Recently, Patrik Baab had the occasion to speak with award-winning
investigative journalist and writer, Seymour Hersh. We are so very
pleased to bring you this interview. [The views expressed remain those
of Mr. Hersh and do not necessarily reflect those of the Postil].
Patrik Baab (PB): Thank you very much for agreeing
to be interviewed. In your Nord Stream story, you named Mr. Biden as the
official who ordered the destruction, but now you’re facing a massive
cover up. What’s behind that? The New York Times and German publication [Die Zeit]
published the same story about a sailing yacht and named the Ukrainian
crew as being completely independent from governments. Can this be?
Seymour Hersh (SH): I really don’t know how, but if I were either at The New York Times or Die Zeit
I would wonder why two entities 3000-3500 miles away across an ocean
had the same idea that Ukrainians did it. I don’t quite understand why. I
did ask one of the reporters: if there were traces of dynamite on the
yacht, why didn’t they try and find out what happened to the one mine?
It’s a mine, not really a bomb. It’s a mine with the plastic to blow it
up, but it’s a mining device on the water—so why didn’t they try and
find it? And he said, well, because we did. The Swedes and the Danes
were there within days. But the Americans had already come and taken the
unexploded bomb way and I said, ‘Why do you think they did that?’ And
he said, “You know how Americans are.”
They like to be first. What can I do with that? There’s another
answer for why they did it. Now everybody’s chasing a piece of pipe that
absolutely has nothing to do with anything. And they write stories and
stories about that and not about the elephant in the room. The story I
wrote, it’s not the way I would run a newspaper. But maybe that’s why
I’m not editor of a newspaper or ever wanted to be. So, the answer to
your question is, you’re asking the wrong person about that question.
All I could do is offer speculation. And you have the same speculation I
do. I’m sure it’s the same reason you can sell that story of a yacht. I
don’t want to ruin anybody’s day, but it’s a 49-foot yacht. And let’s
say it could go out into the Baltic Sea. It could find a pipeline and
secondly, it could drop an anchor 260-feet to the bottom so they could
secure the boat so divers could dive off from the back end of a boat.
You can’t get a ladder on it because that’s where the engines are. And
there’s other stuff on the yacht. How do you get past that?
If a yacht had anchors that go 260-feet, it would probably sink, or
at least one side would be in the water. But anyway, so there you are. I
can’t answer anybody not trying to deal with reality—they are so eager
to have a counter story, but this is part of the business. But for each
newspaper not to say, how does the other guy get this? And then wonder
why I accept the reporter in Germany, who’s a very decent guy, who did
come and see me to say that he never talked to the intelligence
community. And I said, I changed my story to indicate that he did not
talk to the intelligence community. And The New York Times
people only talk to people who had access to the intelligence community.
But that doesn’t change the fact that something happened that clearly
has something to do with the American intelligence community on both
sides of the ocean. But I can’t explain why either newspaper, they are
two wonderful newspapers, and the reporters in question are perfectly
competent. I mean, I know one of them well. Excellent reporter in
Germany. I’ve known him for years.
I don’t know why they can’t sit back and say, well, maybe we should
do some more reporting on this. But no, it’s not going to happen.
PB: Probably the reason is that the press is not part of the investigation. They are part of the cover-up.
SH: Well, but that’s making an implication that I
don’t think exists. I don’t think they have any notion they’re part of a
cover-up. That’s the point. I don’t think the whole purpose of having a
good intelligence service like you guys certainly do, and you know how
closely they work with us. If you don’t, you probably can guess. We’re
allies, particularly after 9/11, strong allies. But I don’t think
they’re part of the cover-up in the sense that they know they are.
There’s something in the world called critical thinking. And I just
don’t know why we don’t have more critical thinking on this story than
we’ve had so far.
PB: In Germany the Russians were lately blamed for the explosion. Is this possible? Would they destroy their own pipeline?
SH: Well, you have the same answer I do, which is,
of course not. First of all, Mr. Putin had already stopped Nord Stream
I, which, as you know, has been going since 2011, and making Germany
industry great, combine the largest chemical company in the world, BASF,
and the great automobile makers. And you’re making Germany warm and
wealthy and able to also share the wealth with the rest of Europe. Much
of the gas they were getting from North Stream I was far more than they
needed.
And by the way, Nord Stream II, the one that was blown up, had so
much gas in it, and it had just been built and been approved. And then
your Chancellor sanctioned it, I think obviously at the request of
America a year and a half ago. So, it was less filled, with 750 miles of
methane gas, which is why there was such an explosion.
