Seymour Hersh
Encyclopedia
Seymour Myron Hersh (born April 8, 1937) is an American Pulitzer Prize
-winning investigative
journalist
and author based in Washington, D.C.
He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker
magazine on military and security matters. He has also won two National Magazine Awards and is a "five-time Polk
winner and recipient of the 2004 George Orwell Award."
He first gained worldwide recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre
and its cover-up
during the Vietnam War
, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting
. His 2004 reports on the US military's mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison
gained much attention.
to Yiddish-speaking Lithuanian Jewish parents who immigrated to the US from Lithuania
and Poland
and ran a dry-cleaning shop in the far west side neighborhood of Chicago, called Austin. After graduating from the University of Chicago
, with a history degree Hersh found himself struggling to find a job. He began working at a Walgreens before being accepted into University of Chicago Law School
but was soon expelled for poor grades. After returning for a short time to Walgreens, Hersh began his career in journalism as a police reporter for the City News Bureau in 1959. He later became a correspondent for United Press International
in South Dakota
. In 1963, he went on to become a Chicago and Washington
correspondent for the Associated Press
. While working in Washington Hersh first met and befriended I. F. Stone
whose I. F. Stone's Weekly would serve as an initial inspiration for Hersh's later work. It was during this time that Hersh began to form his investigative style, often walking out of regimented press briefings at the Pentagon and seeking out one on one interviews with high ranking officers. After a falling out with the AP over their refusal to run a story on the US government's work on biological and chemical weapons Hersh left the AP and sold his story to The New Republic
. During the 1968 presidential election, he served as press secretary for the campaign of Senator Eugene McCarthy
.
covering the Vietnam War
. In 1969, Hersh received a tip from Geoffrey Cowan
of The Village Voice
regarding an Army lieutenant being court-martial
led for killing civilians in Vietnam. His subsequent investigation, sold to the Dispatch News Service
, was run in thirty-three newspapers and exposed the My Lai massacre
, winning him the Pulitzer Prize
in 1970.
In 1972, Hersh was hired as a reporter for the Washington bureau of The New York Times
, where he served from 1972 to 1975 and again in 1979. In 1975, Hersh was active in the investigation and reporting of Project Azorian (which he called Project Jennifer), the Central Intelligence Agency
's clandestine effort to raise a Soviet submarine using the Howard Hughes
' Glomar Explorer.
and the Los Angeles Times
book prize in biography
. In 1985, Hersh contributed to the PBS television documentary Buying the Bomb. In 1993 Hersh became a regular contributor to The New Yorker.
Hersh has appeared regularly on the Democracy Now!
show.
, in which hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians were murdered by US soldiers in March 1968. The report prompted widespread condemnation around the world and reduced public support for the Vietnam War
in the United States. The explosive news of the massacre fueled the outrage of the US peace movement, which demanded the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam
. Hersh wrote about the massacre and its cover-up in My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath and Cover-up: The Army's Secret Investigation of the Massacre at My Lai 4. A movie was produced, based on this book, by Italian director Paolo Bertola in 2009.
, the code name for a CIA project to recover a sunken Soviet navy
submarine from the floor of the Pacific Ocean
. Bill Kovach
, The New York Times
Washington, DC bureau chief at the time, said in 2005 that the government offered a convincing argument to delay publication in early 1974—exposure at that time, while the project was ongoing, "would have caused an international incident." The NYT eventually published its account in 1975, after a story appeared in the Los Angeles Times
, and included a five-paragraph explanation of the many twists and turns in the path to publication. It is unclear what, if any, action was taken by the Soviet Union
after learning of the story.
in September 1983 was due to a combination of Soviet incompetence and United States intelligence operations intended to confuse Soviet responses.
Later releases of government information confirmed that there was a PSYOPS campaign against the Soviet Union that had been in place from the first few months of the Reagan administration
. This campaign included the largest US Pacific Fleet exercise ever held, in April to May 1983. The report states that the Soviets, "probably didn't know (KAL 007) was a civilian aircraft" and uses Hersh's book as a reference for the PSYOPS campaign.
, Hersh wrote that Nicholas Davies
, the foreign editor of The Daily Mirror
, had tipped off the Israeli embassy in London about whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu
. Vanunu had given information about Israel's nuclear weapons program
first to The Sunday Times
and later to the Sunday Mirror
. At the time, the Sunday Mirror and its sibling newspaper, the Daily Mirror were owned by media magnate Robert Maxwell
who was alleged to have had contacts with Israel's intelligence services
. According to Hersh, Davies had also worked for the Mossad
. Vanunu was later lured by Mossad from London to Rome, kidnapped, returned to Israel
, and sentenced to 18 years in jail. Davies and Maxwell published an anti-Vanunu story that was claimed to be part of a disinformation
campaign on behalf of the Israeli government.
Hersh repeated the allegations during a press conference held in London to publicize his book. No British newspaper would publish the allegations because of Maxwell's famed litigiousness. However, two British MPs raised the matter in the House of Commons
, which meant that British newspapers were able to report what had been said without fear of being sued for libel
. Maxwell called the claims "ludicrous, a total invention". He fired Nick Davies shortly thereafter.
, the largest pharmaceutical factory in Sudan
—providing about half the medicines produced in Sudan—by United States cruise missile
s during Bill Clinton
's presidency.
magazine detailing military and security matters surrounding the US-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq
. In March 2002 he described the planning process for a new invasion of Iraq that had been on-going since the end of the First Gulf War, under the leadership of Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz
, Fried and other neo-conservatives. In a 2004 article, he alleged that Vice President Dick Cheney
and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
circumvented the normal intelligence analysis function of the CIA
in their quest to make the case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq
. Another article, Lunch with the Chairman, led Richard Perle
, a subject of the article, to call Hersh the "closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist."
A March 7, 2007 article entitled, "The Redirection" described the recent shift in the George W. Bush administration
's Iraq policy, the goal of which is to "contain" Iran. Hersh points out that, "a by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda."
In May 2004, Hersh published a series of articles which described the treatment of detainees by US military police at Abu Ghraib prison
near Baghdad
, Iraq
. The articles included allegations that private military contractors contributed to prisoner mistreatment and that intelligence agencies such as the CIA ordered torture
in order to break prisoners for interrogations. They also alleged that torture is a usual practice in other US-run prisons as well, e.g., in Bagram Theater Internment Facility
and Guantanamo
. In subsequent articles, Hersh claimed that the abuses were part of a secret interrogation program, known as "Copper Green
". According to Hersh's sources, the program was expanded to Iraq with the direct approval of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, both in an attempt to deal with the growing insurgency there and as part of "Rumsfeld's long-standing desire to wrest control of America's clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A." Much of his material for these articles was based on the Army's own internal investigations.
