Salon Newsreal | Seymour Hersh vs. the Pentagon

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Seymour Hersh vs. the Pentagon
Newsreal Image The reporter who broke the My Lai story is back, challenging the government's explanation of Gulf War Syndrome.
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BY LORI LEIBOVICH | One thing you can say about Seymour Hersh: He's game. Coming off "The Dark Side of Camelot," his controversial book about the Kennedy years, the investigative reporter is back tackling another big, messy topic: Gulf War Syndrome, the mysterious and debilitating illness that has affected an estimated 90,000 veterans of the Persian Gulf War with symptoms including memory and weight loss, nerve damage and severe fatigue.
The official line until recently has been that Gulf War Syndrome was purely psychological, the result of stress and trauma. (The government relented somewhat in February, admitting that chemical agents could have played a role.) In his new book, "Gulf War Syndrome: The War Between America's Ailing Veterans and Their Government" (Library of Contemporary Thought), Hersh blasts apart the psychological theory and blames the government -- including Gulf War heroes Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell -- for exposing the troops to dangerous chemical agents, then abandoning them. In Hersh's view, the powers that be had so much invested in the Gulf War being seen as a clear-cut victory that admitting negligence was impossible.
Salon recently spoke with Hersh, who is most famous for breaking the story of the My Lai massacre for the New York Times, about the state of journalism, how he would have covered the Monica Lewinsky scandal and why he thinks Gulf War veterans have been cheated.
How would you critique your colleagues who have been covering the Lewinsky scandal?
When I got to Washington in 1964, a middle-aged white man with a little girl on the side was the norm -- that was the definition of a House and Senate committee chairman. My issue with the Lewinsky scandal is: big deal. We knew about Gennifer Flowers and we voted him in twice. We've got Washington in a real tizzy, in a huff about it, but nobody else cares because they know about this guy.
Yet you investigated John F. Kennedy's peccadilloes for your book "The Dark Side of Camelot."
What struck me about Jack Kennedy, and the reason I wrote about it, besides the fact that the Secret Service guys talked to me on the record, was I thought Kennedy's recklessness, sexually, was matched by his recklessness toward trying to kill Castro. If Monica Lewinsky had been the representative of Haiti and was influencing policy there, or if she was the chief lobbyist for a major telephone company or Microsoft, that's a different story. If she is just an example of his bad judgment, and it doesn't show anything more than that he is a sexual desperado, I don't see it as a big deal.
That said, if you were assigned to this story, wouldn't you be all over it?
Yes. I'd be covering the story and loving it. It is a great Page 1 story, and that is part of our business. But I'd like to think that I wouldn't need Steve Brill to know that Starr was leaking. I'd like to think I would have been very, very troubled by Starr's leaking and the fact that Starr is confirming stories.
I'd also be raising a lot more questions than they have about Lucianne Goldberg and Linda Tripp. I know Lucianne, I ran across her doing the Kennedy book, and I can tell you, her lips are to the gossip columnists' ears. There is nothing illegal or unethical about her, but she is dangerous. I had a conversation with her, and before I could get back to her, what I said was in the newspaper.
Do you believe there is a "vast right-wing conspiracy" against the Clintons?
It seems clear that there is some agenda here. I am not talking about a right-wing agenda -- it's maybe a mercenary agenda that should be explored more fully. I've said from the beginning: There's got to be more to Monica Lewinsky. Starr must have more on her, something more than just that she allegedly gave the president oral sex. That would have been what I was looking for. But you could no more get a conviction of Monica Lewinsky in a Washington, D.C., jury, particularly a black jury -- I mean, she did a man and she didn't tell the truth? What is the story?
Sociologically, the Lewinsky thing is unbelievable. For the last two weeks I have been out of Washington and the people I talk to don't care. Yet they watch the coverage because it is better than the soaps.
There is also sex involved. If it was an arms deal, people wouldn't be so titillated. Plus, she is provocative-looking.
Physically there is something -- you could sort of daydream about her. She is provocative-acting. She's not Marilyn Monroe, but the same sort of pubescent fantasy can exist. It is titillating.
