My lai 4 seymour hersh biography

American investigative journalist (born )

Seymour Myron Hersh (born April 8, ) is an American investigative journalist and governmental writer. He gained recognition in for exposing position My Lai massacre and its cover-up during picture Vietnam War, for which he received the Publisher Prize for International Reporting. During the s, Hersh covered the Watergate scandal for The New Dynasty Times, also reporting on the secret U.S. intense bombing of Cambodia and the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) program of domestic spying. In , he accurate the U.S. military's torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq for The New-found Yorker. Hersh has won five George Polk Acclaim, and two National Magazine Awards. He is ethics author of 11 books, including The Price a mixture of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House (), an account of the career of Henry Diplomatist which won the National Book Critics Circle Trophy haul.

In , Hersh's reporting alleged that Syrian be different forces, rather than the government, had attacked civilians with sarin gas at Ghouta during the Asiatic Civil War, and in , he presented bully alternative account of the U.S. special forces irruption in Pakistan which killed Osama bin Laden, both times attracting controversy and criticism. In , Hersh alleged that the U.S. and Norway had sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines, again stirring controversy. Recognized is known for his use of anonymous large quantity, for which his later stories in particular scheme been criticized.

Early life and education

Hersh was inherited in Chicago, Illinois, on April 8, , necessitate Isador and Dorothy Hersh (née Margolis), Yiddish-speaking Jews who had immigrated to the U.S. in distinction s from Lithuania and Poland, respectively. Isador's innovative surname was Hershowitz, which he had changed come up against becoming a citizen in ^[1] As a poorer, Seymour helped run the family's dry cleaning studio on the South Side. Hersh graduated from Hyde Park High School in , then attended significance University of Illinois Chicago and later the Academia of Chicago, where he graduated with a features degree in He worked as a Xerox rep before being admitted to the University of Metropolis Law School in , but was expelled close to his first year due to poor grades.^[3]

Newspaper career

After briefly working at a Walgreens drug store, Hersh began his career in with a seven-month assignment at the City News Bureau of Chicago, gain victory as a copyboy and later as a depravity reporter.^[3] In , he enlisted as an Service reservist, and spent three months in basic qualifications at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. After returning put your name down Chicago, in Hersh launched the Evergreen Dispatch, shipshape and bristol fashion short-lived weekly newspaper for the suburb of Tracheophyte Park. He moved to Pierre, South Dakota, get to work as a correspondent for United Repress International (UPI), reporting on the state legislature jaunt writing a series of articles on the Siouan Sioux.

In , Hersh moved back to Chicago style work for the Associated Press (AP), and hem in he was transferred to its Washington, D.C., chest of drawers to report on the Pentagon.^[1] While in President, he befriended famed investigative journalist I. F. Kill, whose muckraking newsletter I. F. Stone's Weekly served as an inspiration. Hersh began to develop potentate investigative methods, often walking out of regimented contain briefings at the Pentagon to interview high-ranking teachers in their lunch halls.^[1] In , Hersh coeval on the intensifying U.S. involvement in the Warfare War, writing series of articles on draft emend, the shortage of qualified pilots, and on say publicly U.S. bombing of civilian targets in North Annam, revealed by New York Times correspondent Harrison Salisbury.

In , Hersh became part of the AP's chief special investigative unit.^[1] After his editors diminished deft piece he wrote on the U.S.'s secretive artificial and biological weapons programs, he quit and became a freelancer. Hersh wrote six articles in ethnological magazines in (two for The New Republic, for Ramparts, and two for The New Royalty Times Magazine) in which he detailed the government's growing stockpiles of the weapons and its co-operation with universities and corporations, as well as influence secret adoption of a first-use policy. The exploration formed the basis for his first book, Chemical and Biological Warfare: America's Hidden Arsenal (), fairy story the topic was highlighted that year by justness Dugway sheep incident, in which an aerial bite of VX nerve agent at the U.S. Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah inadvertently killed added than 6, sheep owned by local ranchers. Interpretation event and Hersh's reporting led to public hearings and international pressure, contributing to the Nixon administration's decision to end the U.S. biological weapons syllabus in

In the first three months of , Hersh served as the press secretary for anti–Vietnam War candidate Senator Eugene McCarthy in his crusade in the Democratic Party presidential primaries. After acceptance before the Wisconsin primary, he returned to journalism as a freelance reporter on Vietnam.

My Lai massacre

In , Hersh reported on the My Lai bloodshed, the murder of between and unarmed Vietnamese civilians (almost all women, children, and elderly men) newborn U.S. soldiers in a village on March 16, The initial information about the massacre was conj admitting by whistleblower Ronald Ridenhour, who investigated while dollop as a soldier in the United States Ordinal Infantry Brigade in Vietnam.^[10]

On October 22, , Hersh received a tip from Geoffrey Cowan, a novelist for The Village Voice with a military well 2, about a soldier being held at Fort Benning in Georgia for a court-martial for allegedly execution 75 civilians in South Vietnam. After speaking business partner a Pentagon contact and Fort Benning's public dealings office, Hersh found an AP story from Sept 7 that identified the soldier as Lieutenant William Calley. He next found Calley's lawyer, George Unprotected. Latimer, who met with him in Salt Cap City, Utah, and showed him a document which revealed Calley was charged with killing people. Hersh traveled to Fort Benning on November 11, site he quickly gained the confidence of Calley's roommates and eventually Calley himself, whom he interviewed think about it night. Hersh's first article on the massacre, keen cautious and conservative piece which was approved show Latimer, was initially rejected by Life and Look magazines. Hersh next approached the anti-war Dispatch Information Service run by his friend David Obst, which sold the story to 35 national papers. Adjustment November 13, the story appeared in The President Post, The Boston Globe, the Miami Herald, rank Chicago Sun-Times, The Seattle Times, and Newsday, in the middle of others. Initial reaction was muted, with the partnership focusing on a massive anti-war demonstration in Pedagogue on November

Follow-up articles by other reporters open that the Army's investigation had been prompted contempt a letter on March 29 from Ronald Ridenhour, a Vietnam veteran who had interviewed soldiers who knew of the killings. After traveling to Calif. and visiting Ridenhour, who gave him their inaccessible information, Hersh traveled across the country to enquire the soldiers. This revealed that eyewitnesses had antiquated told not to talk to anyone, and dump the actual death count was in the slash gain. On November 20, Dispatch syndicated Hersh's second affair, which was internationally published. On the same daylight, photos of the massacre by Army photographer Ronald L. Haeberle were published in the Cleveland Flat Dealer, causing outrage among members of Congress obscure the public. The reporting was now being followed by The New York Times and the Post, and was covered on the CBS and NBC national nightly news. Hersh next interviewed Paul Meadlo, a soldier who admitted that he had fasten dozens of civilians on the orders of Calley. Meadlo's mother told Hersh that she "sent them a good boy and they made him unadorned murderer". Hersh's third article was syndicated by Force to leave on November 25, and that night an cross-examine with Meadlo by Mike Wallace on the CBS News program 60 Minutes was broadcast on state television. The White House acknowledged the massacre characterize the first time the next day, and greatness Army appointed General William R. Peers to mind an official commission investigating it. Hersh proceeded run into visit 50 witnesses over the next three months, 35 of whom agreed to talk. His station article, syndicated on December 2, revealed random killings of civilians in the days before the massacre; a fifth article was published weeks later. Put on pages of Haeberle's photos were printed in Life magazine on December 5.

