Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows archival footage of the domestic dissent that arose out of Australia’s participation in the Vietnam War. Included are scenes of the moratorium marches held in all Australian state capital cities during the conflict, as well as a scene showing anticommunist protesters confronting journalist Wilfred Burchett on his return to Australia in 1971. Soldiers in uniform are shown honouring a comrade who has died in the War. Interview footage with Burchett about his stance on the War and his recollections of this period form the main subject of the clip and are accompanied by still photographs. The archival footage is in black and white.

Educational value points

• The subject of Public Enemy Number One is the controversial Australian journalist and war correspondent Wilfred Burchett. While working for the Daily Express, Burchett (1911–83) scooped the world with his reporting from Hiroshima in September 1945 in direct defiance of US General MacArthur’s orders. During the Korean War (1950–53), Burchett reported from the North Korean side, and during the Vietnam War (1965–72) his friendship with Ho Chi Minh allowed him to report with the communist Viet Cong forces (Burchett was 60 at the time). The film gives insight into Burchett’s motives in covering wars from the enemy’s point of view. Claims that Burchett was a communist and a traitor led to him being denied an Australian passport for 17 years.

• Burchett believed that his responsibility was not to an editor or a publisher, but to report the truth as he saw it. In the conservative 1960s, however, ABC journalists were under management pressure to provide positive stories about the Vietnam War and were required to rely on official, authorised sources for news on Vietnam. Any critique of the War was seen to represent disloyalty to the troops and subversion of the Australian Government’s position.

• Australia’s escalating involvement in the conflict between North and South Vietnam began in 1962 when, as a member of SEATO, Australia sent 32 army instructors to Vietnam. By 1965 it was apparent that South Vietnam could not hold out against the North Vietnamese communist insurgents and the USA increased its commitment of troops, asking for assistance from its allies. Australia, bound to the USA through the ANZUS and SEATO treaties, responded with ground troops. Conscription was introduced to Australia in 1965 to provide sufficient troops for the War. Australia’s commitment continued until December 1972, when the Australian Labor Party won office, withdrew the Australian troops from Vietnam and abolished conscription.

• The growing protest movement in Australia against the country’s involvement in Vietnam grew slowly from 1963. Televised images of the War strongly influenced anti-War feeling and in Australia anticonscription sentiment was a powerful component of the peace movement. During March and April 1969, 302 people were arrested in street marches and sit-ins across the country and a Gallup Poll in August that year revealed that a majority of Australians favoured bringing Australian troops home. Heavily influenced by US anti-War marches, more than 200,000 participated in moratorium marches in 1970. Following US President Nixon’s announcement of a phased withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam in 1971, Australia followed suit.

• According to the Australian War Memorial, Australia’s participation in the Vietnam War gave rise to the greatest expression of social dissent and division in Australia since the conscription referendums of the First World War. Many believed that the tide of communism would sweep down through Asia (the so-called 'domino theory’) and needed to be stopped before it engulfed nations such as Australia. Protesters were labelled communists and the protest movement was described as a threat to the Australian way of life.

• The clip shows the funeral of a soldier, one of 520 Australian service people who died as a direct result of their involvement in the Vietnam War. Forty-seven thousand Australians served in Vietnam during the years of Australia’s involvement (1965–72), including ground troops and personnel serving in the Australian Air Force and Navy, and almost 2,400 were wounded. Fifty-eight thousand Americans died in the conflict and it is claimed that as many as 3 million people on both sides, including North and South Vietnamese soldiers and civilians, died as a result of the hostilities before the North Vietnamese victory in 1975.

• Public Enemy Number One is an example of the work of much-awarded Australian filmmaker David Bradbury. An early job as a radio journalist with the ABC quickly led Bradbury (1951–) into a career as a freelance journalist, covering revolutions in Portugal and Greece. He made his name through the first-ever interview with the Free Papua Movement in 1977. His first documentary films depicted the lives and careers of two independent and uncompromising Australian journalists, news cameraman Neil Davis and Wilfred Burchett, and explored the role of the war correspondent. Other films have supported popular causes and exposed political corruption and injustice, earning him an international reputation for fearless reporting.

Narration is accompanied by archival footage of anti-Vietnam War protests. Police drag protesters away.
Narrator The Vietnam War split the Australian community in two. Burchett’s reports were largely ignored by the conservative daily press but his articles and books were read where they had the most impact – amongst the anti-war activists both in Australia and overseas. Wilfred Burchett was still the only Western journalist consistently covering the war from the communist side.

Archival footage shows Wilfred speaking.
Wilfred Burchett, journalist I’ve come to believe, over the years, that my duties as a journalist go beyond my responsibilities to an editor or to a publisher and that my duties as a citizen of the world go beyond my responsibilities only to my own country. In other words, I reject the ‘my country, right or wrong’.

Narration is accompanied by archival footage of soldiers honouring a comrade who died in the war.
Narrator With Australian conscripts dying in the jungles of Vietnam, Wilfred Burchett’s activities brought enormous resentment. In this climate, his repeated requests for a new Australian passport were rejected.

Wilfred is interviewed at his home. The interview is intercut with archival photographs of Wilfred’s family and a newspaper which displays the headline ‘Exile Defies Govt’.
Wilfred Burchett The Australian Government went to extraordinary lengths to keep me out of the country. In 1969, for instance, my father was dying, he was 97 – almost 97 – and I asked to go back then on – well, on compassionate grounds but it was refused.

In the end the question was becoming quite serious for the children. They were approaching the age at which they needed their own identification document and that is when I forced my way in through the back door, I might say, in 1970 to Australia to attract public attention to the case and also to fight out the question on the spot. It was arranged that a newspaper proprietor sent over a small private plane and I flew into Australia with that, went in with, entered with my birth certificate.

1970
Wilfred’s interview continues in voice-over. This is accompanied by archival footage of his arrival back in Australia. His plane is greeted by a noisy group of protesters carrying signs such as ‘Red Rat’. He gives a press conference.
Wilfred Burchett It was a very scandalous business and they put the Government to great ridicule. On the one hand they were saying that I was such a terrible person that I must not be allowed back into Australia and on the other hand if they thought I was such a terrible person, they should have been glad to get their hands on me. I was fighting to get into Australia and they were fighting to keep me out.
Man 1 Here he comes.
Man 2 Go back to Russia! Go back to Russia! Go back to Russia!
Wilfred I’ve come in quietly over the years. I’ve tried to come in very quietly this time, without any publicity of any sort whatsoever.
Reporter 1 Oh, now, you’re not expecting us to believe that?
Reporter 2 Who caused the delay, do you think? The Australian Government?
Reporter 3 Do you feel that you’ve been a traitor to the Allies in this particular case?
Wilfred I’ve certainly not been a traitor to the Allies. I’ve opposed policies in Vietnam, I oppose Australians being killed on Vietnamese soil. If it were Vietnamese invading Australian soil, I’d be supporting Australia. I oppose Australians killing and being killed on Vietnamese soil and I think a great number of other Australians – a great number of other Australians feel the same way.