PUBLIC RIGHT TO KNOW Dr David Robie was editor of the Melbourne Sunday Observer (1969-1970), one of the newspapers to feature Burchett as foreign correspondent. Public Enemy Number One’s global journalism Rebel Journalism: The Writings of Wilfred Burchett, edited by George Burchett and Nick Shimmin; foreword by John Pilger. Melbourne, Cambridge University Press, 2007, 314 pp. ISBN 9780521718264 Bulgaria, he suffered a stroke and died ILFRED BURCHETT’S leg- aged 72 on 26 September 1983. This endary ‘warning to the world’ W last of 31 books in an extraordinary eyewitness account in the Daily journalism career was written at a Express, exposing the horror of the gloomy time for the Left globally. United States nuclear genocide in The Soviet Union was bogged down Hiroshima and Nagasaki, made glo- in its own ‘Vietnam’ in Afghanistan, bal headlines on 5 September 1945. victorious Vietnam had become iso- Almost four decades later, in his final lated as a totalitarian Stalinist regime, book, Shadows of Hiroshima, he re- and Western countries were support- turned to this nuclear nightmare and ing the genocidal Khmer Rouge in reflected on this racist experiment against an already defeated enemy Cambodia. and a history of cover-ups over the Aghast at China’s backing for the Khmer Rouge and for ‘atomic plague’. reactionary struggles in Southern A few weeks after typing the Africa, Burchett’s message for the last footnotes for the book in Sofia, 220 PACIFIC JOURNALISM REVIEW 15 (2) 2009 PUBLIC RIGHT TO KNOW world and for independent journal- pleted by his brother George long ists was simple as the Cold War was after his death, I commented on the drawing to a close: Sunday Observer’s role in arranging a charter aircraft from New Caledo- The ‘lesson’ of Hiroshima is, in my nia to fly Burchett to Australia in an opinion, actually twofold. On the attempt to regain his birthright (Ro- one hand Hiroshima, like Auschwitz, bie, 2006). This was after his Aus- asserts the existence of the will to tralian passport had been stolen by genocidal, absolute destruction. We the CIA some two decades earlier should never cease to meditate on the (Burchett, 1969) and a vendetta by a fact that there has already occurred a first nuclear war, and, because of paranoid Canberra bureaucracy had this precedent, there is little reason barred him entry to his homeland to doubt the possibility of a second— ever since. particularly if the same constellation My newspaper, campaigning in of class interests, will-to-power and opposition to the Vietnam War, had mind-numbing rhetoric that author- recruited Burchett as chief Southeast ized the exemplary immolation of Asian affairs correspondent. We were Hiroshima and Nagasaki is again honoured to have him on board. To us, given pretext and opportunity. he was distinguished, courageous and heroic as an independent journalist. On the other hand, Hiroshima also represents the indestructibility of hu- However, many Australian crit- man resistance. Despite their ordeals, ics—including quite a number of the cover-ups, even the ostracism journalists—loathed him as a com- from ‘normal’ society, the hibakusha munist propagandist, or branded him survivors have fought back, becom- as a traitor. For them, he was Public ing the most stalwart and militant of Enemy Number One. peaceniks. Through them and their Hosting Burchett at our terraced ongoing struggle, the urgency of house in Carlton, we found him Hiroshima is transmitted to all of charming, insightful and a down-to- us. (p. 305) earth scribe who believed in social justice and had been disturbed by Arguably Australasia’s most contro- Nazi fascism and the horror of Hi- versial and hated journalist, Burchett roshima. His mission was to balance has remained the subject of debate the hypocrisy and propaganda of the and research long after his death. West—the antithesis of the ‘embed- In my review of his autobiography ded’ journalist of today. (Burchett & Shimmin, 2005), com- PACIFIC JOURNALISM REVIEW 15 (2) 2009 221 PUBLIC RIGHT TO KNOW After the Sunday Observer’s suc- stirred greater public hatred and cess at bringing Burchett back to Aus- abuse than any other should also tralia, he fought to clear his name in have been one who embodied its supposed core values: independent a defamation case in which he won a mindedness, multiculturalism (long pyrrhic victory. The court ruled he had before the word became familiar), been defamed, but that the defama- pragmatism, love of argument and tion was protected by parliamentary of food, and a preference always for privilege. As John Pilger writes in the the common man and the underdog foreword to this book, Burchett paid against authority. (p. xv) a high price for reporting from the ‘other side’ during the Cold War. As well as covering one of the great- est scoops of last century—his exclu- For 17 years, he and his children sive solo report blowing the cover- were denied passports by the Austral- up of Hiroshima and describing the ian government. No charges were terrible effects from radiation on the brought against him; no ‘crime’ was civilian victims—Burchett covered ever stated … When later, an Austral- major conflicts and momentous po- ian judge described the smearing of Wilfred as a ‘miscarriage of justice’, litical occasions for more than four he spoke the truth. (p. xiii) decades. In retaliation for his Hiro- shima report, he was issued with an As costs were awarded against Bur- expulsion order by the US. Japanese chett and he was unable to pay, his film footage of the ‘atomic plague’ search for justice ended with his ex- was classified top secret and barred ile becoming permanent. from public access until 1968. In a second foreword by professor This book is an anthology of his Gavan McCormack, who likened the work from the Second World War Burchett case to an ‘Australian Drey- onwards. Thirty book chapters and es- fus’, says no intelligence file gathered says chronicle world-changing events against a journalist could be ‘more from The Atomic Plague (1945) revealing of the foibles, obsessions, until an Afterword (1983) when he cruelty and petty-mindedness of a reflected on the global nuclear threat. generation of Australian politicians One chapter, slightly out of sequence, and bureaucrats’ (p. xvi). He adds: With Mick Griffith to the Plaine des Lacs (1941), deals with a vast nickel One of the paradoxes of 20th cen- minefield in New Caledonia and tury Australia was that the man who reveals how strategically important 222 PACIFIC JOURNALISM REVIEW 15 (2) 2009 PUBLIC RIGHT TO KNOW New Caledonia would be in a war References with Japan. Burchett, G., and Shimmin, N. (2005). Memoirs of a rebel journalist: The Other chapters include the trial of autobiography of Wilfred Burchett. Cardinal Mindszenty (1951) in post- Sydney: UNSW Press. war Hungary—the first indictment of Burchett, W. (1983). Shadows of Hiro- a cardinal in Europe since Cardinal shima. London: Verso. Wolsey in England in 1530; The Burchett, W. (1969). Passport: An auto- biography. London: Nelson. Microbe War (1953) about allega- Burchett, W. (1959). Mekong upstream: tions of biological warfare in Korea; A visit to Laos and Cambodia. Berlin: Front-line Village (1959), where he Seven Seas Publishers. described a journey through frontline Robie, D. (2006). Behind the bitter villages in Laos; Gagarin (1961), an attacks and propaganda—a remark- exclusive interview with the Soviet able Cold War talent. Pacific Journal- ism Review, 12(2), pp. 192-196. cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin; War Against Trees (1963), about the US use of chemical spraying to destroy the environment and food crops in Viet- nam; The Tet of Peace (1973/1977) and How to be a Good Khmer Rouge (1981), one of the earliest exposes of the genocidal Pol Pot regime. Although Burchett wrote about the Cold War era, a remarkable im- pression about this volume is how many of his analyses and insights could easily apply to contemporary times. For example, there are critical parallels between the US-led inva- sion and occupation of Iraq and the Vietnam War. This book is a valuable contribu- tion to the study of journalism, social justice and contested issues of ethics, fairness and objectivity. PACIFIC JOURNALISM REVIEW 15 (2) 2009 223 .