Wilfred Burchett facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Wilfred Burchett
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Burchett in the 1970s
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| Born |
Wilfred Graham Burchett
16 September 1911 |
| Died | 27 September 1983 (aged 72) |
| Resting place | Central Sofia Cemetery |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Spouse(s) |
Erna Lewy, née Hammer
(m. 1938; div. 1948)Vesselina (Vessa) Ossikovska
(m. 1949) |
| Children | 4 |
| Relatives | Stephanie Alexander (niece) |
Wilfred Graham Burchett (born September 16, 1911 – died September 27, 1983) was an Australian journalist. He became famous for being the first Western reporter to visit Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped. He was also known for reporting from "the other side" during major conflicts like the Korean and Vietnam wars.
Burchett started his journalism career at the beginning of World War II. He reported from places like China, Burma, and Japan. After the war, he covered events in Hungary, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and Cambodia under Pol Pot. During the Korean War, he looked into and supported claims that the US had used germ warfare. He was also the first Western journalist to interview Yuri Gagarin after Gagarin's historic first trip into space. He helped get the first major Western aid to Cambodia after it was freed by Vietnam in 1979.
He was a journalist who cared deeply about politics and was against powerful countries controlling weaker ones. He always tried to be among the people and events he was reporting on. His reports often made the US and Australian governments unhappy. He was even kept out of Australia for nearly 20 years until the Whitlam government gave him a new passport.
Contents
Early Life and Beginnings
Burchett was born in Clifton Hill, Melbourne, Australia, in 1911. His father was a builder and farmer who believed in progressive ideas. These ideas influenced young Wilfred. He grew up in small towns like Poowong and Ballarat.
Wilfred had to leave school at 15 because his family was poor. He worked many different jobs, like selling vacuum cleaners and working on farms. In his free time, he taught himself foreign languages, especially French and Russian.
In 1937, Burchett traveled to London. He found a job at a travel agency that helped Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany move to other countries. There, he met Erna Lewy, a Jewish refugee from Germany, and they married in 1938. He visited Germany in 1938 before returning to Australia with his wife in 1939. After coming back, he wrote letters to newspapers, warning about the dangers of German and Japanese military power.
Journalism Career: 1940–1978
Reporting on World War II
Burchett started his journalism career in 1940. He got permission to report for the Australian Associated Press on a revolt in the French colony of New Caledonia. He wrote about his experiences in his book Pacific Treasure Island: New Caledonia.
Next, Burchett went to Chongqing, which was then the capital of China. He became a reporter for the London Daily Express and also wrote for the Sydney Daily Telegraph. He was hurt while reporting on Britain's military actions in Burma. He also covered the American advance in the Pacific under General Douglas MacArthur.
Reporting from Hiroshima
Burchett was in Okinawa when he heard on the radio that the first atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima. He was the first Western journalist to visit Hiroshima after the bomb. He arrived alone by train from Tokyo on September 2, 1945, the day Japan formally surrendered. He traveled for 30 hours, even though General MacArthur had ordered journalists not to go there.
He had no weapons, just food for seven meals, a black umbrella, and a small typewriter. While reporting, he saw a group of other reporters who seemed to be promoting the US military. He called them "housetrained reporters" who were part of a "cover-up."
His report, sent by Morse code, was printed on the front page of the Daily Express newspaper in London on September 5, 1945. It was titled "The Atomic Plague" and warned the world. It started by saying:
In Hiroshima, 30 days after the first atomic bomb destroyed the city and shook the world, people are still dying, mysteriously and horribly – people who were uninjured by the cataclysm – from an unknown something which I can only describe as atomic plague. Hiroshima does not look like a bombed city. It looks as if a monster steamroller had passed over it and squashed it out of existence. I write these facts as dispassionately as I can in the hope that they will act as a warning to the world.
This report was a huge story around the world. MacArthur had tried to stop journalists from going to the bombed cities and had censored reports about the damage. Civilian deaths were played down, and the deadly effects of radiation were ignored.
