Seymour Hersh Profile In The Guardian

Every so often, a famous actor or producer will contact Seymour Hersh, wanting to make a movie about his most famous story: his single-handed uncovering, in 1969, of the My Lai massacre, in which an American platoon stormed a village in South Vietnam and, finding only its elderly, women and children, launched into a frenzy of shooting, stabbing and gang-raping. It won him a Pulitzer prize and hastened the end of the Vietnam war. Mostly, they come to see him in his office in downtown Washington, a two-room suite that he has occupied for the past 17 years. Do they like what they see? You bet they do, even if the movie has yet to be made. 'Brad Pitt loved this place,' says Hersh with a wolfish grin. 'It totally fits the cliché of the grungy reporter's den!' When last he renewed the lease, he tells me, he made it a condition of signing that the office would not be redecorated - the idea of moving all his stuff was too much. It's not hard to see why. Slowly, I move my head through 180 degrees, trying not to panic at the sight of so much paper piled so precipitously. Before me are 8,000 legal notepads, or so it seems, each one filled with a Biro Cuneiform of scribbled telephone numbers. By the time I look at Hersh again - the full panorama takes a moment or two - he is silently examining the wall behind his desk, which is grey with grime, and striated as if a billy goat had sharpened its horns on it.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[hillaryj]

I really admire this guy!

[LemonMeringue]

Mr. Hersh surely you know what is going on with the Amero minted coin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFUo92FVCG8&feature=related

[LemonMeringue]

He's done more for America than anyone else I can think of, except perhaps Ralph Nader.

[Shashi0224]

Ralph Nader?? Really?? That's your comparison??

You do realize if it weren't for the egomaniacal nature of Ralph Nader, Al Gore would have been President the last 8 years.....the world would be in a lot better situation, hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq would still be alive........the environment would be on the road to improvement, our rights to privacy would still be intact, the economy wouldn't be tanking, I could go on and on......

Ralph Nader? Really??

[Chumleysmom]

He's been at the top of my (short) list of great journalists for years.

Thank you, Mr. Hersh, and live long.

[oxford]

This guy is a bona fide hero. He's also the only reporter with gonads enough to point out the neocon's influence on our foreign policy.

[JayeSF]

I had the great opportunity to see Seymour speak here at UC Berkeley a few weeks ago (ironically, right after presidential debate #2 !).

He is a great reporter and journalist. I doubt anyone on the planet has the inside sources this guy has.

The sh#t he was saying about how bad things are in Iraq are frightening, though....we are in a huge quagmire there and in Afghanistan......

Not many reporters like him left.......

[Carolab]

As for the troop 'surge' and its putative success, he more or less rolls his eyes when I bring this up. 'People are saying quietly that they are worried about Iraq. This is nothing profound, but by the time the surge got going, ethnic cleansing had already happened in a lot of places. There was a natural lull in the violence. The moment we start withdrawing, and relying on the Shia to start paying members of the Awakening [the alliance of Sunni insurgents whose salaries were initially paid by the US military, and who have helped to reduce violence in some provinces]...' His voice trails off. 'And the big bad bogeyman is Saudi Arabia. There's an awful lot of money going to Salafist and Wahabist charities, and there's no question they'll pour money into the Awakening, and they're so hostile to Shi'ism and to Iran that how can you possibly predict anything other than violence? How do we get out of this? There is no way out. We have a moral obligation to the people of Iraq that goes beyond anything that anyone's talking about. The notion that it's their problem, that we should just leave... I mean, can you believe what we've done to their society? Imagine the psychosis, the insanity, that we've induced.'

Yes, indeed. Colin Powell said it best, with the "Pottery Barn" rule: "You break it, you own it".

[Tulka2]

What you leave out of the "if you break it, you own it" equation, is that a crime was not only commited against Iraq, but also against the American people. They were lied to and deceived. Truth and reconcilliation trials will go a long way towards getting back the good-will of the rest of the world towards the United States.

[Carolab]

"They've got away with it, categorically; anyone who talks about prosecuting Bush and Cheney [for war crimes] is kidding themselves' - it will reveal how the White House 'set out to sabotage the system... It wasn't that they found ways to manipulate Congressional oversight; they had conversations about ending the right of Congress to intervene.'

How utterly and profoundly disappointing.

[Tulka2]

Hey Mr. Hersh! Love you, love your work.
Please look into the theory that one reason U.S. citizens are so dumbed-down is because of above ground nuclear testing in the late 1950s. Is there actually a dramatic downward plunge in children's I.Q.s from those years? I have heard children in utero in those days are dumber than their older siblings. Have also heard the incidence of thyroid disease is way up since those tests.

Gee... i would love to know if the above is true before i die, but i know it's going to be, "Whoops!" from the government about ten years after my whole generation is dead.

[maxfax]

We need a hundred more just like him.

[wendynyc]

The latest attack from the McCain campaign relates to giving the keys to the US treasury to Obama, Pelosi and Reid. What they do not understand is that the Democrats have been more restrained and responsible fiscal bearers for the US and its Economy. We have had Republican administrations in 22 of the last 30 years.

The last time there was a budget surplus was when the Democrats were in charge.

[lovable]

THE MAIN STREET MEDIA RUFUSE TO FOLLOW UPON HIS STORIES. THEY ARE TOO WORIED ABOUT SARAH PALINS LEG SHOTS. IT SAD WHAT JOURNALISM HAS BECOME THESE DAYS. AND THESE PUNDITS AND TALK CHAT SHOW HOST DONT EVEN KNOW HOW TO ASK A QUESTION . THEY ASK GENERALIZED QUESTIONS AND ALLOW THE REPUB MAINLY TO GIVE GENERAL ANSWER . WHEN WOLF BLITZER ASKED GUILIANI TODAY ABOUT THE REPUB PARTY HE SAID WELL THEY ALL DO IT. BLITZER SHOULD HAVE STOPED HIM AND SAID I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT ALL I AM TALKING ABOUT THE REPUBS ONLY. HE DID NOT . HE ALLOWED GULIANI TO GET AWAY WITH A NON ANSWER .

[anastasiabeaverhousen]

Hint: People might read your posts if you drop the "all caps" thing. It's too hard to read and no one will take the time......Sorry.

[Gdebs]

Why do you do this? Caps aren't hard to read. I know this caps stuff on the web always results in your kind of remark but you don't speak for me and many other folks. Worry more about what people write than how they write.
Sorry.

[Rog49Thomas]

This guy has had more scoops than Ben and Jerry.

Not only knows but tells.

[bikerdude]

Sy Hersch is da bomb! He is right and intelligently presents his findings and points of view and yet it seems he has to fight to get his stuff noted. A true patriot and writer who calls 'em as he sees 'em.

[ErnestineBass]

Seymour Hersh, Helen Thomas and Greg Palast, true journalists.

[brooklyncitizen]

I would include Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez in that list.

[Carolab]

And Larisa Alexandrovna (Raw Story) and Josh Marshall (TPM) and Murray Waas, and Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi.

[anastasiabeaverhousen]

And great patriots.