by Julian Borger
Published on Friday, April 14, 2006 by the Guardian / UK

from CommonDreams Website

A generation ago aspiring journalists looked up to the Watergate team of Woodward and Bernstein as their idols. But times have changed. One half of the Washington Post duo, Carl Bernstein, has moved into academia, while Bob Woodward has grown rich and part of the Washington establishment. His books on the Bush administration have leant heavily on interviews granted by the president and his top aides.

Far from shaking the administration, they were advertised as recommended reading by the Bush re-election campaign.
 

The only investigative journalist from that era who is still giving the administration sleepless nights is Seymour Hersh, whose scoops in The New Yorker have become a centerpiece in the debate over the US "global war on terror".

This week's extraordinary report alleging that George Bush had not only made up his mind to topple the Iranian government, but was also toying with the idea of doing it with a tactical nuclear weapon, was a telling example of his influence. If any other journalist had produced the story, it would almost certainly have been laughed off.

Because Hersh wrote it, it was front-page news around the world, notwithstanding Mr Bush's insistence it was all "wild speculation". The White House stopped short of denying the story, saying only that the Pentagon was conducting "normal military contingency planning".

The problem for the president is that the man known in Washington as Sy has become an institution with more credibility than the administrations that come and go in this fickle city.

Hidden away in an anonymous office block, he works out of two shabby rooms. The wall behind him is covered with black skid marks inflicted by his penchant for leaning back in his chair and putting his running shoes on his desk while on the telephone.

The other Washington reporters for the New Yorker recently set up shop just around the corner in a pleasant and orderly suite of offices, but Hersh has not joined them - "because I am not (always) pleasant nor orderly" he pointed out. One of his colleagues tersely agrees: "Sy does not play well with others."

Political journalism in Washington is generally restrained. Hersh is not like that. He is excitable, fast-talking and uses "fucking" more than any other adjective, with a hard-edged accent honed on Chicago's South Side.

Hersh has been publishing scoops since long before Watergate, breaking the story of the US massacre of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai in 1969 while he was a freelancer. He won the Pulitzer prize for that and his office wall is densely covered with other awards.

In more than 30 years in the business, Hersh has had a few slips. He initially fell for a set of forgeries purporting to show Marilyn Monroe had blackmailed President John Kennedy, but the fraud was uncovered before his 1998 book on the Kennedy White House, The Dark Side of Camelot, was published.

He has just passed his 69th birthday, but still has a fire in his belly for new stories. "Get out of the way of the fucking story," is his over-arching philosophy. His desk is covered with manila files and yellow legal pads.

Somewhere in the mess are his tax returns which he was yesterday scrambling to finish by the deadline.

"I feel like I did in the Vietnam days - I hate to pay taxes just so they can go and bomb more people."

He says he never puts notes that would identify his sources on to his computer. He does talk to them by phone, at least to arrange meetings.

"They'd be crazy to wiretap me," Hersh said, explaining that some of his informants in the intelligence world would find out.

He says he does not have Deep Throat-like encounters in underground car parks, but rather goes to see his government contacts at their homes late at night or first thing in the morning.

Before his stories are published, his sources are called by New Yorker factcheckers to verify every detail.

"I can't deal with people who can't talk to the factcheckers," he said. "My people will explain to the factcheckers things they think I already know or understand, so they explain things much better, and come out with details I hadn't even thought of."

Finally, Hersh sets out on late-night drives, dropping drafts of his stories through the letterboxes of his sources to give them a chance to confirm he has interpreted their information correctly and that he is not going to publish anything that will put the US at risk.

"I don't want to reveal operational details. I'm an American, after all." Often, he says, he ends up publishing "one-hundredth of what I know".

He picks up a file from a stack on his desk and opens it to reveal a thick wad of confidential memos. Each one could have made a splash in a British daily.

One is between two senior British official in the run-up to the Iraq war. It talks of the US determination to oust Saddam and the differences within the administration.

For a better understanding of the situation the memo recommends reading one source in particular: Seymour Hersh.