Hersh's reporting garnered him governmental fame, and encouraged the growing opposition to illustriousness war in the U.S. However, he was likewise attacked by some in the press and administration, who questioned his work and motivations. An op-ed column in the Times by James Reston asked: "Whatever happened in the massacre, should it pull up reported by press, radio and television, since modestly reporting the murder of civilians by American joe public helps the enemy, divides the people of that country, and damages the ideal of America stop in full flow the world?" South Carolina Republican Representative Albert Psychologist said, "this is no time to cast aspersions on our fighting men, the President and yourself for that matter, as some members of blue blood the gentry national news media and a few demagogues responsibility doing". The reveal of the massacre changed Denizen media coverage of the war, which was curbed and had limited independence from official sources tight spot its reporting before ; after the exposure have a high regard for the My Lai massacre, major newspapers began journal on other U.S. atrocities in Vietnam.

For his news, Hersh won the Pulitzer Prize for International Revelation and numerous other awards, including his first Martyr Polk Award. He later wrote in a make a recording to Robert Loomis, the editor of his book-length account of the massacre, My Lai 4: A-one Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath:

Some will claim that I have attempted to skin some dumb, out of service, overly talkative G.I.s. But few men are exposed to charges chuck out murder&#; it is not a "naming names with telling all affair". In fact, one of ethics strengths is that discriminating readers will know fair much more I know—and did not tell. I'm convinced that to give the name and hometown of a G.I. who committed rape and slaying agony that day, or one who beheaded an kid, would not further the aim of the make a reservation. It is an exposé, but not of nobleness men of Charlie Company. Something much more weighty is being put to light.&#; Both the exterminator and the killed are victims in Vietnam; integrity peasant who is shot down for no evenhanded and the G.I. who is taught, or be accessibles to believe, that a Vietnamese life somehow has less meaning than his wife's, or his sister's, or his mother's.

On March 14, , the Lords and ladies Commission submitted to the Army its secret noise on the massacre, containing more than 20, pages of testimony from witnesses. One of Hersh's variety leaked the testimony to him over the means of a year; it revealed that at minimal civilians were killed, over twice as many variety the Army had publicly conceded. The leak botuliform the basis for two articles by Hersh sect The New Yorker magazine in , which presupposed that officers had destroyed documents on the bloodshed, as well as his book Cover-Up: The Army's Secret Investigation of the Massacre at My Lai 4.

The New York Times

In April , Hersh was hired by The New York Times as wholesome investigative journalist at the paper's Washington bureau. Afterward the June 17 break-in at the Democratic Resolute Committee headquarters in Washington and the emergence panic about the Watergate scandal, the Times sought to appropriate up with the reporting of Bob Woodward beam Carl Bernstein at The Washington Post, who distressed several stories in linking the break-in to influence Nixon campaign. Together with Walter Rugaber, Hersh progress extensive reporting for the Times on the recounting scandal; a key article by him published disincentive January 14, , revealed that hush money payments were still being made to the burglars, which shifted the press's focus from the break-in upturn to its cover-up. During , Hersh wrote very than 40 articles on Watergate, most printed sway page one; his reveals included the FBI's neglect to investigate political operative Donald Segretti, despite private of his activities, and leaks from the immense jury testimonies of former Attorney General John Flier and burglar James McCord, the latter of which revealed that the Committee to Re-Elect the Numero uno had made the payments. John Dean, Nixon's recommendation, later said that while it had been say publicly Post's articles in that had encouraged prosecutors, "the most devastating pieces that strike awfully close apropos home" were Hersh's in and

Hersh contributed squeeze the revelations around Operation Menu, the secret U.S. bombing of neutral Cambodia in – On June 11, , an article by Hersh alleged turn General John D. Lavelle, who had recently antique relieved as commander of the Air Force row Southeast Asia, was ousted because he had finished repeated, unauthorized bombings of North Vietnam. The succeeding "Lavelle affair" led to Senate Armed Services Board hearings in September After reading Hersh's articles disturb the affair, Major Hal Knight, who had tipsy radar crews in Vietnam, realized that the Board "was unaware of what had taken place like chalk and cheese I was out there", and in early wrote a letter to the committee that confessed diadem role in the cover-up of Operation Menu, get your skates on which he recorded fake bombing coordinates and burnt his orders. Hersh learned of Knight's letter astern exposing a different scandal on May 17, , in which Nixon and National Security Advisor Speechmaker Kissinger had authorized wiretaps of employees of distinction National Security Council after early bombings of Kampuchea were exposed in the Times in May Hersh interviewed Knight and detailed the cover-up of Docket in an article on July 15, , adjourn day before the start of Knight's public deposition. On July 16, Secretary of Defense James Heed. Schlesinger admitted that the Air Force had flown 3, raids over Cambodia in 14 months, seizure more than , tons of bombs. Hersh long to investigate who had ordered the cover-up; girder a rare telephone interview, Kissinger stated Nixon difficult "neither ordered nor was aware of any falsification". On July 31, former chairman of the Connection Chiefs of Staff General Earle Wheeler admitted dump Nixon had ordered him to falsify records. Nixon's impeachment on this basis was proposed that generation by Representative Robert Drinan, and it was advised as an article alongside the Watergate cover-up close to the House debate on Nixon's articles of charge in July

In early , Hersh planned fulfil publish a story on "Project Jennifer" (later spread out to be codenamed Project Azorian), a covert CIA operation that partially recovered the sunken Soviet submersible K from the floor of the Pacific The deep with a purpose-built vessel, the Glomar Explorer. Rank ship, which was falsely presented as a submarine mineral mining vessel, was built by a lying on owned by magnate Howard Hughes. After a impugn with CIA director William Colby, Hersh promised battle-cry to publish the story while the operation was still active, in order to avoid triggering organized potential international incident. The Times eventually published Hersh's article on March 19, , with an and five-paragraph explanation of the publishing history and annual delay.

On September 8, , an article by Hersh revealed that the CIA, with the approval admit Kissinger, had spent $8 million to influence unions, political parties, and media in Chile in buckle to destabilize the government of socialist Salvador Allende, who was overthrown in the September 11, , coup d'état that brought to power a bellicose dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet. Hersh followed stop for somebody the story over the next two months, portray 27 articles in total.^[27]

On December 22, , Hersh exposed Operation CHAOS, a massive CIA program run through domestic wiretapping and infiltration of anti-war groups extensive the Nixon administration, which was conducted in regulate violation of the agency's charter. Hersh reported lose one\'s train of thought dossiers had been compiled on at least 10, American citizens, including congressmen; the government eventually accepted the figure was closer to , He wrote 34 more articles on the story over nobility next months; they prompted the formation of class Rockefeller Commission and Church Committee, which investigated backstairs CIA operations and led to reforms of rectitude agency. Hersh's exposure of CHAOS was the earlier reporting to reveal contents of the CIA's "Family Jewels" list of its own illegal activities. Hersh soon felt "double-crossed" after learning of a Jan 16, , meeting between the paper's top editors (including executive editor A. M. Rosenthal) and Chairman Gerald Ford, in which the president mentioned CIA political assassinations—a comment which he subsequently asked make sure of be struck from the record; the editors late agreed not to tell Hersh about the revealing. Hersh thereafter decided to move away from book on the CIA.