Scott Ritter
points out in his October 19, 2005 interview with Seymour Hersh that the US policy to remove Iraqi president Saddam Hussein
from power started with US president George H. W. Bush
in August 1990. Ritter concludes from public remarks by President Bush and Secretary of State James Baker
that the Iraq sanctions
would only be lifted when Hussein was removed from power. The justification for sanctions was disarmament. The CIA offered the opinion that containing Hussein for six months would result in the collapse of his regime. This policy resulted in the invasion
and occupation of Iraq.
to identify targets for possible strikes. Hersh also claimed that Pakistan
and the United States have struck a "Khan-for-Iran" deal in which Washington
will look the other way at Pakistan's nuclear transgressions and not demand handing over of its nuclear proliferator
A Q Khan
, in return for Islamabad
's cooperation in neutralising Iran's nuclear plans. This was also denied by officials of the governments of the US and Pakistan.
In the April 17, 2006 issue of The New Yorker, Hersh reported on the Bush administration
's purported plans for an air strike on Iran. Of particular note in his article is that a US nuclear first strike
(possibly using the B61
-11 bunker-buster
nuclear weapon
) is under consideration to eliminate underground Iranian uranium enrichment facilities. In response, President Bush cited Hersh's reportage as "wild speculation."
When, in October 2007, asked on presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's hawkish views on Iran, Hersh claimed that Jewish donations were the main reason for these:
While speaking at a journalism conference recently, Hersh claimed that after the Strait of Hormuz
incident, members of the Bush administration met in vice president Dick Cheney
's office to consider methods of initiating a war with Iran. One idea considered was staging a false flag
operation involving the use of Navy SEALs
dressed as Iranian PT boaters who would engage in a firefight with US ships. This idea was shot down. This claim has not been verified.
, Hersh claimed that the White House
gave the green light for the Israeli government to execute an attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon
. Supposedly, communication between the Israel
i government and the US government about this came as early as two months in advance of the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of eight others by Hezbollah prior to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
in July 2006. The US government denied these claims.
, The Dark Side of Camelot, made a number of controversial assertions about the former president, including that he had had a "first marriage" to a woman named Durie Malcolm that was never terminated, that he had been a semi-regular narcotics user, that he had a close working relationship with mob boss Sam Giancana
which supposedly included vote fraud in one or two crucial states in the 1960 presidential election. For many of these claims, Hersh relied only on hearsay collected decades after the event. In a Los Angeles Times
review, Edward Jay Epstein
cast doubt on these and other assertions, writing, "this book turns out to be, alas, more about the deficiencies of investigative journalism than about the deficiencies of John F. Kennedy." Responding to the book, historian and former Kennedy aide Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
called Hersh "the most gullible investigative reporter I've ever encountered."
Hersh repeatedly described Kennedy as a playboy and implied that many journalists were aware of his womanizing but turned a blind eye, even ignoring or denigrating witnesses to the infidelity who wanted to go public. One of Hersh's assertions on his theme, however, is backed with erroneous references (and remains unsubstantiated). The author identified one Florence M. Kater as a "middle-aged housewife" who supposedly knew of Kennedy's womanizing during his 1960 presidential campaign. According to Hersh, this woman, who was allegedly the former landlady of JFK's senatorial aide/love interest Pamela Turnure, decided in 1959 to break the news on this topic. Inexplicably, "in late 1958" (the year before she decided to go public) she "ambushed Kennedy leaving the new apartment [to which Turnure allegedly moved to escape Kater's eavesdropping] at three A.M. and took a photograph of the unhappy senator attempting to shield his face with a handkerchief."
Hersh did not publish such a photograph in The Dark Side of Camelot or cite an interview with Florence Kater. She died many years before he started work on the book. If another writer or journalist ever interviewed her, Hersh did not use such a source. In the book he asserted that Kater had attended a 1960 presidential campaign stop near Washington, DC carrying a blow-up of her alleged photograph of an adulterous Sen. Kennedy attempting to shield his face.
"Kater was not taken seriously by the national press corps," wrote Hersh, "but she came close to attracting media attention. On May 14, 1960, just four days after Kennedy won the West Virginia primary, she approached him at a political rally at the University of Maryland carrying a placard with an enlarged snapshot of the early-morning scene outside Pamela Turnure's apartment. Kennedy ignored her, but a photograph of the encounter was published in the next afternoon's Washington Star, along with a brief story describing her as a heckler.". The microfilmed editions of May 14, 15 and 16 of the Washington Star
, known at the time as the Evening Star of Washington, DC and The Sunday Star, do not contain such a photograph or brief story. Hersh could not have confused it with the Washington Post or The Washington Daily News
because neither the name "Florence Kater" nor a photograph of her appeared in those newspapers, either, in connection with the May 14 event.
A month before the book's publication, newspapers, including USA Today
, reported Hersh's announcement that he had removed from the galleys, at the last minute, a segment about legal documents allegedly containing JFK's signature. A paralegal named Lawrence Cusack had shared them with Hersh and encouraged the author to discuss them in the book. Shortly before Hersh's publicized announcement, federal investigators began probing Cusack's sale of the documents at auction. After The Dark Side of Camelot became a bestseller, Cusack was convicted by a federal jury in Manhattan of forging the documents and sentenced to a long prison term. The documents signed by "John F. Kennedy" included a provision, in 1960, for a trust fund to be set up for the institutionalized mother of Marilyn Monroe
. In 1997 the Kennedy family denied Cusack's claim that his late father had been an attorney who had represented JFK in 1960.
wrote, "As soon as he has made an assertion he cites a 'source' to back it. In every case this is either an un-named former official or an unidentified secret document passed to Hersh in unknown circumstances... By my count Hersh has anonymous 'sources' inside 30 foreign governments and virtually every department of the U.S. government."
David Remnick
, the editor of The New Yorker, maintains that he is aware of the identity of all of Hersh's unnamed sources, telling the Columbia Journalism Review
that "I know every single source that is in his pieces.... Every 'retired intelligence officer,' every general with reason to know, and all those phrases that one has to use, alas, by necessity, I say, 'Who is it? What's his interest?' We talk it through."
In a response to an article in The New Yorker in which Hersh alleged that the U.S. government was planning a strike on Iran
, U.S. Defense Department spokesman Brian Whitman
said, "This reporter has a solid and well-earned reputation for making dramatic assertions based on thinly sourced, unverifiable anonymous sources."
magazine, Hersh made a distinction between the standards of strict factual accuracy for his print reporting and the leeway he allows himself in speeches, in which he may talk informally about stories still being worked on or blur information to protect his sources. "Sometimes I change events, dates, and places in a certain way to protect people... I can’t fudge what I write. But I can certainly fudge what I say."