Burchett's report was the first in Western media to talk about the effects of radiation and nuclear fallout. This caused problems for the US military. In response, US officials said Burchett was being influenced by Japanese propaganda. Burchett lost his press pass and was told to leave Japan, though this order was later canceled. His camera, with photos of Hiroshima, was taken from him. The film was sent to Washington and kept secret until 1968.
Burchett later wrote about his experiences in his book, Shadows of Hiroshima.
Reporting from Eastern Europe
After working in Greece and Berlin for three years, Burchett started reporting on Eastern Europe for The Times. He covered some political trials after the war in Hungary and Bulgaria. In his autobiography, Burchett later said he started to have doubts about these trials.
Reporting on the Korean War: 1950–1953
Burchett returned to Australia in 1950. In 1951, he traveled to the People's Republic of China as a foreign reporter. He wrote China's Feet Unbound, which supported the new Chinese government. In July 1951, he went to North Korea to cover the peace talks. While there, he reported from the North Korean side for French and American newspapers.
Burchett looked into claims by North Korea that the US had used germ warfare. He saw "clusters of flies and fleas on the snow-covered hillsides," which North Korea said were infected with a serious disease. In his 1953 book This Monstrous War, he wrote:
My main interest in the camps was to interview American airmen. The testimony of those who admitted to taking part in germ warfare has already been published. I talked to all of these airmen at length and on several occasions. I am convinced that the statements they made are accurate and were made of their own free will.
The US military wanted to stop Burchett from reporting. They even offered money to the Australian government to remove him from North Korea, but the offer was refused. Instead, the US military and Australian government tried to spread negative stories about Burchett.
Burchett visited several POW camps in North Korea. He described one as a "luxury resort," which made some POWs angry because their conditions were very harsh. However, historian Gavan McCormack said Burchett regretted this comparison.
On December 21, 1951, Burchett got a big story by interviewing the highest-ranking United Nations POW, US General William F. Dean. The US had claimed Dean was dead, so they were very upset when Burchett reported he was alive. In his autobiography, General Dean called a chapter "My Friend Wilfred Burchett" and thanked Burchett for his "special kindness" and for giving him "accurate" news about the war.
Reporting from Moscow
In 1956, Burchett moved to Moscow as a reporter. He wrote about Soviet progress in science and how the country was rebuilding after the war. In 1961, Burchett was the first Western journalist to interview Yuri Gagarin after his historic flight into space. Burchett described Gagarin as having a "good-natured personality; big smile -- a grin, really -- light step and an air of sunny friendliness."
Reporting on China
In his 1946 book, Democracy with a Tommy Gun, Burchett wrote about his belief that Western control in Asia was ending. He felt that people in the East would rise up to gain their "freedom and independence."
Burchett later supported China in its disagreement with the Soviet Union. In 1973, he published China: The Quality of Life, which praised China under Mao Zedong. However, in a 1983 interview, Burchett said he became disappointed with China over its actions in some conflicts.
Reporting on Vietnam
In 1962, Burchett started reporting on the war in Vietnam from the North Vietnamese side. He spent six months in southern Vietnam with National Liberation Front fighters, living in their hidden tunnels. He described Ho Chi Minh as "the greatest man I’ve ever met." He also criticized the government of South Vietnam.
During his time in Vietnam, he had access to the North Vietnamese leaders. He tried to help the British and US governments get captured American airmen released. In 1967, he had an important interview with the North Vietnamese foreign minister, who hinted that North Vietnam was interested in peace talks.
Bertrand Russell wrote that "If any one man is responsible for alerting Western opinion to the struggle of the people of Vietnam, it is Wilfred Burchett." Burchett wrote many books about Vietnam and the war.
Reporting on Cambodia
In 1975 and 1976, Burchett sent reports from Cambodia, praising the new government of Pol Pot. He wrote that Cambodia had become a "worker-peasant-soldier state" and had a very democratic constitution. At the time, he believed his friend, former prince Norodom Sihanouk, was part of the leadership.
As relations between Cambodia and Vietnam worsened, and after Burchett visited refugee camps in 1978, he spoke out against the Khmer Rouge (Pol Pot's group). They then put him on a death list.