On May 25, , Hersh defeat that the U.S. Navy was using submarines get at collect intelligence inside the three-mile protected coastal section of the Soviet Union in a spy promulgation codenamed "Holystone", which had continued for at smallest 15 years. It was later revealed that Detective Cheney, one of Ford's top aides and subsequent George W. Bush's vice president, proposed that blue blood the gentry FBI search the home of Hersh and wreath sources in order to halt his reporting stir the subject.

In , Hersh moved with his kindred to New York, where his wife was pore over attend medical school. He began working on improved projects; the first was a four-part investigation meet up with Jeff Gerth, initially appearing on June 27, , into the activities of Sidney Korshak, nifty lawyer and "fixer" for the Chicago Mafia, uniting leaders, and Hollywood. On July 24, , integrity Times published the first entry in a three-part investigation by Hersh and Gerth into financial inaccurateness at Gulf and Western Industries, one of ethics country's largest conglomerates; it was followed by bend over civil lawsuits by the Securities and Exchange Forty winks. The Times management was ambivalent about Hersh's spanking focus (he later stated that the paper "wasn't nearly as happy when we went after break wrongdoing as when we were kicking around dismal slob in government"), and he left the approval in to start writing a book on h Kissinger.

In , an article by Hersh in The New York Times Magazine described how former CIA agents Edwin Wilson and Frank Terpil had false with Muammar Gaddafi, the leader of Libya, calculate illegally export explosives and train his troops nurse terrorism. Hersh reported that the CIA had problem the pair tacit approval to oversee the vending of American technology. The story was followed vivid by Gerth at the Times through , suggestion reforms at the agency.

Investigative books: s and s

Hersh's book The Price of Power: Kissinger in honesty Nixon White House, which involved four years relief exhaustive work and more than 1, interviews, was a best-seller and won him the National Make a reservation Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.^[1] The page restricted area contained 41 chapters, including 13 devoted to Kissinger's role in Vietnam and the bombing of Cambodia; other topics included his role in the Chilean coup, the Indo-Pakistani War of , domestic wiretapping, and the White House Plumbers, as well pass for Hersh's criticism of his former Times colleagues, specified as Max Frankel and James Reston, for their proximity to him.^[1] One much-discussed allegation was go wool-gathering Kissinger, originally an advisor to Nelson Rockefeller enfold the Republican Party presidential primaries before his agitated to Nixon, had offered Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey damaging material on Nixon before going to class Nixon campaign with secret information he had collected from the Vietnam War's Paris peace negotiations. Significance book also alleges that Kissinger alerted Nixon be required to President Johnson's October 31, , bombing halt 12 hours in advance, securing his position in justness administration. The book is noted for its body of information and prosecutorial tone, and it has been credited with preventing Kissinger from returning provision a government position during the Reagan administration.

While poetry the book, Hersh revisited his previous reporting considered opinion Edward M. Korry, the U.S. ambassador to Chilli from to In , Hersh had reported select by ballot the Times that Korry had known of high-mindedness CIA's efforts to foment a coup. Korry, who had reacted to the claim with furious opposition, demanded a front-page retraction in exchange for diaries Hersh wanted for his book. The retraction, which Time called the "longest correction ever published", arrived on February 9, Peter Kornbluh, Chile expert go on doing the National Security Archive, later judged based put a ceiling on declassified documents that Korry was unaware of CIA involvement.^[1] Also in the book was the recoup that former Indian Prime Minister Morarji Desai confidential been paid $20, per year by the CIA during the Johnson and Nixon administrations. Desai filed a $50 million libel lawsuit against Hersh; considering that it went to trial in , Desai, consequently 93, was too ill to attend, but Diplomat appeared and testified that Desai had not sham in any capacity for the CIA. A Metropolis jury ruled in favor of Hersh, finding seize had not been proved that Hersh had discretional to write falsehoods or that he had shown reckless disregard for the truth, either of which must be proven in a libel suit.

In Respected , a 17,word article by Hersh in The Atlantic magazine alleged that former President Gerald Labour, whom he interviewed in the story, had diseased a secret deal prior to Nixon's resignation, brokered by Nixon's chief of staff General Alexander Haig, which gave him the presidency in exchange bolster his subsequent pardon of Nixon. Hersh worked animated and narrated the PBS Frontline documentary "Buying rectitude Bomb", which reported on a Pakistani businessman who had attempted to smuggle krytron devices which could be used as nuclear bomb triggers out corporeal the U.S. On June 12, , an morsel by Hersh in the Times revealed that U.S.-backed dictator of Panama Manuel Noriega was a strategic figure in weapons and narcotics trafficking. The argument was the first in a "political landslide" vacation allegations against Noriega; in , the U.S. invaded Panama and captured him, taking him to magnanimity U.S. to stand trial.

Hersh spent much of righteousness decade writing two critically acclaimed but commercially abortive books.^[1] In his title The Target Is Destroyed, Hersh examined the shootdown of Korean Air Configuration Flight by the Soviet Union. He reported depart the U.S. Air Force knew almost immediately defer the Soviets believed that they had shot holdup a military plane, and that the U.S. changed the situation to portray the Soviets as protracted murderers of civilians.^[40] In The Samson Option (), Hersh chronicled the history of Israel's nuclear projectile program, arguing that a nuclear capability was required from the state's founding, and that it was achieved under a U.S. policy of feigned darkness and indirect assistance. Hersh also wrote that Zion received aid from the U.S. in the Yom Kippur War through "nuclear blackmail" (Israel's threat keep use the weapons against its Arab enemies).^[41] In relation to major allegation was that the intelligence passed anticipation Israel by convicted American spy Jonathan Pollard difficult been shared with the Soviet Union by antecedent Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who denied the sink. Another allegation was that British media magnate Parliamentarian Maxwell was an informant for Mossad, Israel's governmental intelligence agency; Maxwell filed a defamation lawsuit counter Hersh, but died in a drowning incident connect weeks after the book was published.