I had a story which, when they eventually triggered the mines, they
had to do with a low frequency sonar because anything high frequency
gets burned up in the water. Low frequency can go, and it’s just a
series of knocks. It’s not a complicated signal— anyway, the open-source
intelligence people, who only see signals not photographs, in the
beginning, all made it clear that there was no such airplane. But it
didn’t explain why something blew up, because all you have to do is turn
off the transponder, the IFF (Identification Friend or Foe System).
When you can turn it off, nobody can see you. It’s a safety
mechanism. And certainly, I assure you, the people running the mission
for the American president out of Norway, as I wrote earlier, knew all
about how to put all the signals they wanted anywhere, and they went
away in the Baltic Sea. I joke they could have recreated the Japanese
armada sailing towards Pearl Harbor in 1941 to start the war right
there.
I spent three months on that story. It wasn’t something I did
yesterday. And the fact that they didn’t use sources—you’re talking to a
man who’s been doing stories against the intelligence community and
other things, let’s see, for 50 years. I think in seven or eight years I
worked at The New York Times, I must have written 800 or so
stories, maybe five, had a source named. Most of them were just unnamed,
of course, and the two stories in The New York Times had no named sources either.
So that’s the irony of all of this. But you’re asking the right sort
of metaphysical questions about what is going on here. I can’t answer
what is going on here. There’s some collective panic in the West.
PB: It’s very interesting to me that the cover-up
started a few days after a visit of German chancellor Olaf Scholz in
Washington in early March. Do you find this interesting?
SH: The cover-up started well before Scholz’s
visit—it started right away. The bombs went off in late September of
last year, and the sanctioning well before the war began in February.
This all started in December of 2021 with the meetings I wrote about in
that first article; started in the White House or in the building next
to the Executive Office Building. They all started these secret meetings
looking for options to give the President to maybe get Putin to step
down. And the one that came out was the bombing of the pipelines. And
President Biden did say that in February 19, 2020, about 13-14 months
ago, before the war with Scholz there. And at that point, I was asked
immediately, did he know? I don’t know what he knew.
I don’t know whether the President told Scholz, but I know at that
conversation that time, he was there, and he was asked afterwards what
he thought, and he was complimentary. He said, I’m with the Americans.
He didn’t say, “I hope, of course, the pipeline will not be blown up.”
That’s for sure. He didn’t say anything like that, and he said nothing
else.
And, yes, you’re right. A month ago, he did come and visit the
president; a very strange visit. He flew over on the chancellor’s plane
with no press—that’s unusual. Also, he had no public events except a
10-minute event with President Biden, where they both told each other
how wonderful they were, no questions asked, and then a private
80-minutes meeting. He was treated like somebody who just walked. He’s
the German Chancellor. He had no news conference with the president, no
dinner. He just slunk in and slunk out. You and your guys in Germany
need to worry about him. But at that point you could say, if he didn’t
know, he has certainly been a collaborator in the cover-up.
You can’t ask me to guess what was is in his mind. I have no idea.
But he certainly knew what the President wanted, even though I have no
idea what they talked about privately. I wrote a story the other day for
my Substack subscribers. I wouldn’t go to the newspapers with this
because I just know the American newspapers don’t want me to write
stories. The liberal ones are adverse. They’re so frightened of another
Trump coming in, another Republican lunatic, that they can’t look at
Biden objectively. That’s my view. But I’ll tell you when I do my
reporting. Now, I’ve been around a long time. I’ve hired one of the best
editors I work with here in Washington, New York, and also in the London Review. And I have a fact checker. The New Yorker
had superb fact checkers. Every line was checked. I hired the very best
fact checker that worked with me ten years ago when I worked at The New Yorker.
But that’s a good standard. The media in America has gone haywire.
Trump did that. You’re either for Fox News or you’re against Fox News.
So, it’s just irrational. What can I tell you?
PB: Could you imagine that German chancellor was blackmailed by US. Secret Services?
SH: You are very metaphysical. I don’t imagine
anything; that’s my life. No, I think if anything, I don’t think he’s a
dupe. I think at this point we have to assume that he’s aware what
happened or certainly has a suspicion. And he’s certainly going along
now with the American story that we don’t know anything.....
This interview was published a few days before Mr. Hersh responded to the claim that it was actually the Ukrainians in the parlour with a candlestick on a yacht:
Beyond the fact the Nord Stream bombing looks like an act of war by the U.S. against the Russians, I'm still a little troubled by the people who initially spread the story the Russians did it.
The reason is: it is such a brazen lie, yet easily rebutted by an eight-year-old's question:
"Don't the Russians have valves they can turn if they wanted to stop the gas going to Germany?"
The fact that the folks telling the "Russkis did it" story apparently don't care whether they are believed or not makes you wonder where that kind of thinking comes from.
Are they delusional? Hubristic? In complete control of the propaganda organs? What?
