Never mind 25 years after Burchetts death. 70 years after Quislings death he is still a by-word for traitor. Used, I believe, by Australian Senator Robert Ray about a senator from Queensland. He called him a Queensland Quisling.
See treachery is bad but treachery against all your fellow citizens is not only unforgivable but unforgetable.

I find it hard to believe that Robert Manne
actually did the things the authors of this
article accuse him of doing.

In fact, I find it incredible.
And extremely disturbing.

Robert Manne, to me has always been
a fair and just intellectual, who saw the
bigger picture, and tried to remain
objective, presenting both sides of the argument
without judgement. He always seemed, the voice
of reason.

I can't understand how a man was vilified
so unjustly,as in this case of Wilfred Burchett,
and that his children had to bear the brunt of the
vilification as well. It's hard to imagine this
happening in a country like Australia.

Many people got it wrong
about Stalin - from George Bernard Shaw to Roosevelt
("My friend Joe"). They weren't ostracised.

Still, I suppose - those
"red under the bed fearful times,"
ruined a lot of people's lives.

I didn't realize that
it had happened to Australians.

From a man that
I've always admired in the past...

We ought not forget what started off Robert Manne's (and Mark Aaron's, for that matter) writing about Burchett. It was Tibor Meray's book titled On Burchett. It would be worthwhile for Gavan McCormack, Stuart McIntyre and the others to read this book. Bill Hyde of Callistemon Publications

Dear Bill,

Thanks for mentioning the book by Tibor Meray,
"On Burchett." Callistemon Publications,
$30.95.

Matthew Ricketson, "The Age" media editor has
done a write up in, "The Age," Saturday, July 5, 2008.
and it's made me want to read it - and find out more
about Wilfred Burchett.

It may help me understand why
Robert Manne has taken
the stand he has.

To say that Burchett got it wrong on Stalinist Eastern Europe is an understatement of some magnitude. Perhaps the authors of this article could spend a few minutes imagining themselves in the shoes of those citizens in the "people's democracies" that Burchett betrayed over and over again, and kept on betraying long after he knew the facts. Then perhaps they might want to consider addressing the forensic demolition job done by Tibor Meray.

Discussion of whether Wilfred Burchett was technically a communist, or a traitor, or deserved to be denied a passport, are peripheral to the overwhelming central issue, which is his role as that counterpart to the Holocaust denier, the hecatomb ignorer.
A political journalist who perversely, obdurately and avoidably got it wrong about history's two worst mass murderers, Stalin and Mao, and history's closest approximation to pure totalitarianism, the Kim Il-sung / Kim Jong-il dynasty, has simply forfeited all rights to be taken seriously.