Some of Hersh's speeches concerning the Iraq War have described violent incidents involving U.S. troops in Iraq. In July 2004, during the height of the Abu Ghraib scandal, he alleged that American troops sexually assaulted young boys:
In a subsequent interview with New York magazine, Hersh regretted that "I actually didn’t quite say what I wanted to say correctly...it wasn’t that inaccurate, but it was misstated. The next thing I know, it was all over the blogs. And I just realized then, the power of—and so you have to try and be more careful." In his book, Chain of Command, he wrote that one of the witness statements he had read described the rape of a boy by a foreign contract interpreter at Abu Ghraib, during which a woman took pictures.
that the United States and Saudi governments were funding the terrorist organization Fatah al-Islam
through aid to Lebanese Sunni Prime Minister Fouad Siniora
. Following the publishing of the story journalists in Beirut uncovered that Hersh put forth the claim without any reliable sources. Hersh had heard the unconfirmed story from Robert Fisk
who had, in turn, heard the story from former British intelligence agent Alastair Crooke
. Crooke had only heard it circulated as rumor and no one had fact checked the claims before Hersh ran the story which prompted a variety of criticisms.
had been paid $20,000 a year by the CIA during the Johnson and Nixon administration. Desai called the allegation "a scandalous and malicious lie" and filed a $50 million libel suit against Hersh. By the time the case went to trial Desai, by then 93, was too ill to attend. CIA director Richard Helms
and Henry Kissinger
testified under oath that at no time did Desai act in any capacity for the CIA, paid or otherwise. Since Hersh did not have to take the stand or reveal the name of his alleged source, the Judge found in favor of Hersh.
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning investigative
Investigative journalism
Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, often involving crime, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Investigative journalism...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and author based in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
magazine on military and security matters. He has also won two National Magazine Awards and is a "five-time Polk
George Polk Awards
The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States.-History:...
winner and recipient of the 2004 George Orwell Award."
He first gained worldwide recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre
My Lai Massacre
The My Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder of 347–504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers of "Charlie" Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the Americal Division. Most of the victims were women, children , and...
and its cover-up
Cover-up
A cover-up is an attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal evidence of wrong-doing, error, incompetence or other embarrassing information...
during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting
Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting
This Pulitzer Prize has been awarded since 1942 for a distinguished example of reporting on international affairs, including United Nations correspondence. In its first six years , it was called the Pulitzer Prize for Telegraphic Reporting - International...
. His 2004 reports on the US military's mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison
Abu Ghraib prison
The Baghdad Central Prison, formerly known as Abu Ghraib prison is in Abu Ghraib, an Iraqi city 32 km west of Baghdad. It was built by British contractors in the 1950s....
gained much attention.
Early years
Hersh was born in ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
to Yiddish-speaking Lithuanian Jewish parents who immigrated to the US from Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
and Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and ran a dry-cleaning shop in the far west side neighborhood of Chicago, called Austin. After graduating from the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, with a history degree Hersh found himself struggling to find a job. He began working at a Walgreens before being accepted into University of Chicago Law School
University of Chicago Law School
The University of Chicago Law School was founded in 1902 as the graduate school of law at the University of Chicago and is among the most prestigious and selective law schools in the world. The U.S. News & World Report currently ranks it fifth among U.S...
but was soon expelled for poor grades. After returning for a short time to Walgreens, Hersh began his career in journalism as a police reporter for the City News Bureau in 1959. He later became a correspondent for United Press International
United Press International
United Press International is a once-major international news agency, whose newswires, photo, news film and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines and radio and television stations for most of the twentieth century...
in South Dakota
South Dakota
South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...
. In 1963, he went on to become a Chicago and Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
correspondent for the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
. While working in Washington Hersh first met and befriended I. F. Stone
I. F. Stone
Isidor Feinstein Stone was an iconoclastic American investigative journalist. He is best remembered for his self-published newsletter, I. F...
whose I. F. Stone's Weekly would serve as an initial inspiration for Hersh's later work. It was during this time that Hersh began to form his investigative style, often walking out of regimented press briefings at the Pentagon and seeking out one on one interviews with high ranking officers. After a falling out with the AP over their refusal to run a story on the US government's work on biological and chemical weapons Hersh left the AP and sold his story to The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
. During the 1968 presidential election, he served as press secretary for the campaign of Senator Eugene McCarthy
Eugene McCarthy
Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy was an American politician, poet, and a long-time member of the United States Congress from Minnesota. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the U.S. Senate from 1959 to 1971.In the 1968 presidential election, McCarthy was the first...
.
Vietnam and the New York Times
After leaving the McCarthy campaign, Hersh returned to journalism as a freelancerFreelancer
A freelancer, freelance worker, or freelance is somebody who is self-employed and is not committed to a particular employer long term. These workers are often represented by a company or an agency that resells their labor and that of others to its clients with or without project management and...
covering the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. In 1969, Hersh received a tip from Geoffrey Cowan
Geoffrey Cowan
Geoffrey Cowan is an American lawyer, professor, author, and playwright. He is currently the president of and a University Professor at the University of Southern California where he holds the Annenberg Family Chair in Communication Leadership and directs the Annenberg School's Center on...
of The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
regarding an Army lieutenant being court-martial
Court-martial
A court-martial is a military court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the armed forces subject to military law, and, if the defendant is found guilty, to decide upon punishment.Most militaries maintain a court-martial system to try cases in which a breach of...
led for killing civilians in Vietnam. His subsequent investigation, sold to the Dispatch News Service
Dispatch News Service
Dispatch News Service is a left-leaning news agency founded in 1968 by David Obst and Michael Morrow.DNS was the original outlet to purchase Seymour Hersh's story about the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War, pushing it on 35 newspapers at $100 apiece....
, was run in thirty-three newspapers and exposed the My Lai massacre
My Lai Massacre
The My Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder of 347–504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers of "Charlie" Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the Americal Division. Most of the victims were women, children , and...
, winning him the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
in 1970.
In 1972, Hersh was hired as a reporter for the Washington bureau of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, where he served from 1972 to 1975 and again in 1979. In 1975, Hersh was active in the investigation and reporting of Project Azorian (which he called Project Jennifer), the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
's clandestine effort to raise a Soviet submarine using the Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...
' Glomar Explorer.
After the New York Times
His 1983 book The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House won him the National Book Critics Circle AwardNational Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....
and the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
book prize in biography
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
. In 1985, Hersh contributed to the PBS television documentary Buying the Bomb. In 1993 Hersh became a regular contributor to The New Yorker.
Hersh has appeared regularly on the Democracy Now!
Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...
show.
My Lai Massacre
On November 12, 1969, Hersh broke the story of the My Lai MassacreMy Lai Massacre
The My Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder of 347–504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers of "Charlie" Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the Americal Division. Most of the victims were women, children , and...
