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The media gives terrorists the friendly Wilfred Burchett treatment
Gerard Jackson
The hostility of so many journalists to the liberation of Iraq reminds me of the very gentle way in which these paragons journalistic virtue handled Wilfred Burchett who was an out-and-out traitor to his country. It was 1997 and even though the Soviet Empire had collapsed our 'journalists' still refuse to call those Westerners who worked for the KGB traitors. This was brought home by media reports of Wilfred Burchett’s widow being given the Order of Friendship by North Korea’s Stalinist regime.
Rupert Murdoch’s Australian described Burchett himself as merely a “Cold War journalist”. The Australian Financial Review only referred to him as suing Australian journalist Denis Warner over accusations (later confirmed) that Burchett worked with the North Korean regime during the Korean War. The Australian could not bring itself to even mention this bald fact, misleadingly stating that Burchett covered the Korean and Vietnam wars, clearly insinuating that he was just an innocent journalist.
There is absolutely no doubt that during the Korean war Burchett actively participated in the torture of Australian, US and UK POWs by North Korean thugs who tried to force them into falsely confessing to war crime. One particular appalling incident was fully described during the Jack Kane libel trial. Kane had written article in which he accused Burchett of being a Soviet agent. Burchett returned fire with a suit for libel.
During the ensuing trial Burchett adamantly denied that he was or had ever been a communist agent or that he had collaborated with North Korean interrogators in their ‘questioning’ of allied POWs. However, Kane’s defence put Brigadier Phillip Greville, an Australian, on the stand. Greville had been captured and tortured by North Koreans. While on the stand Greville emphatically stated that Burchett was a traitor. This accusation was supported by other Australian, US and UK former POWs who had suffered because of Burchett’s treason. One ex-POW who had testified for the defense became so emotional that he literally grabbed Burchett’s throat, kneeing him in the chest as he dragged him to the ground before being pulled off him. The testimony of these men was utterly damning.
The Jury found in favour of Kane and he was awarded costs against Burchett. Nevertheless, Burchett had the gall to claim afterwards that he had been vindicated by the trial! A thoroughly dishonest assertion that his supporters laboured to give credence to. That Burchett was a long-time Soviet agent was revealed by Yuri Krotkov, a KGB defector. Giving evidence to a US Senate sub-committee in 1970, Krotkov stated that Burchett had supplied information to the KGB and that he worked for Hanoi and Beijing as an agent; he also confessed to Krotkov that he was a secret member of the Australian Communist Party. Krotkov's testimony was confirmed in part by Bui Cong Tuong and Ming Trung, North Vietnamese defectors, who told the Australian court that Burchett was a North Vietnam agent. Both men later disappeared, believed murdered on Hanoi's orders .
There is no doubt that Burchett was a thoroughly despicable man who should have been imprisoned for his treason. So why did our media refused to relate these facts to the public. Because Burchett is still a hero to many, if not most Australian ‘journalists’, not in spite of his treason but, I believe, because of it. Regardless of their best efforts, our left-wing ‘journalists’ will not be allowed to flush Burchett's treason down their Orwellian memory hole.
Things are not really much different today. Michael Yon, an American blogger who embedded himself with US troops, reported on the Hamari village massacre. If you have not heard of this atrocity then it’s because our intrepid journalists have been too busy libeling US troops to report it. Peter Wilson, a ‘journalist’ with The Australian is a sleazy example of leftist bigotry and anti-American bile. Click on the following links to see just how rotten this leftist is:
Murdoch’s own Eason Jordan: more damning evidence
Is Rupert Murdoch sheltering his own Eason Jordan?
Is journalism and treason now joined at the hip?
Moscow gold: how a journalist defended treason
Why the left support the BBC’s neo-Stalinist agitprop that defends treason
Age journalist backs Saddam and calls for Australian troops to mutiny
PS. No matter how they try to spin it, leftist journalists have allied themselves with Islamofascism
Gerard Jackson is Brookes’ economics editor
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 23 June 2007