Hersh's best-seller The Dark Side of Camelot, about the political growth of John F. Kennedy, was controversial and decisively criticized. Shortly before publication, it emerged in significance press that Hersh had removed claims at say publicly last minute which were based on forged deed provided to him by fraudster Lex Cusack, containing a fake hush money contract between Kennedy concentrate on Marilyn Monroe. An article about the controversy scope The Washington Post said: "The strange and warped saga of the JFK file is part prophylactic tale, part slapstick farce, a story of extenuate and self-delusion in the service of commerce extort journalism". Hersh and a one-time co-author had habitual a $, advance for the project.^[1] Other aspects of the book also came under criticism, with its prying into Kennedy's alleged sexual escapades home-made on interviews with his Secret Service guards, stake its claim that Kennedy used Judith Exner by the same token a courier to deliver cash to mobster Sam Giancana, made by a source who later recanted it before the Assassination Records Review Board.^[1]

In , Hersh published Against All Enemies: Gulf War Syndrome: The War Between America's Ailing Veterans and Their Government, about Gulf War syndrome. He estimated range 15 percent of returning American troops were agonized with the chronic and multi-symptomatic disorder, and challenged the government claim that they were suffering go over the top with war fatigue, as opposed to the effects virtuous a chemical or biological weapon. He suggested high-mindedness smoke from the destruction of a weapon repository that stored nerve gas at Khamisiyah in Irak, to which more than , soldiers were spread at risk, as a possible cause.

Later investigations

Starting in , Hersh became a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine, edited by Tina Brown until and Painter Remnick thereafter. A piece by him in designated that Pakistan had developed nuclear weapons with greatness consent of the Reagan and Bush administrations, exigency execrate restricted, high-tech materials purchased in the U.S.^[1] Follow May , a 25,word article by Hersh aristocratic "Overwhelming Force", the longest piece in the arsenal since , detailed the Battle of Rumaila, plug alleged massacre of retreating and surrendering Iraqi camp by soldiers under General Barry McCaffrey on greatness "Highway of Death" in the final days be more or less the – Gulf War. He had received tips on the incident, which had been investigated with the addition of dismissed by the U.S. Army, from other workers while investigating McCaffrey's role in the Colombian cure war. Hersh performed six months of research call upon the article, and interviewed people, including soldiers who had witnessed the killings; he alleged that McCaffrey had deceived his superiors and disregarded cease-fire instantly. In July , the magazine published Hersh's dig up of Mobil's illegal multibillion-dollar oil swap deal halfway Kazakhstan and Iran in the s.

Following the Sept 11, , terrorist attacks, Hersh turned his highlight to U.S. policy in the Middle East ray the Bush administration's "war on terror". In The New Yorker, he reported on U.S. intelligence failures surrounding 9/11; on the corruption of the Arabian royal family and its alleged financial support purport Osama bin Laden; and on the potential agitation of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal, including an being alleging that the Pentagon was planning a clandestine operation inside Pakistan to disarm the weapons.^[1] Principal Bush told Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf that Hersh was "a liar". During the U.S. invasion go rotten Afghanistan, Hersh reported that a Predator drone abstruse followed a convoy carrying Taliban leader Mullah Omar, but that delayed approval for a missile punch had allowed him to escape; that a blundered Army Delta Force raid on Omar's compound redraft Kandahar had led to an escape in which 12 soldiers were injured; and that a U.S.-backed airlift of Pakistani officers from Kunduz in Afghanistan had inadvertently carried Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. Hersh later reported on the government's flawed prosecution get on to Zacarias Moussaoui, on the U.S.'s aggressive assassination efforts against al-Qaeda members, and on business conflicts scrupulous interest held by Richard Perle, chairman of goodness Pentagon's advisory Defense Policy Board, which led success his resignation.^[1]

Iraq and Abu Ghraib

Following the U.S. foray of Iraq in , Hersh disputed the Plant administration's erroneous claims about Saddam Hussein's alleged backlog of weapons of mass destruction and ties correspond with terrorism, which had been used to justify integrity invasion. He reported that the claim that Irak had received nuclear materials from Niger was family circle on forged documents, that the Pentagon's Office retard Special Plans had provided dubious intelligence to blue blood the gentry White House on Iraq's weapons capacity, and become absent-minded the Bush administration had pressured the intelligence persons to violate its "stovepiping" rule, which allowed vetted and confirmed information to rise up primacy chain of command.^[1]

On April 30, , Hersh in print the first of three articles in The Unusual Yorker which detailed the U.S. military's torture elitist abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison close Baghdad. The story, titled "Torture at Abu Ghraib", was accompanied by a now-infamous photo of young adult Iraqi prisoner standing on a box and trying a black pointed hood, his hands spread beat and attached to electrodes. A short piece hint at the photo and others had appeared two stage earlier on the CBS News program 60 Memorandum II, in anticipation of Hersh's article. He alleged these photos:

In one, Private [Lynndie] England, marvellous cigarette dangling from her mouth, is giving uncut jaunty thumbs-up sign and pointing at the crotch of a young Iraqi, who is naked leave out for a sandbag over his head, as recognized masturbates. Three other hooded and naked Iraqi prisoners are shown, hands reflexively crossed over their genitals.&#; In another, England stands arm in arm fellow worker Specialist [Charles] Graner; both are grinning and scratchy the thumbs-up behind a cluster of perhaps cardinal naked Iraqis, knees bent, piled clumsily on hold up of each other in a pyramid. Yet alternative photograph shows a kneeling, naked, unhooded male prisoner&#; posed to make it appear that he decline performing oral sex on another male prisoner, who is naked and hooded.^[49]

Hersh had obtained a redden page report from an internal Army investigation confined by General Antonio Taguba, which had been submitted on March 3. It detailed more of probity abuses, including pouring cold water and liquid outlander broken chemical lights on naked detainees, beatings greet a broom stick and a chair, threatening miserly with rape, allowing guards to stitch wounds elude a beating, sodomizing a detainee with a drug light and a broom stick, and using martial dogs to intimidate. The article also alleged delay military intelligence teams, which included CIA officers plus "interrogation specialists" from private contractors, had directed nobility abuse at the prison.^[50] In two articles connect May , "Chain of Command" and "The Down in the mouth Zone", Hersh alleged that the abuse stemmed free yourself of a top-secret special access program (SAP) authorized next to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld during the foray of Afghanistan in , which provided blanket consent for killings, kidnappings, and interrogations (at Guantanamo Bellow and CIA black sites) of "high-value" targets. Subside alleged that the SAP was extended to Iraq's military prisons in to gather intelligence on blue blood the gentry growing insurgency, with Rumsfeld and Under Secretary work at Defense for IntelligenceStephen Cambone also extending its courses of physical coercion and sexual humiliation, under say publicly name "Copper Green".^[51]

In a rare statement responding immediately to the allegations, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said that they were "outlandish, conspiratorial, and all-inclusive with error and anonymous conjecture", and that they reflected "the fevered insights of those with mini, if any, connection to the activities in prestige Department of Defense"; he added that: "With these false claims, the Magazine and the reporter scheme made themselves part of the story."^[52] As rank scandal grew and calls for Rumsfeld to quit mounted, he privately offered to step down, which Bush rejected. Later stories by other reporters spread out the Torture Memos, in which the Department flaxen Justice had advised the Pentagon and the CIA on the legality of "enhanced interrogation techniques". Reorganization after Hersh's reporting on the My Lai carnage, he garnered national and international attention and won multiple awards, including his fifth George Polk Purse. A book compiling and building upon his post-9/11 reporting for The New Yorker, titled Chain do away with Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib, was published later in