, in which hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians were murdered by US soldiers in March 1968. The report prompted widespread condemnation around the world and reduced public support for the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
in the United States. The explosive news of the massacre fueled the outrage of the US peace movement, which demanded the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
. Hersh wrote about the massacre and its cover-up in My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath and Cover-up: The Army's Secret Investigation of the Massacre at My Lai 4. A movie was produced, based on this book, by Italian director Paolo Bertola in 2009.
Project Jennifer
In early 1974, Hersh had planned to publish a story on Project JenniferProject Jennifer
"AZORIAN" was the code name for a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency project to recover the sunken Soviet submarine K-129 from the Pacific Ocean floor in the summer of 1974, using the purpose-built ship Hughes Glomar Explorer...
, the code name for a CIA project to recover a sunken Soviet navy
Soviet Navy
The Soviet Navy was the naval arm of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy would have played an instrumental role in a Warsaw Pact war with NATO, where it would have attempted to prevent naval convoys from bringing reinforcements across the Atlantic Ocean...
submarine from the floor of the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
. Bill Kovach
Bill Kovach
Bill Kovach is a US journalist, former Washington bureau chief of The New York Times, former editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and co-author of the popular book, The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and The Public Should Expect.- Biography :Born in 1932 in East...
, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
Washington, DC bureau chief at the time, said in 2005 that the government offered a convincing argument to delay publication in early 1974—exposure at that time, while the project was ongoing, "would have caused an international incident." The NYT eventually published its account in 1975, after a story appeared in the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, and included a five-paragraph explanation of the many twists and turns in the path to publication. It is unclear what, if any, action was taken by the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
after learning of the story.
KAL 007
In his 1986 book The Target is Destroyed (Random House), Hersh alleged that the Soviet shooting down of Korean Air Flight 007Korean Air Flight 007
Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was a Korean Air Lines civilian airliner that was shot down by Soviet interceptors on 1 September 1983, over the Sea of Japan, near Moneron Island just west of Sakhalin island...
in September 1983 was due to a combination of Soviet incompetence and United States intelligence operations intended to confuse Soviet responses.
Later releases of government information confirmed that there was a PSYOPS campaign against the Soviet Union that had been in place from the first few months of the Reagan administration
Reagan Administration
The United States presidency of Ronald Reagan, also known as the Reagan administration, was a Republican administration headed by Ronald Reagan from January 20, 1981, to January 20, 1989....
. This campaign included the largest US Pacific Fleet exercise ever held, in April to May 1983. The report states that the Soviets, "probably didn't know (KAL 007) was a civilian aircraft" and uses Hersh's book as a reference for the PSYOPS campaign.
Mordechai Vanunu and Robert Maxwell
In his 1991 book The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign PolicyThe Samson Option (book)
The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy is a 1991 book by Seymour Hersh. It details the history of Israel's nuclear weapons program and its effects on Israel-American relations...
, Hersh wrote that Nicholas Davies
Nicholas Davies
Nicholas Davies, also known as Nick Davies, is a journalist and author, formerly foreign editor at the Daily Mirror. He was closely associated with Robert Maxwell, and was the centre of considerable UK media attention in 1991 after he was accused in Seymour Hersh's book The Samson Option of...
, the foreign editor of The Daily Mirror
The Daily Mirror
The Daily Mirror is a British national daily tabloid newspaper which was founded in 1903. Twice in its history, from 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was changed to read simply The Mirror, which is how the paper is often referred to in popular parlance. It had an...
, had tipped off the Israeli embassy in London about whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu
Mordechai Vanunu
Mordechai Vanunu ; is a former Israeli nuclear technician who, citing his opposition to weapons of mass destruction, revealed details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986. He was subsequently lured to Italy by a Mossad agent, where he was drugged and kidnapped by...
. Vanunu had given information about Israel's nuclear weapons program
Nuclear weapons and Israel
Israel is widely believed to be the sixth country in the world to have developed nuclear weapons and to be one of four nuclear-armed countries not recognized as a Nuclear Weapons State by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty , the others being India, Pakistan and North Korea...
first to The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
and later to the Sunday Mirror
Sunday Mirror
The Sunday Mirror is the Sunday sister paper of the Daily Mirror. It began life in 1915 as the Sunday Pictorial and was renamed the Sunday Mirror in 1963. Trinity Mirror also owns The People...
. At the time, the Sunday Mirror and its sibling newspaper, the Daily Mirror were owned by media magnate Robert Maxwell
Robert Maxwell
Ian Robert Maxwell MC was a Czechoslovakian-born British media proprietor and former Member of Parliament , who rose from poverty to build an extensive publishing empire...
who was alleged to have had contacts with Israel's intelligence services
Intelligence agency
An intelligence agency is a governmental agency that is devoted to information gathering for purposes of national security and defence. Means of information gathering may include espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis, cooperation with other institutions, and evaluation of public...
. According to Hersh, Davies had also worked for the Mossad
Mossad
The Mossad , short for HaMossad leModi'in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim , is the national intelligence agency of Israel....
. Vanunu was later lured by Mossad from London to Rome, kidnapped, returned to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, and sentenced to 18 years in jail. Davies and Maxwell published an anti-Vanunu story that was claimed to be part of a disinformation
Disinformation
Disinformation is intentionally false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately. For this reason, it is synonymous with and sometimes called black propaganda. It is an act of deception and false statements to convince someone of untruth...
campaign on behalf of the Israeli government.
Hersh repeated the allegations during a press conference held in London to publicize his book. No British newspaper would publish the allegations because of Maxwell's famed litigiousness. However, two British MPs raised the matter in the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
, which meant that British newspapers were able to report what had been said without fear of being sued for libel
Slander and libel
Defamation—also called calumny, vilification, traducement, slander , and libel —is the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government, or nation a negative image...
. Maxwell called the claims "ludicrous, a total invention". He fired Nick Davies shortly thereafter.
Attack on pharmaceutical factory in Sudan
On August 20, 1998, Hersh strongly criticized the destruction of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factoryAl-Shifa pharmaceutical factory
The Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum North, Sudan, was constructed between 1992 and 1996 with components imported from the United States, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, India, and Thailand....
, the largest pharmaceutical factory in Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
—providing about half the medicines produced in Sudan—by United States cruise missile
Cruise missile
A cruise missile is a guided missile that carries an explosive payload and is propelled, usually by a jet engine, towards a land-based or sea-based target. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high accuracy...
s during Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
's presidency.
Iraq
Hersh has written a series of articles for The New YorkerThe New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
magazine detailing military and security matters surrounding the US-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
. In March 2002 he described the planning process for a new invasion of Iraq that had been on-going since the end of the First Gulf War, under the leadership of Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz
Paul Wolfowitz
Paul Dundes Wolfowitz is a former United States Ambassador to Indonesia, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, President of the World Bank, and former dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University...
