June 4
Seymour Hersh on spies, state secrets, and the stories he doesn’t tell
Editor’s note: This is the first interview in a biweekly series of journalists on journalism.
When a reporter has covered 50 years of American foreign policy disasters, the last great untold story may be his own.
That, more or less, is the premise behind a new memoir by Seymour Hersh, the investigative journalist who has been revealing secrets and atrocities—and often secret atrocities—to great acclaim since he exposed the My Lai Massacre in 1969.
Hersh’s book, economically titled Reporter, is focused on the work. “I don’t want anybody reporting about my private life,” he once said, and Hersh abides by his own request. In lieu of the personal, we’re treated to the professional: Hersh’s rise from the City News Bureau of Chicago to the United Press International to the Associated Press.
His breakthrough, however, was as a freelancer: Hersh, famously, received a tip about William Calley, a court-martialed Army lieutenant accused of killing 109 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in a village nicknamed “Pinkville.”
Calley was elusive. Hersh drove into Fort Benning and found him under house arrest. For the resulting dispatches, Hersh was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting in 1970.
Hersh continued to report—most notably, perhaps, for The New Yorker—on post-9/11 activities; the Iraq War; Iran; and, contentiously, the killing of Osama bin Laden.
He is now at work on a book about former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Hersh and I recently met at his office in Washington, DC, where I found his desk covered in stacks of files. We talked, and kept talking over lunch, about myriad topics, including protecting sources, self-care, Gina Haspel, and revealing secrets.
THE OFFICE
Let’s talk about why you wrote the memoir in the first place: The book about Dick Cheney you were contracted to write was put on hold because you believed, with good reason, that you couldn’t protect your sources.
I couldn’t do it. I was giving my sources chapters—which I do, not all the time, but stuff that’s relevant, sensitive—and they thought Cheney would figure out who was talking. They were worried.
So I had to go see Sonny Mehta [at Knopf], who paid me a lot of money for that Cheney book. Don’t forget, when I got through with The New Yorker, by the time Obama’s elected, I had a record of a lot of good work, so I signed a contract for a lot of money. I signed a contract in about ’11 and I started working full-time—scads of interviews—and I was told within two months not to put anything in the computer by somebody who was still inside working for Cheney. And I said, “Oh, god.” I said, “Don’t worry about it. I’m not going to connect it to the internet.” He says, “You’re not listening to me.” I said, “No. Fucking. Kidding.” The guy said I couldn’t protect him.
So I went to see Sonny Mehta. It was a lot of money. And they said, “Do this memoir and we’ll see if we can get you off the schneid.” That’s the only reason I ever did one.
Anyway, keep on going. Let’s get a bunch done before we go eat.
You’ve got a photo of Henry Kissinger above your computer. He wasn’t a nemesis, necessarily, but…
You know, Kissinger used to insist when [The Price of Power] was coming out that he didn’t know me. And one of the things I would always do, even with an archenemy, I would always call. And he would take the calls. The day after the book came out, I was supposed to go on Nightline. Was a very big show back in the ’80s. Huge audience. But the night before I was on, [Ted Koppel] brought up my book. Kissinger was on; the papers that night were all full of my book. Kissinger said, “This is outrageous. I’ve never met him. I don’t know him.”
And so, here… [Hersh produces a transcript of a taped phone call with Kissinger] I would call up and ask him about the secret bombing in Cambodia. He said, “We’re retroactively off the record.” I said, “We’re talking off the record?” He said, “Okay, all right.” I said, “On background.” But that means I can write it. He knows the difference between off the record and on background.
And so it turns out he was getting a transcript an hour after I called. He was getting a transcript after saying it was on background. The motherfucker! But that’s just the way it was. Anyway, keep on going.Some prior posts on Mr. Hersh:
Bob Woodward once said his worst source was Kissinger because he never told the truth. Who was your worst source?
Oh, I wouldn’t tell you....MUCH MORE
April 2016
Seymour Hersh On Killing Bin Laden, Syria, Saudis and Sarin
December 2013
What on earth does the West think it is doing in Syria?
Seymour Hersh writing at the London Review of Books:...
Seymour Hersh writing at the London Review of Books:...
December 2015
This is just a nasty, dirty story....