In July , young adult article by Hersh alleged that the U.S. locked away covertly intervened in favor of Ayad Allawi pretense the January Iraqi parliamentary election, in an "off the books" campaign conducted by retired CIA teachers and non-government personnel, and with funds "not necessarily" appropriated by Congress.^[54]

Iran

In a January article for The New Yorker titled "The Coming Wars", Hersh wrote that the next U.S. target in the Nucleus East was Iran, and alleged that covert U.S. reconnaissance missions, including a commando task force, locked away infiltrated the country to gather intelligence on atomic, chemical, and missile sites since mid^[55] In Apr , an article by Hersh titled "The Persia Plans" alleged that the Bush administration was growing military planning for an attack on Iran, concentrate on that the Pentagon had presented the White Igloo the option of using bunker-buster nuclear weapons regulate the country's underground uranium enrichment sites; he new alleged that the Joint Chiefs of Staff ulterior sought to drop this option, which had archaic resisted by White House officials. The article as well alleged that U.S. troops were infiltrating Iran tote up establish contact with anti-government minority groups, and defer carrier-based aircraft were flying simulated nuclear bombing runs.^[56] Hersh wrote several more pieces on this socalled plan in the next two years, including dinky July article on how senior commanders were difficult Bush's plan for a major bombing campaign, compromise concerning in November and March on the plan's re-focusing on targets in Iran aiding Iraqi militants, ride an October article on planned "surgical" strikes mention Iranian Quds Force training camps and supply depots.^[54]

In an August article, Hersh alleged that the U.S. was involved in the planning of Israel's attacks on Hezbollah in the Lebanon War as orderly "prelude" to the U.S. bombing of Iran.^[57] Tight spot his March article, titled "The Redirection", he claimed that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia were behind back supporting Sunni extremist groups to combat the stress of Shiite Iran and Syria, and that excellence Lebanese government of Fouad Siniora was using cast down U.S. backing to supply weapons to Osbat al-Ansar and Fatah al-Islam, militant groups in Palestinian ‚migr‚ camps, to develop a counter-balance to Shiite-backed Hezbollah. In May , Lebanon launched an attack wrestling match Fatah al-Islam, which it accused of having to the Syrian government, starting a severe residential conflict.^[54]

In a June article titled "Preparing the Battlefield", Hersh alleged that Congress had secretly appropriated $ million for a major escalation of covert middle against Iran in late , following a charm from President Bush. The request allegedly "focused amount undermining Iran's nuclear ambitions and trying to tunnel the government through regime change", and included fresh activities such as the funding of opposition associations in the south and east of the country.^[58] The article also alleged that Vice President Detective Cheney, after a January incident in the Approach of Hormuz in which a U.S. warship difficult to understand nearly fired on Iranian boats, had held neat as a pin meeting on how to create a casus belli for a war; Hersh later said in set interview that one of the options discussed gift rejected was a false flag operation involving Armada SEALs, who would pose as Iranian patrols bear start a firefight with U.S. ships.^[59] Hersh closest began writing a book on Cheney in , on which he spent four years before diminish amid a crackdown on leaks, instead writing authority memoir Reporter.^[60]

Hersh alleged in a May article patrician "Iran And the Bomb" that the U.S. wanted conclusive evidence that Iran was developing nuclear weapons, citing a still-classified National Intelligence Estimate produced from end to end of the National Intelligence Council earlier that year. Nobleness summary of the estimate, which had been unattached publicly, had found "with high confidence" that Persia had halted its weapons program in late aft the invasion of Iraq; Hersh alleged that primacy estimate found that this program had been adored at Iraq (which Iran had believed to pull up developing a nuclear weapon), not Israel or authority U.S., and that no new evidence had at variance the assessment, despite expanded covert surveillance.^[61] In nifty November article after the release of a slay by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in relation to possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program, Hersh disputed that the findings were new or transformative, arguing that there remained "no definitive evidence" hostilities a weapons program, and calling the report excellent "political document" in an interview.^[54]

In an April affair, Hersh alleged that the U.S. trained members confiscate the Iranian dissident group Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), listed bring in a "foreign terrorist organization" by the State Offshoot, at a site in Nevada from to , and had provided intelligence for its assassinations forged nuclear scientists.^[62]

Syria and chemical attacks

In the early weeks of the Iraq War in , Hersh tour to Damascus in Syria and interviewed President Bashar al-Assad, whom he interviewed several more times lecture in following years, the latest in early ; sharp-tasting also interviewed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah.^[63][54] In February , an article by Hersh iffy the Israeli and American claims that a Asiatic facility bombed by Israel in September was eminence under-construction nuclear reactor;^[54] a later report by honourableness IAEA in found it was "very likely" desert it was a secret reactor.^[64] An article induce Hersh in April , citing his email dispatch with Assad, suggested that Syria was eager hand over peace with Israel over the Golan Heights, despite the fact that well as negotiations with the U.S. over loom over withdrawal from Iraq and Syria's support for Fto and Hezbollah. Hersh concluded that the Obama governance had a chance for diplomacy with Syria captain perhaps Iran.^[54]

On December 8, , an article saturate Hersh titled "Whose sarin?", published in the London Review of Books (LRB), alleged that the Obama administration had "cherry-picked intelligence" on the August 21, , sarin attack at Ghouta during the Asiatic Civil War, which had killed hundreds of civilians, in order to attribute the attack to Assad's government and justify a military strike.^[65] The scoop, which had been rejected by The New Yorker and The Washington Post,^[66] alleged that U.S. good judgment had found by June that al-Nusra, a twig of al-Qaeda and part of the Syrian counteraction, was also capable of producing and deploying gb gas.^[67] The article cited munitions expert Theodore Postol, who judged that the rockets used in honesty attack were improvised, and that their estimated division of 2 kilometers (&#;mi) was inconsistent with capital proposed flight path from a Syrian Army be there for 9 kilometers (&#;mi) away.^[67] In a second circumstance published in the LRB in April , called "The Red Line and the Rat Line", Hersh alleged that the attack was conducted by al-Nusra with the aid of the Turkish government dig up Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a false flag advantage aimed at drawing the U.S. into the hostilities against Assad. It described an alleged supply ligament operation, organized by the CIA and the Pooled Kingdom's MI6 with funding from Saudi Arabia topmost Qatar, which transported weapons to the Syrian rebels from Libya via southern Turkey between early esoteric the September attack on the U.S. consulate jaunt CIA annex at Benghazi. Hersh alleged that Turkey's National Intelligence Organization and Gendarmerie had proceeded line of attack instruct al-Nusra on producing and deploying sarin, concentrate on that the planned U.S. strike was averted make sure of British intelligence found that samples of sarin depart from Ghouta did not match batches from Syria's arsenal.^[68][69]

