The Wire

It is now over 20 years since fearless and ground breaking Australian journalist, Wilfred Burchett, died. His death brought to an end a remarkable and controversial career which saw him reporting on the true effects – the radiation effects – of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and also significant events of the second half of last century, including the Korean and Vietnam Wars. It was a journalistic career marred by Cold War tensions and animosity and Burchett suffered badly at the hands of his Cold War enemies – particulary those in Australia and the US. In the early 1980s, not long after his death, a very much abridged version of his autobiography was published under the title, “Across the Barricades”. The publishers of this volume feared much of Burchett’s original material was too sensitive to be published then and so excised much material from it. Now Wilfred’s son, George Burchett, and academic Dr Nick Shimmin, have recently published an uncut version of Wilfred’s autobiography, titled “Memoirs of a Rebel Journalist: The Autobiography of Wilfred Burchett”. Their objective was to further correct the record of a remarkable Australian journalist whose fine international reportage has gone insufficiently recognised for far too long.