, Fried and other neo-conservatives. In a 2004 article, he alleged that Vice President Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney served as the 46th Vice President of the United States , under George W. Bush....
and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...
circumvented the normal intelligence analysis function of the CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
in their quest to make the case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
. Another article, Lunch with the Chairman, led Richard Perle
Richard Perle
Richard Norman Perle is an American political advisor, consultant, and lobbyist who began his career in government, a senior staff member to Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson on the Senate Armed Services Committee in the 1970’s...
, a subject of the article, to call Hersh the "closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist."
A March 7, 2007 article entitled, "The Redirection" described the recent shift in the George W. Bush administration
George W. Bush administration
The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...
's Iraq policy, the goal of which is to "contain" Iran. Hersh points out that, "a by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda."
In May 2004, Hersh published a series of articles which described the treatment of detainees by US military police at Abu Ghraib prison
Abu Ghraib prison
The Baghdad Central Prison, formerly known as Abu Ghraib prison is in Abu Ghraib, an Iraqi city 32 km west of Baghdad. It was built by British contractors in the 1950s....
near Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
, Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
. The articles included allegations that private military contractors contributed to prisoner mistreatment and that intelligence agencies such as the CIA ordered torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
in order to break prisoners for interrogations. They also alleged that torture is a usual practice in other US-run prisons as well, e.g., in Bagram Theater Internment Facility
Bagram Theater Internment Facility
The Parwan Detention Facility , also called the Bagram Theater Internment Facility, is a United States-run prison located next to Bagram Airfield in the Parwan Province of Afghanistan.It was formerly known as the Bagram Collection Point...
and Guantanamo
Camp X-Ray
Camp X-Ray was a temporary detention facility at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp of Joint Task Force Guantanamo on the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.The first twenty detainees arrived at Guantanamo on January 11, 2002....
. In subsequent articles, Hersh claimed that the abuses were part of a secret interrogation program, known as "Copper Green
Copper Green
Copper Green is reported by American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh to be one of several code names for a U.S. black ops program, according to an article in the May 24, 2004 issue of The New Yorker. According to Hersh, the task force was formed with the direct approval of Secretary of...
". According to Hersh's sources, the program was expanded to Iraq with the direct approval of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, both in an attempt to deal with the growing insurgency there and as part of "Rumsfeld's long-standing desire to wrest control of America's clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A." Much of his material for these articles was based on the Army's own internal investigations.
Scott Ritter
Scott Ritter
William Scott Ritter, Jr. was an important United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, and later a critic of United States foreign policy in the Middle East. Prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Ritter stated that Iraq possessed no significant weapons of mass...
points out in his October 19, 2005 interview with Seymour Hersh that the US policy to remove Iraqi president Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
from power started with US president George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
in August 1990. Ritter concludes from public remarks by President Bush and Secretary of State James Baker
James Baker
James Addison Baker, III is an American attorney, politician and political advisor.Baker served as the Chief of Staff in President Ronald Reagan's first administration and in the final year of the administration of President George H. W. Bush...
that the Iraq sanctions
Iraq sanctions
The Iraq sanctions were a near-total financial and trade embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council on the nation of Iraq. They began August 6, 1990, four days after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, stayed largely in force until May 2003 , and certain portions including reparations to Kuwait...
would only be lifted when Hussein was removed from power. The justification for sanctions was disarmament. The CIA offered the opinion that containing Hussein for six months would result in the collapse of his regime. This policy resulted in the invasion
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
and occupation of Iraq.
MR. HERSH: One of the things about your book that's amazing is that it's not only about the Bush Administration, and if there are any villains in this book, they include Sandy BergerSandy BergerSamuel Richard "Sandy" Berger was United States National Security Advisor, under President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001. In his position, he helped to formulate the foreign policy of the Clinton Administration...
, who was Clinton's national security advisor, and Madeleine AlbrightMadeleine AlbrightMadeleine Korbelová Albright is the first woman to become a United States Secretary of State. She was appointed by U.S. President Bill Clinton on December 5, 1996, and was unanimously confirmed by a U.S. Senate vote of 99–0...
.
Another thing that's breathtaking about this book is the amount of new stories and new information. Scott describes in detail and with named sources, basically, a two or three-year run of the American government undercutting the inspection process. In your view, during those years, '91 to'98, particularly the last three years, was the United States interested in disarming Iraq?
MR. RITTER: Well, the fact of the matter is the United States was never interested in disarming Iraq. The whole Security Council resolution that created the UN weapons inspections and called upon Iraq to disarm was focused on one thing and one thing only, and that is a vehicle for the maintenance of economic sanctions that were imposed in August 1990 linked to the liberation of Kuwait. We liberated Kuwait, I participated in that conflict. And one would think, therefore, the sanctions should be lifted.
The United States needed to find a vehicle to continue to contain Saddam because the CIA said all we have to do is wait six months and Saddam is going to collapse on his own volition. That vehicle is sanctions. They needed a justification; the justification was disarmament. They drafted a Chapter 7 resolution of the United Nations Security Council calling for the disarmament of Iraq and saying in Paragraph 14 that if Iraq complies, sanctions will be lifted. Within months of this resolution being passed--and the United States drafted and voted in favor of this resolution--within months, the President, George Herbert Walker Bush, and his Secretary of State, James Baker, are saying publicly, not privately, publicly that even if Iraq complies with its obligation to disarm, economic sanctions will be maintained until which time Saddam Hussein is removed from power.
That is proof positive that disarmament was only useful insofar as it contained through the maintenance of sanctions and facilitated regime change. It was never about disarmament, it was never about getting rid of weapons of mass destruction. It started with George Herbert Walker Bush, and it was a policy continued through eight years of the Clinton presidency, and then brought us to this current disastrous course of action under the current Bush Administration.
Iran
In January 2005, Hersh alleged that the US was conducting covert operations in IranIran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
to identify targets for possible strikes. Hersh also claimed that Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
and the United States have struck a "Khan-for-Iran" deal in which Washington
Federal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...
will look the other way at Pakistan's nuclear transgressions and not demand handing over of its nuclear proliferator
Nuclear proliferation
Nuclear proliferation is a term now used to describe the spread of nuclear weapons, fissile material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information, to nations which are not recognized as "Nuclear Weapon States" by the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, also known as the...
A Q Khan
Abdul Qadeer Khan
Abdul Qadeer Khan , also known in Pakistan as Mohsin-e-Pakistan , D.Eng, Sc.D, HI, NI , FPAS; more widely known as Dr. A. Q...