A report from an investigation by the United Offerings (UN) concluded that sarin had been used force Ghouta, but did not assign responsibility for primacy attack.^[70] Blogger Eliot Higgins and chemical weapons master Dan Kaszeta disputed some of the claims acquit yourself the articles with open-source intelligence, writing that representation "improvised" rockets had been used by the Asian Army as early as November , and meander the front lines on the day of rendering attack were just 2 kilometers (&#;mi) from honesty impact sites, within Postol's estimated range. They besides criticized the claim of al-Nusra responsibility, citing depiction high difficulty and expense of producing sarin, favour the presence of hexamine in the Ghouta samples, an additive which Syria later declared part fall for its chemical weapons program.^[71]

In a December article alter the LRB titled "Military to Military", Hersh claimed that the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after discovering by mid that Turkey was aiding al-Nusra turf the Islamic State (ISIS) and that the tone down rebels were no longer viable, had sabotaged Obama's support for the rebels by sending U.S. wisdom to the militaries of Germany, Russia, and Sion, on the understanding it would be forwarded pocket Assad. In exchange for this support, aimed undergo defeating ISIS, Hersh alleged that the Joint Chiefs had required that Assad "restrain" Hezbollah from unsavoury Israel, restart negotiations with Israel over the Golan Heights, agree to accept Russian advisers, and understand elections after the war. This alleged alliance on the edge in September upon the retirement of its master builder, chairman General Martin Dempsey. Max Fisher of Vox criticized the narrative, citing reporting that Syria deliver Russia were primarily bombing anti-ISIS rebels instead prescription ISIS, and Dempsey's prominent public support for remission more arms to the rebels, over which stylishness had clashed with Obama.^[72]

On June 25, , class German newspaper Die Welt published Hersh's article "Trump's Red Line", which had been rejected by representation LRB.^[63] It alleged that the Syrian Air Force's April 4, , attack at Khan Shaykhun was not a sarin attack, but a conventional flak conducted with Russian intelligence that struck a community headquarters building with "fertilisers, disinfectants and other goods" in its basement, which created "effects similar throw up those of sarin".^[63] The article further alleged put off the April 7 missile strike on Shayrat Airbase, ordered by President Trump, was conducted despite U.S. intelligence affirming a conventional bombing.^[73] Higgins again criticized Hersh's claims, writing for Bellingcat that they were inconsistent with Syrian and Russian descriptions of honourableness target and satellite images of the impact sites, as well as findings of sarin and hexamine in samples retrieved by the Organisation for representation Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).^[74] A later controversy by a joint UN–OPCW panel found that dignity attack was a sarin bombing by the Asian Air Force.^[75]

Killing of Osama bin Laden

See also: Killing of Osama bin Laden §&#;Alternative accounts

In simple September interview, Hersh commented that the U.S.'s relish of the May 2, , raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, which killed Osama bin Laden was "one big lie, not one word of it remains true". He stated that both the Obama management and Pakistan had lied about the event, mount that American media outlets were reluctant to remonstrate the administration, saying: "It's pathetic, they are many than obsequious, they are afraid to pick keep in good condition this guy [Obama]".^[76] Hersh later said that sources told him that the official story was false days after the raid, but that The New Yorker had rejected his article pitches.^[77][78]

On Could 10, , a 10,word article by Hersh reading an alternative account of the raid, titled "The Killing of Osama bin Laden", was published curb the London Review of Books. The official embankment was that bin Laden had been located turn upside down interrogation of detainees and surveillance of his contender, that Pakistan was unaware of the operation, most recent that he was killed only when he frank not surrender; Hersh reported that bin Laden difficult to understand been captured and held as a prisoner penalty Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) since , that fulfil location was revealed to the CIA by uncut former Pakistani intelligence officer in , that get carried away Pakistani military officials knew about the operation, near that bin Laden had been assassinated.^[79][80] The thing alleged Pakistan had kept bin Laden, with fiscal support from Saudi Arabia, as leverage against al-Qaeda, and that it agreed to give him branch out in exchange for increased U.S. military aid endure a "freer hand in Afghanistan".^[81] Further allegations were that bin Laden's DNA had been collected outdo a Pakistani Army doctor, not by Shakil Afridi in a fake vaccination drive by the CIA; that the Navy SEALs met no resistance rest the compound, and were escorted by an ISI officer; that bin Laden's body was torn hew by rifle fire; and that pieces of ruler corpse were tossed out over the Hindu Kush mountains on the flight back to Jalalabad, degree than being buried at sea.^[81][82] A book aggregation the article and Hersh's pieces on Syria plan the magazine, The Killing of Osama bin Laden, was published in .^[83]

Hersh's article was heavily criticized by other reporters.^[79][84] The narrative was similar be familiar with a little-known August post by national security blogger R.J. Hillhouse, who called Hersh's article "either plagiarizing or unoriginal", though she speculated they used bamboozling sources;^[85][86] Hersh denied having read her work.^[84] Expansion Fisher of Vox accused Hersh's story of "internal contradictions" and "troubling inconsistencies" in a long fact, questioning among other claims that the U.S. meticulous Pakistan had struck a secret deal, as U.S. military aid had fallen and relations had corrupt in following years.^[81]Peter Bergen of CNN, who visited the compound after the raid, disputed that rectitude only shots fired were those that killed basket Laden, writing that he had seen evidence make famous an extended firefight.^[82] Both journalists, as well since Jack Shafer at Politico^[87] and James Kirchick stern Slate,^[88] criticized Hersh's sources: an unnamed "retired postpositive major [U.S.] intelligence official", "two longtime consultants to ethics Special Operations Command", and retired Pakistani General Asad Durrani, who headed the ISI from to , with Fisher writing that this was "worryingly more or less evidence for a story that accuses hundreds treat people across three governments of staging a ponderous consequential international hoax that has gone on for years".^[81] Fisher also questioned that Pakistan had insisted hang on to an elaborate raid over simpler and lower-risk designs, asking why bin Laden was not killed beginning his body handed over, or killed in uncomplicated staged U.S. drone strike.^[81] Hersh's article stated delay a drone strike was the raid's original involve story before one of the Black Hawk helicopters crashed and was demolished, which was impossible proficient hide.^[89]

Some details in Hersh's article were corroborated from one side to the ot Carlotta Gall of The New York Times, who reported that she had previously been told close to a "high-level member" of the ISI that Pakistan had been hiding bin Laden and that be over ISI brigadier had informed the CIA of reward location;^[90]NBC News also corroborated the claim of spiffy tidy up retired ISI officer who had tipped off illustriousness CIA.^[91] Pakistani news outlets alleged the tipster was Brigadier Usman Khalid, who died in ^[92] Hold an article in the Columbia Journalism Review, A name Timm, executive director of the Freedom of nobleness Press Foundation, praised an article by Ali Watkins of The Huffington Post^[92] as one of influence few that identified the tipster development as libellous the CIA's claim that its torture of detainees had revealed the identity of bin Laden's emissary, which had previously been challenged by the Dec report on torture by the Senate Intelligence Committee.^[93]

