The Michigan Daily -
Hersh's book: No 'slimy lie'
(Continued from Page 6)
enough or being too objective?
Hersh: Sure. There's this tremendous
sort of instinctive feeling that there's
something wrong with being commit-
ted. If you're committed that's a bad
word. I don't know what's so bad about
being committed, I got the My Lai story
because I knew the war stunk. I knew
that it was making professional liars
out of our military and I had more
respect for them. I think a lot of those
guys in the military have a lot more in-
tegrity than some of the people on the
left want to believe - they're full of in-
tegrity; very decent people in terrible
spots between what they learn at West
Point and reality.
Daily: Along that same line, do you, on
the other hand, see any problem with
journalists like George Will, for exam-
ple, becoming committed to the point
where they are actually involved in
partisan politics?
Hersh: I'm not quite as upset about
(Will) as other people because he
doesn't hide where he's coming from .
and he's not pretending to write
straight stories ... I think it was foolish
of him to praise Reagan as effusively
as he did on the television after having
worked with him. That was silly. I don't
think it's the end of the world because
it's very clear if he hadn't worked with
him he would have found (Reagan's)
speech just as rewarding . . . George
Will is not a real problem, the real
problem are all these stenographers
masquerading as journalists. I worked
for Gene McCarthy as a press secretary
in '68, and one of McCarthy's classic
lines - he was a difficult man but he
had a lot of good lines - was that the
trouble with the press is that they write
but they don't read. And you really find
that the amount of ignorance in the
press is staggering.
Daily: Regarding media coverage, how
is it that someone like Nixon, and par-
ticularly Kissinger got such favorable
treatment, but someone like Jimmy
Carter received very harsh coverage.
Hersh: (The press) beat up Jimmy
Carter terribly. Why does Kissinger
(inspire awe among the press)? Among
other reasons he's one of the best leaks
in America. He spent half his time with
the press... You know I've now come
to understand what my book really is
about ... What (Nixon and Kissinger)
really did was they made the most
systematic attempt on the Constitution
of anybody. The goal really was to
totally destroy most of the framework
of the executive - to bring all the
power into the White House.
Daily: Consciously?
Hersh: No. I don't think they knew what
they were doing . .. I don't think they
thought in terms of the Constitution,
that's all I mean . . . To get back to
Kissinger, the goal was initially to
bring all the power into the White
House. And your real enemies were not
the Russians and the Chinese, but the
Secretary of State and the Secretary of
Defense, Bill Rogers and Mel Laird -
and the press right away knew that
Kissinger was running everything.
Daily: Many people view the press as
having been responsible for ridding the
country of Nixon and ending American
military involvement in Vietnam.
What's your view on that?
Hersh: Let me tell you about
Watergate. My version of Watergate is
this: Nixon gets into office in January
of '69. He starts secretly bombing Cam-
bodia within a couple months - he wan-
ts to send a message to the other side.
He starts wiretapping reporters when
one of them learns about one of the
bombing raids in May of '69. He
wiretaps for 21 months without being
detected. He bombs for 14 months,
110,000 tons of bombs according to the
House Judiciary Committee in-
vestigation. 3,600 missions without
being detected. In the summer of '70 he
operates against Salvador Allende in
Chile without being detected. He steps
up the number of domestic spying
operations to an incredible number
against the anti-war dissidents at
home. In '71 Dan Ellsberg publishes the
Pentagon Papers and (Nixon) sets up
the Plumbers team - G. Gordon Liddy,
E. Howard Hunt, Egil Krogh, David
Young - and they break into the office
of Ellsberg's psychoanalyst. Now, what
do you have? You have bombing,
wiretapping, the CIA operating against
foreign leaders elected by the people,
and against its own American people -
all done by the White House. Where's
the press in any of those? When did we
learn about all of them? . . . After the
(1972) election ... And so, it makes me
sort of giggle when I hear all of these
accolades for the press (with regard to
Watergate).
Daily: Is it possible for the press to do
any better?
Hersh: (They) could do better in terms
of not having the reverence. Look,
there's a very strong possibility that
Ronald Reagan is not even a nice guy,
that he may really just be a son-of-a-bitch
who doesn't care about the working-
class who's out of work. I think that's
equally possible as the fact that he's
ignorant and doesn't understand or
doesn't know what's going on.
Daily: Getting back to Kissinger, do
you think his conscience ever bothers
him?
Hersh: I don't know what bothers him. I
have said that when the rest of us go to
sleep and we can't sleep, we count
sheep, right? As far as I'm concerned
(Kissinger) should count burned and
maimed Vietnamese, Cambodian, and
Laotian babies - but I'm not sure he
does.
Daily: How do you feel right now about
your book, you've certainly gotten
some pretty harsh criticism?
Hersh: I've also been praised a lot, and
(have gotten) a lot of serious, good
reviews (that) have said there is
something here even if they say it's a
hatchet job and all that. (But) it's not a
hatchet job, and the thing I'm waiting
for somebody to do is to take a chapter
- in one of the chapters (Ch. 25,
"SALT: A Grain Deal") I describe how
(Nixon and Kissinger) actually made a
deal (with) the Soviets. It was a deal
(Kissinger) and Nixon specifically
denied they ever made. They (claim
they) never linked the Soviet purchases
of grain in early '72 and late '71 to a
SALT settlement, which of course they
did - they lied through their teeth about
it and continue to do so. So I want
somebody to take one of the chapters of
the book, talk to the people I quote, get
them to say these are misquotes and
misleading, and that I've lied and I've
distorted stuff, and my conclusion is in-
valid. Then I'll really get upset. I'm
waiting for somebody to go after me on
something big, (but) they don't do it,
damn 'em.
Daily: One popular criticism of the
book is how can you believe what con-
victed criminals and known liars tell
you?
- Saturday, August 13, 1983-- Page 7
THE PRCE
KISSINGER
IN THE NXN
WHITE HOUSE
Hersh: Oh, I'll do better than that, I'll
give you my rule. I interviewed Colson,
Haldeman, Egil Krogh, (and) others
spent time in jail. The guys who spend
time in jail don't lie anymore. They
have nothing to lie for - it's the guys
that never went in that lie.. I'll give
you my new Seymour Hersh theorem
for public service: Anybody who gets
into high public office ought to spend six
months in jail, because they don't lie.
And how do I know they don't? Because
when they tell me something I run and I
check it, and the whole notion that I'm
dealing with only disgruntled sources -
which is another criticism - is equally
ridiculous in this sense: Anybody who
ever worked for Henry Kissinger was
disgruntled. He left nothing but a
legacy of distrust, and what saved me
really (in terms of his book) was
(Kissinger's) first volume of his
memoirs, published in the fall of '79.
Maybe a hundred people who had saidi
no they wouldn't talk to me - foreign
service officers, ambassadors - were
so outraged about what Kissinger
(wrote) that they talked to me. His
memoirs were a very big asset.
Daily: Knowing what you know about
at al wrriedwe mightntmkitno
the 20th century?
Hersh: Oh, I don't think we can go
around doing that. I think what you
have to do - I am an optimist - is do
the best you can ... I don't think we
should let them (Reagan, Kissinger,
and others) beat us. I think there's a
resptrutime f jaiheounyshospnd
sim t ja t le jusnh to ight
hav othn tolefr-itstegy
the gne wght i. .. ThereIs just no room
for giving up.
Kissinger
.. . the ultimate toady
Qlurcli3 I&bp~ tiE
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