, in return for Islamabad
Islamabad
Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan and the tenth largest city in the country. Located within the Islamabad Capital Territory , the population of the city has grown from 100,000 in 1951 to 1.7 million in 2011...
's cooperation in neutralising Iran's nuclear plans. This was also denied by officials of the governments of the US and Pakistan.
In the April 17, 2006 issue of The New Yorker, Hersh reported on the Bush administration
George W. Bush administration
The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...
's purported plans for an air strike on Iran. Of particular note in his article is that a US nuclear first strike
First strike
In nuclear strategy, a first strike is a preemptive surprise attack employing overwhelming force. First strike capability is a country's ability to defeat another nuclear power by destroying its arsenal to the point where the attacking country can survive the weakened retaliation while the opposing...
(possibly using the B61
B61 nuclear bomb
The B61 nuclear bomb is the primary thermonuclear weapon in the U.S. Enduring Stockpile following the end of the Cold War. It is an intermediate yield strategic and tactical nuclear weapon featuring a two-stage radiation implosion design....
-11 bunker-buster
Nuclear bunker buster
Bunker-busting nuclear weapons, also known as earth-penetrating weapons , are a type of nuclear weapon designed to penetrate into soil, rock, or concrete to deliver a nuclear warhead to a target. These weapons would be used to destroy hardened, underground military bunkers buried deep in the ground...
nuclear weapon
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
) is under consideration to eliminate underground Iranian uranium enrichment facilities. In response, President Bush cited Hersh's reportage as "wild speculation."
When, in October 2007, asked on presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's hawkish views on Iran, Hersh claimed that Jewish donations were the main reason for these:
While speaking at a journalism conference recently, Hersh claimed that after the Strait of Hormuz
Strait of Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow, strategically important waterway between the Gulf of Oman in the southeast and the Persian Gulf. On the north coast is Iran and on the south coast is the United Arab Emirates and Musandam, an exclave of Oman....
incident, members of the Bush administration met in vice president Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney served as the 46th Vice President of the United States , under George W. Bush....
's office to consider methods of initiating a war with Iran. One idea considered was staging a false flag
False flag
False flag operations are covert operations designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is flying the flag of a country other than one's own...
operation involving the use of Navy SEALs
United States Navy SEALs
The United States Navy's Sea, Air and Land Teams, commonly known as Navy SEALs, are the U.S. Navy's principal special operations force and a part of the Naval Special Warfare Command as well as the maritime component of the United States Special Operations Command.The acronym is derived from their...
dressed as Iranian PT boaters who would engage in a firefight with US ships. This idea was shot down. This claim has not been verified.
Lebanon
In August 2006, in an article in The New YorkerThe New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, Hersh claimed that the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
gave the green light for the Israeli government to execute an attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
. Supposedly, communication between the Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i government and the US government about this came as early as two months in advance of the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of eight others by Hezbollah prior to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
The 2006 Lebanon War, also called the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War and known in Lebanon as the July War #Other uses|Tammūz]]) and in Israel as the Second Lebanon War , was a 34-day military conflict in Lebanon, northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories. The principal parties were Hezbollah...
in July 2006. The US government denied these claims.
Kennedy research
Hersh's 1997 book about John F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
, The Dark Side of Camelot, made a number of controversial assertions about the former president, including that he had had a "first marriage" to a woman named Durie Malcolm that was never terminated, that he had been a semi-regular narcotics user, that he had a close working relationship with mob boss Sam Giancana
Sam Giancana
Salvatore Giancana , better known as Sam Giancana, was a Sicilian-American mobster and boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1957-1966...
which supposedly included vote fraud in one or two crucial states in the 1960 presidential election. For many of these claims, Hersh relied only on hearsay collected decades after the event. In a Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
review, Edward Jay Epstein
Edward Jay Epstein
Edward Jay Epstein is an American investigative journalist. While a graduate student at Cornell University in 1966, he published the book Inquest, an influential criticism of the Warren Commission probe into the John F. Kennedy assassination...
cast doubt on these and other assertions, writing, "this book turns out to be, alas, more about the deficiencies of investigative journalism than about the deficiencies of John F. Kennedy." Responding to the book, historian and former Kennedy aide Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr. was an American historian and social critic whose work explored the American liberalism of political leaders including Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy. A Pulitzer Prize winner, Schlesinger served as special assistant and "court historian"...
called Hersh "the most gullible investigative reporter I've ever encountered."
Hersh repeatedly described Kennedy as a playboy and implied that many journalists were aware of his womanizing but turned a blind eye, even ignoring or denigrating witnesses to the infidelity who wanted to go public. One of Hersh's assertions on his theme, however, is backed with erroneous references (and remains unsubstantiated). The author identified one Florence M. Kater as a "middle-aged housewife" who supposedly knew of Kennedy's womanizing during his 1960 presidential campaign. According to Hersh, this woman, who was allegedly the former landlady of JFK's senatorial aide/love interest Pamela Turnure, decided in 1959 to break the news on this topic. Inexplicably, "in late 1958" (the year before she decided to go public) she "ambushed Kennedy leaving the new apartment [to which Turnure allegedly moved to escape Kater's eavesdropping] at three A.M. and took a photograph of the unhappy senator attempting to shield his face with a handkerchief."
Hersh did not publish such a photograph in The Dark Side of Camelot or cite an interview with Florence Kater. She died many years before he started work on the book. If another writer or journalist ever interviewed her, Hersh did not use such a source. In the book he asserted that Kater had attended a 1960 presidential campaign stop near Washington, DC carrying a blow-up of her alleged photograph of an adulterous Sen. Kennedy attempting to shield his face.
"Kater was not taken seriously by the national press corps," wrote Hersh, "but she came close to attracting media attention. On May 14, 1960, just four days after Kennedy won the West Virginia primary, she approached him at a political rally at the University of Maryland carrying a placard with an enlarged snapshot of the early-morning scene outside Pamela Turnure's apartment. Kennedy ignored her, but a photograph of the encounter was published in the next afternoon's Washington Star, along with a brief story describing her as a heckler.". The microfilmed editions of May 14, 15 and 16 of the Washington Star
Washington Star
The Washington Star, previously known as the Washington Star-News and the Washington Evening Star, was a daily afternoon newspaper published in Washington, D.C. between 1852 and 1981. For most of that time, it was the city's newspaper of record, and the longtime home to columnist Mary McGrory and...
, known at the time as the Evening Star of Washington, DC and The Sunday Star, do not contain such a photograph or brief story. Hersh could not have confused it with the Washington Post or The Washington Daily News
The Washington Daily News
The Washington Daily News was an afternoon tabloid-style newspaper serving the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. In this case, the term "tabloid" is merely a reference to the paper format and does not imply a lack of journalistic standards....
because neither the name "Florence Kater" nor a photograph of her appeared in those newspapers, either, in connection with the May 14 event.