Burchett visited Phnom Penh in May 1979 and wrote about the terrible situation there. He took a list of needed emergency aid to London and read it at a meeting. He said that many people were starving and needed help. The UK government did not respond to his request, but a technical officer from Oxfam was at the meeting and helped arrange the first major Western aid to Cambodia.
Australian Government Actions
Exile from Australia: 1955–1972
In 1955, Burchett's British passport disappeared, and the Australian government refused to give him a new one. He asked for an Australian passport several times but was denied. For many years, Burchett used a Vietnamese travel document. Later, Fidel Castro gave him a Cuban passport.
In 1969, Burchett was not allowed to enter Australia for his father's funeral. The next year, his brother died, and Burchett flew to Brisbane in a private plane because the government had threatened airlines that flew him. He was allowed in, which caused a lot of media attention. In 1972, the new Whitlam government finally gave Burchett an Australian passport, saying there was no reason to keep denying it. This period was seen as a significant denial of an Australian citizen's rights.
Attempts to Prosecute Burchett
Australian governments between 1949 and 1970 tried to build a case to charge Burchett with a crime, but they could not. After Burchett reported from North Korea about germ warfare, the Australian government considered charging him with treason. However, they admitted in 1954 that they could not prosecute him. The last attempt was in 1970, when the government admitted it had no evidence against him.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Around 1967, an ABC journalist interviewed Burchett. According to filmmaker David Bradbury, the ABC's general manager ordered the interview to be destroyed. Bradbury's own 1981 documentary film about Burchett, Public Enemy Number One, was never shown fully on Australian television because the ABC refused to buy it.
ASIO Monitoring
The Australian national security department, which became ASIO in 1949, started a file on the Burchett family in the 1940s. They were concerned about Burchett's father's interest in helping Jewish refugees and his views on the Soviet Union and China. Documents on Burchett's own file showed ASIO was worried about his strong criticism of American influence.
Controversies and Legacy
Burchett met Yuri Krotkov in Berlin after World War II and again in Moscow in 1957. Krotkov later moved to Britain and claimed that Burchett had worked as an agent for the KGB (Soviet intelligence). Krotkov also said Burchett worked for Vietnam and China and was a secret member of the Communist Party of Australia.
In 1971, an Australian politician accused Burchett of being a KGB agent. In 1973, Burchett sued for defamation. Former prisoners of war testified that Burchett had used harsh language against them in Korea. The jury found that Burchett had been defamed, but the article was protected by parliamentary privilege. Burchett appealed and lost.
Historian Gavan McCormack has said that Burchett's dealings with Australian POWs were "trivial incidents" where he "helped" them.
In the early 1990s, some classified documents from the Soviet Communist Party archives were made public. These documents included a memo from the KGB chairman in 1957 that mentioned Burchett agreeing to work in Moscow for a "monetary subsidy" and a chance to write for the Soviet press. Historian Robert Manne used these documents to suggest Burchett had a close relationship with communist governments. However, others argued that if the KGB paid Burchett, they didn't get much in return, as Burchett later moved away from Soviet communism.
Death and Impact
Burchett moved to Bulgaria in 1982 and died of cancer in Sofia the next year, at age 72.
A documentary film called Public Enemy Number One by David Bradbury was released in 1981. The film explored how Burchett was criticized in Australia for reporting from "the other side" in wars. It asked important questions about freedom of the press during wartime.
In 1997, journalist Denis Warner wrote that Burchett would be remembered by many as a powerful influence, but by his supporters as a "folk hero." Nick Shimmin, who co-edited a book of Burchett's writings, said, "When he saw injustice and hardship, he criticized those he believed responsible for it."
In 2011, Vietnam celebrated Burchett's 100th birthday with an exhibition in the Ho Chi Minh Museum in Hanoi.
Personal Life
Burchett married his first wife, Erna Lewy, a German Jewish refugee, in London in 1938. They had one son and divorced in 1948. Burchett then married Vesselina (Vessa) Ossikovska, a Bulgarian, in December 1949 in Sofia. They had a daughter and two sons. His children were denied Australian citizenship in 1955. His son George was born in Hanoi and grew up in Moscow and France.
Burchett was the uncle of famous chef and cookbook writer Stephanie Alexander.
See also
- First Into Nagasaki
