Méray’s book tells of the Burchett he knew

Wilfred Burchett, controversial Australian-born journalist (died in Bulgaria), started off as an idealistic young man but soon after WW2 became – as an interview with the book’s author aptly sums him up – an energetic servant of totalitarian regimes.

Burchett dispatched his reports from the North Korean and Chinese side in the Korean war and from Ho Chi Minh’s side in the Vietnam war. He has also been accused of interrogating and threatening United Nations prisoners of war and of making some of them confess to engaging in “germ warfare”. The Méray book, however, does not cover the aspect of the maltreatment of prisoners and the accusation that he extracted “confessions”, as the author was not a direct witness to Burchett’s alleged activities in this field. Australian and allied ex-prisoners have had plenty to say about this topic. But that is another story.

The reason why Burchett is “controversial” is because two different groups have differing opinions about him. Those of the traditional Left have established a sentimental construct around what conservatives regard as a twentieth century Marxist social experiment that has failed. From the Left comes a constant series and writings and documentaries about him. He is depicted as brave and truthful, subjected to unreasonable attacks from conservatives, perhaps labouring under illusions, but one who rectifies his mistakes.

Those who have been critical of Burchett include ex-members and ex-prisoners from the armed forces, the professional association of members of Australian armed forces (ADA) and the anti-totalitarian and conservative side of politics. They have noted that Burchett gave high praise to totalitarian regimes and constantly disparaged liberal western democracies, America in particular. Conservatives have had, up to now, a general suspicion and dislike of Wilfred Burchett but lacked information to “deconstruct” the myth for which he, himself, supplied a bounty of stories.

Then, in August 1951 Tibor Méray was sent from communist Hungary to cover the Korean armistice negotiations. He was billeted with Burchett for 18 months and they also met a few times afterwards. Much later Méray read Burchett’s account of one of the meetings that had occurred in Budapest just before the outbreak of the Hungarian Revolution in which, using lamentable imagery, events were entirely falsified and the memory of his executed friend grievously insulted.

For Méray, Burchett’s mendacious description was shocking and startling. It prompted him to fish out his old Korean diaries (facsimile reproductions of relevant pages are included in the On Burchett); he examined all of Burchett’s writings that could be found and wrote the book. I would like to mention that Peter Coleman supplied most of Burchett’s books and articles for Méray’s analysis. I would also like to mention that Tibor Méray deserves a lot of sympathy for wading through the vast amount of Burchett material. This must have been an unpleasant task indeed!

Here is a summary of what Tibor Méray authoritatively established in his book:

”¢ Wilfred Burchett was by no means a “champion of truth” but a disinformer in the pay of the North Korean, Chinese and other communist regimes;
Ӣ Burchett was not only a disinformer, he also informed on other journalists;
”¢ Burchett, the supposedly “excellent investigative reporter”, not only swallowed holus-bolus the trumped up charges against the accused in show trials behind the iron curtain, he added a shovelful of his own lies to them. If those trials were held in a democratic country, Burchett would have been charged with contempt of court because of his condemnatory comments on the “wicked” accused before the verdict of the trial was announced;
Ӣ Burchett, while living for a long time in various communist countries, would have seen plenty of injustice, terror, repression and penury but he elected to remain silent about these;
”¢ Burchett was a card-carrying CP member. (Peter Hruby found, independently, documentary evidence of this in his research of the archives of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia). Burchett, by masquerading as an “independent, uncommitted” journalist was, therefore, a dissembler in addition to being a disinformer;
”¢ After the various official communist lines were changed Burchett very often did not admit his ‘past mistakes’ by parroting the then official line or his admission was ridiculously wishy-washy. In addition: in some of these instances Burchett exacerbated previous lies by fresh ones;
”¢ Burchett claimed ‘scoops’ in journalism when these scoops did not exist or were attained by others; likewise: Burchett falsely claimed that he ‘changed history’.
”¢ According to Méray’s assessment Burchett was not a KGB agent in the way that, say, Kim Philby was, but a second or third-rate, small-time informer, bearer and purveyor of useful gossip, etc. (Robert Manne came to the same conclusion.) It is noteworthy that supporters of Burchett gloat about the “not a KGB agent” part of this conclusion, but keep silent about the rest;
”¢ Méray, by studying Burchett’s writings, highlights a myriad of distortions, inconsistencies and straight-out lies;
Ӣ M̩ray shows that Wilfred Burchett committed multiple instances of perjury in his defamation case against Senator Jack Kane.

The Méray book was brought to notice in 2008, at Easter Saturday, in The Weekend Australian when an interview was published with the author and an edited chapter from the book was also printed. Favourable reviews followed in The Canberra Times, The Sydney Morning Herald and Australian Literary Review. The ALR review was written by Mark Aarons who stated that he disagreed with his father’s support of Burchett. Robert Manne wrote an essay for The Monthly and mentioned the Méray book approvingly although briefly.

A big surprise was an interview of Robert Manne and Mark Aarons on Phillip Adams’ radio program. Adams seemed to readily agree with Aarons’ and Manne’s opinion about Burchett.

Even The Age of Melbourne reviewed Méray’s book. The review writer grudgingly acknowledged that “parts of Meray’s account are certainly persuasive”¦” (although he did not say which parts were not persuasive, in his opinion”¦).

Very favourable reviews followed in The Sydney Institute Quarterly, Quadrant and News Weekly. On Burchett aroused attention overseas when the distinguished scholar Paul Hollander (author of Political Pilgrims and many other books) reviewed it for The Weekly Standard.

Patrick Morgan in Quadrant was right when he wrote: “Burchett’s apologists now have nowhere to go.” They are indeed silent. Burchett’s supporters have not written anything about the Méray book. They would not be able to refute anything in it. Instead of saying something meaningful, in an Internet forum five academics and retired academics attacked Robert Manne for “changing his mind”. It is interesting that they seem to believe that changing one’s opinion, in the light of the emergence of new evidence or fresh thinking, is considered a flaw.

The Monthly magazine had a reader’s comment on Robert Manne’s Burchett essay, criticising Manne for believing Méray. I sent a rejoinder suggesting that Manne’s critic actually read the Méray book and point to a single item in it that she could refute. My letter was not put on the web, which is not surprising. Gerard Henderson of The Sydney Institute would be able to quote similar instances about The Monthly.

A long essay in The New Critic extols the virtue of Wilfred Burchett and attacks Manne but – as with the five academics above – completely ducks the serious issues raised by Tibor Méray. All the author of this piece could say about it: “”¦produced by a virtually unknown publisher …” The essay-writer also appears to be unable to refute a single thing in Tibor Méray’s book.

There has been some sniping on the Internet, from Crikey in particular, by people who have not even read the book. Some, with spurious, hair-raising accusations, have attempted to attack the author at a personal level. This is not surprising as many blogs have no meaningful editorial oversight: in a lot of blogs “anything goes”. The sniping is only a reflection of the standards held by Burchett’s admirers.

To sum it all up: I am pleased about the favourable reception of Tibor Méray’s book by review writers and the reading public, I am pleased by the fact that I can also record that no one has been able to refute a single point in it.

William (Bill) Hyde

Copies of On Burchett are available from Australian Conservative.