From Burma battles to 'the bright lights of Brisbane': how an Australian wartime prime minister won, lost, and recaptured American journalists’ support, 1941 to 1945

From Burma battles to 'the bright lights of Brisbane': how an Australian wartime prime minister won, lost, and recaptured American journalists’ support, 1941 to 1945

At the height of the Pacific war, Australian Prime Minister John Curtin elevated American journalists’ roles in his governance to elicit U.S. enthusiasm for his country’s defense. This study reveals new insights into how another Allied nation’s leader expanded American press interactions to influence the White House during World War II. As a former journalist, Curtin extended his candid press talks and the fledgling Australian radio and newsreel media to involve U.S. reporters in his campaign for an escalated offensive from America’s Southwest Pacific headquarters in Brisbane, Australia. Yet he lost key American press support for preventing some of his country’s troops from fighting in the Allies’ battles in Burma. Through a rare analysis of secret diaries, confidential briefings, and unscreened newsreels, this article shows how Curtin developed remarkably uncensored American journalistic reports to reclaim positive news coverage of the U.S.-led advance from Australia to help win the war.

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