He was employed by Melbourne's "The Age" newspaper, where he was the only university graduate on staff. In 1954 he left the country to become the paper's London correspondent, covering subjects as diverse as that city's premiere of the Australian play "Summer of the Seventeenth Doll;" Robert Menzies' 1956 failed attempt to negotiate with Egypt's president Gamal Nasser during the Suez Crisis; and the Hungarian revolution.