David Frum

David Frum @davidfrum

RT @timkmak: Morning from Ukraine to readers waking up all over. Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands. However, strikes overnight hit cities… — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

So remember Burchett. Remember the US pilots of the Korean War tortured into false confessions by a communist regime. Be warned - and be mindful of the many latter-day Burchetts who copy his deceits, without any of his derring-do. END — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

Burchett died in 1983 in communist Bulgaria, his home by then. I am told that he remains something of a hero in North Korea. Nothing can efface his intrepidity in Hiroshima in 1945. Still - nobody should want to be like Burchett. 11/x — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

And after all, in the era of social media trolling, we've seen abundant examples of people who put their voices at the service of communist and fascist regimes, not because they are paid or compromised, but for ideology, vanity, or malice. Maybe Burchett was one such. 10/x — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

It remains murky to this day whether Burchett was a literal foreign agent. In 1969, a KGB defector named Burchett as a spy that defector had run. Burchett lost a subsequent libel case. But the defector had credibility problems of his own, so who knows. 9/x — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

I think of Burchett when I see writers in the West today reporting Russian propaganda about alleged Ukrainian germ warfare plots. It's a familiar lie, brought only very slightly up to date. The authors of the lie are looking for their own Wilfred Burchetts to support them. 8/x — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

To prove their case of US germ warfare, the Chinese tortured captured US pilots into confessing that they had air-dropped germ bombs. Burchett contorted himself to ignore the torture and believe the lies. He even wrote a book based on the testimony of tortured US pilots. 7/x — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

(The claim seems to have got its start because of the high disease rate among North Korean and Chinese soldiers. Rather than improve hygiene and medicine, the communists blamed the United States for outbreaks behind their lines.) 6/x — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

Specifically, Burchett became the most important English-language support for the outrageously false claim that the UN forces used chemical and biological weapons in the Korean War. 5/x — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

Along the way, though, Burchett's politics curdled into outright communist advocacy. He settled in Beijing after Mao's victory in 1949. When the Korean War erupted in 1950, Burchett put his large reputation to the service of North Korean/Chinese propaganda 4/x — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

Burchett reported from the Burma front in the Second World War. He was wounded in action. In the 1930s, he assisted German Jews to find refuge in Australia. 3/x — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

Burchett was a journalist born in Australia in 1911. He had an amazingly successful and courageous career in the 1930s and 1940s: the first Western journalist to report from Hiroshima eg. 2/x — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

Does the name Wilfred Burchett still ring a bell in the public memory? (Thread ...) — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

RT @StevenTDennis: Folks who invested in Russia seeing huge losses, continued: https://t.co/41pbexUlly — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

Intelligent realism about the limits of China's financial power to aid Russia https://t.co/m6qboLI2hB — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

RT @JimmySecUK: Drone footage from Australian 7News shows the devastation the Russian invasion has already brought to Kyiv. All the destr… — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

RT @anneapplebaum: More evidence that Russians are treating occupied Kherson like Warsaw in 1945 (or Kyiv 1933), going house to house and a… — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

Here's the bit https://t.co/f47tQsVZKE — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

RT @pommylee: @davidfrum https://t.co/PC93Bnee2D — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

There's a classic Norm Macdonald bit about Germany in 1914 deciding to go to war against "the world." "You'd figure that would take about 5 seconds for the world to win. But no, it was actually close." Caution to Putin: Russia isn't Germany. It won't be close. — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

RT @AP: BREAKING: President Biden will announce that along with the European Union and the Group of Seven countries, the U.S. will move to… — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

The entire Russian military budget pre-invasion of Ukraine was $62 billion .https://t.co/Nfmh2vjO2N. — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

This is a crazy story. The Russian Army is now a protected category? — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

And "they" have some important local helpers, some of them sadly on a domestic American taxpayer's payroll. — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

RT @Reuters: Exclusive: Canada is studying ways to increase pipeline utilization to boost crude exports to the U.S., with the aim of helpin… — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

RT @tebeamon: ⬇️⬇️This thread by David Frum is spot on. It's a must-read for anyone who supports the people of Ukraine. #IStandWithUkraine️… — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

RT @worldonalert: The anti-Javelin cages on the Russian tanks turned out to be useless so the Russians have begun to build giant bird's nes… — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

RT @UrbanAchievr: DeSantis press secretary fuels Russian propaganda about bioweapons in Ukraine https://t.co/Gd5WRxfu7K — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

RT @axios: Approximately 1,300 people have died in the city of Mariupol as Russian forces continue their more than weeklong siege, Deputy P… — PolitiTweet.org

David Frum @davidfrum

RT @PaulaChertok: CNN: Russian munitions are steadily wiping out #Mariupol. It's already unlivable—no food, water or power. 70 bodies were… — PolitiTweet.org