A month before the book's publication, newspapers, including USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
, reported Hersh's announcement that he had removed from the galleys, at the last minute, a segment about legal documents allegedly containing JFK's signature. A paralegal named Lawrence Cusack had shared them with Hersh and encouraged the author to discuss them in the book. Shortly before Hersh's publicized announcement, federal investigators began probing Cusack's sale of the documents at auction. After The Dark Side of Camelot became a bestseller, Cusack was convicted by a federal jury in Manhattan of forging the documents and sentenced to a long prison term. The documents signed by "John F. Kennedy" included a provision, in 1960, for a trust fund to be set up for the institutionalized mother of Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
. In 1997 the Kennedy family denied Cusack's claim that his late father had been an attorney who had represented JFK in 1960.
Use of anonymous sources
Some have criticized Hersh's use of anonymous sources in his reporting; implying that some of these sources are unreliable or even made up. In a review of Hersh's book, Chain of Command, commentator Amir TaheriAmir Taheri
Amir Taheri is an Iranian-born conservative author based in Europe. His writings focus on the Middle East affairs and topics related to Islamist terrorism. He gained international fame as the man behind the 2006 Iranian sumptuary law controversy.-Career:Taheri's biography at Benador Associates...
wrote, "As soon as he has made an assertion he cites a 'source' to back it. In every case this is either an un-named former official or an unidentified secret document passed to Hersh in unknown circumstances... By my count Hersh has anonymous 'sources' inside 30 foreign governments and virtually every department of the U.S. government."
David Remnick
David Remnick
David Remnick is an American journalist, writer, and magazine editor. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for his book Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire. Remnick has been editor of The New Yorker magazine since 1998. He was named "Editor of the Year" by Advertising Age in 2000...
, the editor of The New Yorker, maintains that he is aware of the identity of all of Hersh's unnamed sources, telling the Columbia Journalism Review
Columbia Journalism Review
The Columbia Journalism Review is an American magazine for professional journalists published bimonthly by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961....
that "I know every single source that is in his pieces.... Every 'retired intelligence officer,' every general with reason to know, and all those phrases that one has to use, alas, by necessity, I say, 'Who is it? What's his interest?' We talk it through."
In a response to an article in The New Yorker in which Hersh alleged that the U.S. government was planning a strike on Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, U.S. Defense Department spokesman Brian Whitman
Brian Whitman
Brian David Whitman is an American talk radio host and voice impressionist. Whitman was born on Staten Island, New York and graduated from Wagner College in May 1994 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science....
said, "This reporter has a solid and well-earned reputation for making dramatic assertions based on thinly sourced, unverifiable anonymous sources."
Speeches
Those who criticize Hersh's credibility especially point to allegations Hersh has made in public speeches and interviews, rather than in print. In an interview with New YorkNew York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
magazine, Hersh made a distinction between the standards of strict factual accuracy for his print reporting and the leeway he allows himself in speeches, in which he may talk informally about stories still being worked on or blur information to protect his sources. "Sometimes I change events, dates, and places in a certain way to protect people... I can’t fudge what I write. But I can certainly fudge what I say."
Some of Hersh's speeches concerning the Iraq War have described violent incidents involving U.S. troops in Iraq. In July 2004, during the height of the Abu Ghraib scandal, he alleged that American troops sexually assaulted young boys:
In a subsequent interview with New York magazine, Hersh regretted that "I actually didn’t quite say what I wanted to say correctly...it wasn’t that inaccurate, but it was misstated. The next thing I know, it was all over the blogs. And I just realized then, the power of—and so you have to try and be more careful." In his book, Chain of Command, he wrote that one of the witness statements he had read described the rape of a boy by a foreign contract interpreter at Abu Ghraib, during which a woman took pictures.
Link between the US government and Fatah al-Islam
In March 2007 Hersh asserted in a piece in The New YorkerThe New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
that the United States and Saudi governments were funding the terrorist organization Fatah al-Islam
Fatah al-Islam
Fatah al-Islam, is a radical Sunni Islamist group that formed in November 2006 in a Palestinian refugee camp, located in Lebanon. It has been described as a militant jihadist movement that draws inspiration from al-Qaeda...
through aid to Lebanese Sunni Prime Minister Fouad Siniora
Fouad Siniora
Fuad Siniora is a Lebanese politician, a former Prime Minister of Lebanon, a position he held from 19 July 2005 to May 25, 2008 the date of the election of the new President of Lebanon; he was renominated to the post on 28 May 2008 and held the post as Acting President between those...
. Following the publishing of the story journalists in Beirut uncovered that Hersh put forth the claim without any reliable sources. Hersh had heard the unconfirmed story from Robert Fisk
Robert Fisk
Robert Fisk is an English writer and journalist from Maidstone, Kent. As Middle East correspondent of The Independent, he has primarily been based in Beirut for more than 30 years. He has published a number of books and has reported on the United States's war in Afghanistan and the same country's...
who had, in turn, heard the story from former British intelligence agent Alastair Crooke
Alastair Crooke
Alastair Crooke is a British diplomat, the founder and director of the Conflicts Forum, an organization that advocates for engagement between political Islam and the West...
. Crooke had only heard it circulated as rumor and no one had fact checked the claims before Hersh ran the story which prompted a variety of criticisms.
Morarji Desai Libel Suit
Hersh claimed in his 1983 book The Price of Power that former Indian Prime Minister Morarji DesaiMorarji Desai
Morarji Ranchhodji Desai was an Indian independence activist and the fourth Prime Minister of India from 1977–79. He was the first Indian Prime Minister who did not belong to the Indian National Congress...
had been paid $20,000 a year by the CIA during the Johnson and Nixon administration. Desai called the allegation "a scandalous and malicious lie" and filed a $50 million libel suit against Hersh. By the time the case went to trial Desai, by then 93, was too ill to attend. CIA director Richard Helms
Richard Helms
Richard McGarrah Helms was the Director of Central Intelligence from 1966 to 1973. He was the only director to have been convicted of lying to the United States Congress over Central Intelligence Agency undercover activities. In 1977, he was sentenced to the maximum fine and received a suspended...
and Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger
Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...
testified under oath that at no time did Desai act in any capacity for the CIA, paid or otherwise. Since Hersh did not have to take the stand or reveal the name of his alleged source, the Judge found in favor of Hersh.
Books
- Hersh, Seymour M. (1968), Chemical and Biological Warfare: America's Hidden Arsenal, New York, New York: Bobbs-Merrill (US) and LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
: MacGibbon & Kee (UK). ISBN 0-586-03295-9. - Hersh, Seymour M. (1970). My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath. Random House. ISBN 0-394-43737-3.