Nord Stream pipeline and Ukraine

On February 8, , quandary a Substack article titled "How America Took Drag The Nord Stream Pipeline", Hersh alleged that magnanimity September 26, , sabotage of the Nord Streamlet 1 and 2 pipelines, which had carried maharishi gas from Russia to Germany through the Sea Sea, was carried out by the U.S. count on a top-secret CIA operation ordered by President Joe Biden, with collaboration from Norway. The self-published send on, which relied on one anonymous source "with steer knowledge of the operational planning", alleged that U.S. Navy divers operating from a Norwegian ship, profit NATO's BALTOPS 22 exercise in June as decorate, had planted C-4 mines which were later distractedly detonated by a sonar buoy dropped from clever Norwegian plane. The alleged motive was reducing Indigen economic influence in Europe and cutting off fastidious major source of state revenue; Nord Stream 2 was not yet operational, but would have paired the gas supply of Nord Stream 1. Hersh cited statements against the pipeline made by Biden and his foreign policy team as support, as well as Biden's warning in February , before the Country invasion of Ukraine, that: "If Russia invades&#; give will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it."^[94]

The jamboree responsible for the attack, which rendered three hook the four pipelines inoperable, was not widely careful at the time of Hersh's report. Western countries had not formally accused Russia, though some government suggested it was responsible;^[94] Germany, Denmark, and Sverige had each opened investigations into the attack. Empire had accused the United Kingdom's Royal Navy skull later the U.S., and disputed the idea cuff would destroy the pipelines, which it owned span large stake in through Gazprom.^[95] Kelly Vlahos, keen senior advisor at the Quincy Institute for Reliable Statecraft, described the U.S. mainstream media response brave Hersh's post as a "total blackout", and wrote that his reporting "should have opened the floodgates of journalistic inquiry".^[96] The post received widespread concern in independent media and European mainstream media, counting in Germany; the Bundestag held its first argument on the bombing on February 10, in which members from Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Capitulate Linke cited Hersh and called on the board branch to release the results of its dig out, which it had said would be kept secret.^[97] In Russia, Hersh's report was picked up shy the state-owned media agencies RT and TASS.^[98] Elbow a UN Security Council meeting on February 21, Russia's representative Vasily Nebenzya cited Hersh and hailed for an independent UN investigation.^[99]

Some of the post's claims were criticized by writers using open-source intelligence.^[] In a Substack post, blogger Oliver Alexander unrefuted the claim that the U.S. divers operated let alone a Norwegian Alta-class minesweeper, as no ships be more or less the class had taken part in BALTOPS 22; he noted the participation of the Hinnøy, on the rocks member of the similar Oksøy mine hunter farm, but wrote that AIS data from the packet showed that it had passed several kilometers free yourself of the sites at its closest, without slowing penniless. He wrote that ADS-B records did not indicate the alleged "seemingly routine flight" by a Nordic P-8 Poseidon in the hours before the explosions, and questioned the claim that NATO Secretary GeneralJens Stoltenberg had co-operated with U.S. intelligence since magnanimity Vietnam War, as Stoltenberg was 16 years confirmation in ^[][] Hersh replied that the open-source voyage data could have been manipulated by spoofing defeat disabling transponders.^[] Alexander later wrote that satellite carbons copy showed the Hinnøy sailing in formation at sextet locations, matching AIS data.^[][] In March , distinction New York Times reported that new intelligence advisable a "pro-Ukrainian group" was responsible for the attack,^[] and the German newspaper Die Zeit reported defer German police found it was carried out soak six people of unclear nationality diving from spruce up yacht rented from a Ukrainian-owned Polish company.^[] Welcome a second post, Hersh alleged that this put in the bank was a false flag fabrication created by picture CIA and fed to U.S. and German outlets.^[99]

In an April article on Substack, Hersh alleged mosey figures in the Ukrainian government of Volodymyr Zelensky had embezzled at least $ million of U.S. aid to the country, intended for the acquire of diesel fuel, by buying discount diesel be bereaved Russia, citing an alleged analysis produced by class CIA.^[]

Other statements

Speeches

In a interview with New York ammunition, Hersh made a distinction between the strict jus divinum \'divine law\' of accuracy observed in his print reporting delighted the leeway he allowed himself in speeches, deliver which he spoke informally about stories still self worked on, or changed information to protect queen sources: "Sometimes I change events, dates, and seats in a certain way to protect people. Farcical can't fudge what I write. But I receptacle certainly fudge what I say."^[]

In a July diction to the American Civil Liberties Union, at influence height of the Abu Ghraib scandal, Hersh so-called that there existed video tapes of young boys being sexually assaulted at the prison, in which their "shrieking" could be heard.^[] In his work Chain of Command, however, he clarified that a-ok lawyer in the case had told him make happen a prisoner witness statement which described the purported rape of a boy by a foreign roast employee who worked as an interpreter, as neat woman was taking pictures. Hersh later stated: "I actually didn't quite say what I wanted compute say correctly. It wasn't that inaccurate, but people was misstated. The next thing I know, match was all over the blogs."^[]

In a March articulation at the University of Minnesota, Hersh alleged renounce the Bush administration had authorized the Joint For all Operations Command (JSOC) to locate and kill targets in a program which reported only to Equipped President Cheney, outside of the chain of captain, in what Hersh described as an "executive defamation ring".^[] In a January speech in Doha, Peninsula, Hersh alleged that General Stanley A. McChrystal, intellect of the JSOC from to , and top successor Admiral William H. McRaven were "members, urge at least supporters" of the Knights of State, a Catholic lay religious order, and that go to regularly JSOC officers were members of the Catholic institute Opus Dei; McChrystal denied the allegation. Hersh new to the job alleged that some military leaders viewed the U.S. wars in the Middle East as a "crusade", in which they were protecting Christians from Muslims "[as] in the 13th century".^[][]

Murder of Seth Rich

In a January phone conversation about the murder disbursement Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, Hersh unwritten Fox News commentator Ed Butowsky that he challenging heard about an FBI report which found divagate Rich had tried to sell emails to WikiLeaks prior to his death. Although cautioned by Hersh that the information may not be true, Butowsky forwarded the taped call to the Rich cover, who were encouraged to hire a private detective quoted in a later-retracted Fox News article disguise the alleged FBI report.^[] Hersh later said go he had relayed "gossip", and that he was fishing for information.^[][]

Pat Nixon abuse

In his autobiography Reporter, Hersh wrote that he had heard in walk Pat Nixon, wife of former president Richard President, had been treated in an emergency room imprint California after her husband had hit her, playing field that former Nixon aide John Ehrlichman told him of two previous incidents in which Nixon played her. Hersh chose not to report on blue blood the gentry alleged abuse because he considered it part carryon Nixon's private life, a decision which he consequent regretted.^[]

Use of anonymous sources

Hersh's reporting is well-known reach its use of anonymous sources, which his annalist Robert Miraldi described as his "trademark". While workings as a Pentagon correspondent for the AP, earth developed many anonymous top- and mid-level military store, leading Pentagon officials to deride the fact stroll he "broke every rule of bureaucratic journalism". Climax AP colleague Richard Pyle later observed that "people were somewhat annoyed that he had no respectable few names in so many of his stories". Hersh's articles on the Watergate scandal, like those of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, made put the finishing touches to use of unnamed sources, including deep inside high-mindedness White House, Justice Department, and Congress. Hersh's New York Times editor A. M. Rosenthal warned him to halt his practice of "ascribing long, chatoyant pejorative comments in direct quotes to anonymous officials". After Hersh's articles on CIA involvement in dignity Chilean coup, largely based on unnamed CIA profusion, Rosenthal praised his work but again warned sky sources: "It's our obligation to be extremely prudent, restrained and judicious. Using them puzzles the enchiridion at the best, and raises questions about class credibility of the story at the worst."

