 'Visit to China: Rewi Alley Visiting Fellowship', memo to R.D. Muldoon, PM, 27 August 110 ANN-MARIE BRADY

1980, 58/264/6, MFAT. 116 ibid. 117 NZ Embassy, letter to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 3 June 1977, 57/264/6, MFAT. 118 Jim Wong to Pip Alley, 25 March 1872, 8/12, Alley papers, ATL. 119 Secretary for Foreign Affairs, telegram to NZE, Peking, 29 December 1987, 26/1/4, NZE. Emphasis added. 120 See, for example, Muldoon's visit to China in 1980 when he met with both Hua Guofeng and Deng Xiaoping: note for File, 13 September 1980. Similarly, the National government's defence minister Warren Cooper's visit to China 3-10 March 1983, 'China Briefing paper'. Both are in 59/ 264/11, MFAT. 121 'Minister of Overseas Trade and Marketing's Call on Madame Chen Muhua, Minister of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade', 10 December 1984, 59/264/11, MFAT. 122 NZ Embassy to Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Cabinet Office/ Ministry of Trade and Marketing/ Trade and Industry/London Embassy, 'Rewi Alley and Presentation of QSM', 27 December 1985, 26/1/4, NZE. 123 The Cold War mentality continues strongly in Australia. As recently as 1996, eminent historian Manning Clark was accused in a Melbourne paper of being a KGB agent on no greater evidence than that he once wore a Lenin commemorative pin in public. See Robert Manne, 'Christ and Lenin', Australian's Review of Books, 18 September 1996. 124 Alan Renouf, The Frightened Country, Melbourne, 1979, p.91. 125 McCormack, Hot War, Cold War: An Australian Perspective on the Cold War, Sydney, 1983, p. 18. 126 C.J. Elder and M.F. Green, 'New Zealand and China' in Ann Trotter, ed., New Zealand and China: The Papers of the 21st Otago Foreign Policy School, Dunedin, 1986, p.28. 127 Redmer Yska has discussed this in some detail in his book, All Shook Up: the Flash Bodgie and the Rise of the New Zealand Teenager in the Fifties, Auckland, 1993. 128 Elder and Green, in Trotter, ed.. New Zealand and China, p.28. 129 ibid, p.56.