- Hersh, Seymour M. (1972). Cover-up: the Army's secret investigation of the massacre at My Lai 4. Random House. ISBN 0-394-47460-0.
- Hersh, Seymour M. (1983). The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-44760-2. Excerpts from The Price of Power hosted by Third World Traveler
- Hersh, Seymour M. (1986). The Target Is Destroyed: What Really Happened to Flight 007 and What America Knew About It. Random House. ISBN 0-394-54261-4.
- Hersh, Seymour M. (1991). The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign PolicyThe Samson Option (book)The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy is a 1991 book by Seymour Hersh. It details the history of Israel's nuclear weapons program and its effects on Israel-American relations...
. Random House. ISBN 0-394-57006-5. - Hersh, Seymour M. (1997). The Dark Side of Camelot. Little, Brown & Company. ISBN 0-316-36067-8.
- Hersh, Seymour M. (1998). Against All Enemies: Gulf War Syndrome: The War Between America's Ailing Veterans and Their Government. Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-42748-3.
- Hersh, Seymour M. (2004). Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-019591-6.
- Hersh, Seymour M. (TBD). [book on the Cheney vice presidency]
Articles/Reportage
- "Huge CIA Operation Reported in US against Antiwar Forces, Other Dissidents During Nixon Years" by Seymour Hersh, New York Times, December 22, 1974 — Hersh's article detailing CIA covert operations which eventually led to the formation of the Church CommitteeChurch CommitteeThe Church Committee is the common term referring to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church in 1975. A precursor to the U.S...
.
Forewords
- Hersh, Seymour M. (foreword) (2005) in Scott RitterScott RitterWilliam Scott Ritter, Jr. was an important United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, and later a critic of United States foreign policy in the Middle East. Prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Ritter stated that Iraq possessed no significant weapons of mass...
: Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein (Hardcover), Nation Books, ISBN 1-56025-852-7
See also
- Church CommitteeChurch CommitteeThe Church Committee is the common term referring to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church in 1975. A precursor to the U.S...
(United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. Hersh's December 22, 1974 New York Times article on CIA operations was the main reason for the creation of this committee) - Ari Ben-MenasheAri Ben-MenasheAri Ben-Menashe is the author of Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network, a book purporting to describe his involvement in Iran-Contra and other intelligence operations. An Iraqi Jew who was educated in Israel, he is a former Israeli government employee, and has said that he...
- Mordechai VanunuMordechai VanunuMordechai Vanunu ; is a former Israeli nuclear technician who, citing his opposition to weapons of mass destruction, revealed details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986. He was subsequently lured to Italy by a Mossad agent, where he was drugged and kidnapped by...
- Robert MaxwellRobert MaxwellIan Robert Maxwell MC was a Czechoslovakian-born British media proprietor and former Member of Parliament , who rose from poverty to build an extensive publishing empire...
- Opposition to war against Iran
External links
- Seymour Hersh Interviewed by Mehdi Hasan
Articles
- "Current State of Investigating Reporting", talk given at BU, May 19 2009
- "Overwhelming Force" — What happened in the final days of the Gulf War?, The New Yorker, May 22, 2000 issue
- "The Cold Test" — What the Administration knew about Pakistan and the North Korean nuclear program., The New Yorker, January 27, 2003 issue
- "Lunch with the Chairman" — Why was Richard Perle meeting with Adnan Khashoggi?, The New Yorker, March 17, 2003 issue
- "Who Lied to Whom?" — Why did the Administration endorse a forgery about Iraq’s nuclear program?, The New Yorker, March 31, 2003 issue
- "Offense and Defense" — The battle between Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon., The New Yorker, April 7, 2003 issue
- "Selective Intelligence" — Selective Intelligence, The New Yorker, May 12, 2003 issue
- "The Syrian Bet" — Did the Bush Admin. burn a useful source on Al Qaeda? The New Yorker, July 28, 2003 issue
- "The Stovepipe" — How conflicts between the Bush Admin. and the intelligence community marred the reporting on Iraq’s weapons. The New Yorker, October 27, 2003 issue
- "Moving Targets" — Will the counter-insurgency plan in Iraq repeat the mistakes of Vietnam?. The New Yorker, December 15, 2003 issue
- "The Deal" — Why is Washington going easy on Pakistan’s nuclear black marketers? The New Yorker, March 8, 2004 issue
- "The Other War" — Why Bush’s Afghanistan problem won’t go away., The New Yorker, April 12, 2004 issue
- "Torture at Abu Ghraib" — American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go?, The New Yorker, May 10, 2004 issue
- "Chain of Command" — How the Department of Defense mishandled the disaster at Abu Ghraib, The New Yorker, May 17, 2004 issue
- "The Gray Zone" — How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib, The New Yorker, May 24, 2004 issue
- "Plan B" — As June 30 approaches, Israel looks to the Kurds, The New Yorker, June 28, 2004 issue
- "The Coming Wars" — What the Pentagon can now do in secret, The New Yorker, January 24, 2005 issue and the response by the Department of Defense
- "Watergate Days", The New Yorker, June 13, 2005 issue
- "Get Out the Vote" — Did Washington try to manipulate Iraq's Elections?, The New Yorker, July 25, 2005 issue
- "Up in the Air" — Where is the Iraq war headed next?, The New Yorker, December 5, 2005 issue
- "The Iran Plans" — Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?, The New Yorker, April 17, 2006 issue
- "Last Stand" — The military's dissent on Iran policy., The New Yorker, July 10 & 17 2006 issue
- "Watching Lebanon" — Washington’s interests in Israel’s war., The New Yorker, August 21, 2006 issue
- "The Next Act" — Is a damaged Administration less likely to attack Iran, or more?, The New Yorker, November 27, 2006 issue
- "The Redirection" — Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?, The New Yorker, March 5, 2007 issue
- "The General's Report" — How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties, The New Yorker, June 25, 2007 issue
- "Shifting Targets" — The Administration’s plan for Iran, The New Yorker, October 8, 2007 issue
- "A Strike in the Dark" — What did Israel bomb in Syria?, The New Yorker, February 11, 2008 issue
- "Preparing the Battlefield" — The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran, The New Yorker, July 7, 2008 issue
- "Syria Calling" — The Obama Administration’s chance to engage in a Middle East peace, The New Yorker, April 6, 2009 issue
- "Defending the Arsenal" — In an unstable Pakistan, can nuclear warheads be kept safe?, The New Yorker, November 16, 2009 issue
- "The Online Threat" — Should we be worried about a cyber war?, The New Yorker, November 1, 2010 issue
- "Iran and the Bomb" — How real is the nuclear threat?, The New Yorker, June 6, 2011 issue
- THE TRAITOR The case against Jonathan Pollard The New Yorker, January 18, 1999