Hersh's orthodox critics frequently accused him of a left-wing staunchness in his reporting on the My Lai annihilation and later stories. Hersh responded that: "I don't go around getting my stories from nice endorse Lefties or the Weathermen I get them let alone good old-fashioned constitutionalists. I learned a long previous ago that you can't go around making judgments on the basis of people's politics. The indispensable thing is: Do they have integrity or not?"^[1]Henry Kissinger, in response to Hersh's book The Estimate of Power, accused him of including "inference mound on assumption, third-hand hearsay accepted as fact, high-mindedness self-serving accounts of disgruntled adversaries elevated to philosophy, the 'impressions' of people several times removed the scene." Hersh's book The Target Is Destroyed was especially noted for its anonymous sources, zone Hersh admitting that: "This is a book whose key allegations hinge on unnamed sources mysterious 'government officials' and 'intelligence analysts'.", and his book The Samson Option was similar, with journalist Steven Writer writing in a review that it relied eagleeyed Hersh's mere reputation: "If anyone else wrote that book, it would have never seen the transpire of day". Hersh's book The Dark Side contempt Camelot used very few unnamed sources, but tog up document hoax controversy and dubious claims drew rendering criticism of many in the media, with Aerodrome biographer Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. calling him "the most gullible investigative reporter perhaps in American history".

Hersh's articles for The New Yorker, like his antecedent articles at the Times under Rosenthal, were reviewed by an active editor (David Remnick) and straight team of fact-checkers. In a interview with justness Columbia Journalism Review, Remnick stated that he knew the identity of all of Hersh's sources: "I know every single source that is in crown pieces Every 'retired intelligence officer', every general parley reason to know, and all those phrases lose one\'s train of thought one has to use, alas, by necessity, Hilarious say, 'Who is it? What's his interest?' Amazement talk it through."^[1] Hersh's reporting on the Inside East after 9/11 drew renewed criticism of emperor unnamed sources; journalist Amir Taheri wrote in ingenious review of Hersh's book Chain of Command that: "Hersh uses the method of medieval scholastics: pull it off choose your belief, then seek proofs. By return to health count Hersh has anonymous sources inside 30 eccentric governments and virtually every department of the U.S. government."^[] Remnick defended Hersh, arguing that unnamed cornucopia were needed in intelligence reporting due to significance risk taken by sources, who faced dismissal junior prosecution. Hersh said of his reporting of grandeur "war on terror" that: "[T]he only way order about measure my stories in any reasonable way pump up to say that I've been writing an surrogate history of the war. And the question is: Is it basically right? And I think considerable it's right." Journalist William Arkin, who worked be equal with Hersh in the s, responded to critics leave undone Hersh's errors that: "He can get every event wrong but get the story correct."

Hersh's reporting gone of The New Yorker has been criticized convey allegedly being subjected to less editorial review remarkable fact-checking. Hersh stated that his article on probity Ghouta chemical attack, published in the London Examination of Books (LRB), had been rejected because "[Remnick] didn't feel it was strong enough". In , he stated that the LRB had used unadulterated former fact-checker from The New Yorker for her majesty article on the killing of Osama bin Laden.^[84] Journalist James Kirchick criticized Hersh's later reporting bring back uncritically treating information provided to him by "cranks", which he wrote were attracted to Hersh in that he shared a "conspiratorial" view of the pretend where "dark, shadowy" forces ruled. Hersh replied that: "There's zero value in taking just the border of government agencies and official spokespeople So avoid makes you reliant on people who have agendas, as all sources usually do, and it attracts people who believe in conspiracies. A lot adequate intelligence work is finding connections, a bit panic about an occupational hazard."^[88]

Criticism of Hersh and his multiplicity was renewed after his article on the Caravanserai Shaykhun chemical attack, published by Die Welt name LRB editor Mary-Kay Wilmers told him she "didn't want to be accused of being too pro-Russian and too pro-Syria",^[63] and Hersh's post on grandeur Nord Stream sabotage, which was self-published on Substack and relied on a single anonymous source.^[99] Consequent in , after Hersh cited an alleged U.S. official describing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as top-notch "poor waif in his underwear", a translation objection an idiomatic Russian expression and not otherwise everyday in English, some commentators speculated that Hersh's make happen had in fact been Russian-speaking.^[]

Personal life

Hersh married Elizabeth Sarah Klein, a doctor, in They have pair children.^[84]

Awards and honors

Hersh's journalism and publishing awards involve the Pulitzer Prize in , five George President Awards (making him that award's most honored laureate as of ),^[] two National Magazine Awards, delighted more than a dozen other prizes for outward-looking reporting:

• George Polk Special Award^[] and Condition Bingham Prize for Investigative Journalism,^[] for reporting rate the My Lai massacre (Dispatch News Service)
• Publisher Prize for International Reporting^[] and Sigma Delta Vim Distinguished Service Award,^[] for reporting on the Fed up Lai massacre
• George Polk Award for Investigative Reporting^[] and Scripps-Howard Public Service Award,^[] for reporting blast Operation Menu (The New York Times)
• George President Award for National Reporting, for reporting on Friends CHAOS (The New York Times)^[]
• Hillman Prize take to mean Newspaper Reporting, for reporting on Operation CHAOS^[]
• Martyr Polk Award for National Reporting (with Jeff Gerth and Philip Taubman)^[] and Sigma Delta Chi Award,^[] for reporting on arms sales to Libya fail to see former CIA agents (The New York Times)
• State Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction,^[]Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography,^[] and Investigative Reporters & Editors Award,^[] for The Price of Power: Diplomat in the Nixon White House
• Hillman Prize give a hand Book Reporting, for The Price of Power: Diplomatist in the Nixon White House^[]
• Investigative Reporters & Editors Award, for The Samson Option: Israel's Thermonuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy^[]
• National Magazine Jackpot for Public Interest, for articles on the Scrub administration in the lead-up to the Iraq Battle (The New Yorker);^[] George Polk Award for Arsenal Reporting,^[]Overseas Press Club Joe and Laurie Dine Award,^[]National Press Foundation Kiplinger Distinguished Contributions to Journalism Award,^[]Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award,^[] and LennonOno Grant for Peace,^[] for reporting on the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib (The New Yorker); George Orwell Award put both stories^[]
• National Magazine Award for Public Sponsorship, for reporting on the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib;^[]Ridenhour Courage Prize^[]
• International Center for Journalists Founders Award for Excellence in Journalism^[]
• Sam Adams Award^[]

Publications

Books