The media is taking a beating this summer. Retractions and fabrications are all over the place.
We screw things up all the time.
These are pretty huge things -- the CNN/TIME nerve gas story for example.
All this doesn't surprise me. There is such an explosion of fame, fortune and glory in the news business now. Reporters are visible in ways that they have never been, particularly with the 24-hour cable. Let them go. Let them make assholes of themselves, let them fawn all over each other, let them reach for the sun, fabricate, go through this horrible spell of crap because everybody wants to be famous for their two minutes. If I did the My Lai story again, it would all be about me. It would be how I found what I did, what I had for lunch, what I said, what I smoked.
N E X T+P A G E+| Why the Internet keeps journalists honest

T A B L E+T A L K Will any of the better known women in politics ever run for president? If so, who? When? Make your predictions in the Politics area of Table Talk D A I L Y+Q U O T E Second wave feminists to third: Get over it! R E C E N T L Y Naked ladies triumph By David Steinberg A historic multimillion-dollar settlement against the Mitchell Brothers confirms that T&A providers are indeed employees (07/14/98) His material highness By Christopher Hitchens Far from his holier-than-all image, the Dalai Lama supports such questionable causes as India's nuclear testing, sex with prostitutes and accepting donations from a Japanese terrorist cult (07/13/98) Toward a post-gay world By Daniel Reitz Gay Pride Month passed quietly this year -- maybe that means we no longer really need to make so much noise (07/10/98) God's own ZIP Code By Christopher Ott A leading radio evangelist wields power on the right (07/09/98) Author, author! By Jonathan Broder Everyone wants to know who wrote the "talking points" (07/08/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		Seymour Hersh vs. the Pentagon The reporter who broke the My Lai story is back, challenging the government's explanation of Gulf War Syndrome. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - BY LORI LEIBOVICH \| One thing you can say about Seymour Hersh: He's game. Coming off "The Dark Side of Camelot," his controversial book about the Kennedy years, the investigative reporter is back tackling another big, messy topic: Gulf War Syndrome, the mysterious and debilitating illness that has affected an estimated 90,000 veterans of the Persian Gulf War with symptoms including memory and weight loss, nerve damage and severe fatigue. The official line until recently has been that Gulf War Syndrome was purely psychological, the result of stress and trauma. (The government relented somewhat in February, admitting that chemical agents could have played a role.) In his new book, "Gulf War Syndrome: The War Between America's Ailing Veterans and Their Government" (Library of Contemporary Thought), Hersh blasts apart the psychological theory and blames the government -- including Gulf War heroes Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell -- for exposing the troops to dangerous chemical agents, then abandoning them. In Hersh's view, the powers that be had so much invested in the Gulf War being seen as a clear-cut victory that admitting negligence was impossible. Salon recently spoke with Hersh, who is most famous for breaking the story of the My Lai massacre for the New York Times, about the state of journalism, how he would have covered the Monica Lewinsky scandal and why he thinks Gulf War veterans have been cheated. How would you critique your colleagues who have been covering the Lewinsky scandal? When I got to Washington in 1964, a middle-aged white man with a little girl on the side was the norm -- that was the definition of a House and Senate committee chairman. My issue with the Lewinsky scandal is: big deal. We knew about Gennifer Flowers and we voted him in twice. We've got Washington in a real tizzy, in a huff about it, but nobody else cares because they know about this guy. Yet you investigated John F. Kennedy's peccadilloes for your book "The Dark Side of Camelot." What struck me about Jack Kennedy, and the reason I wrote about it, besides the fact that the Secret Service guys talked to me on the record, was I thought Kennedy's recklessness, sexually, was matched by his recklessness toward trying to kill Castro. If Monica Lewinsky had been the representative of Haiti and was influencing policy there, or if she was the chief lobbyist for a major telephone company or Microsoft, that's a different story. If she is just an example of his bad judgment, and it doesn't show anything more than that he is a sexual desperado, I don't see it as a big deal. That said, if you were assigned to this story, wouldn't you be all over it? Yes. I'd be covering the story and loving it. It is a great Page 1 story, and that is part of our business. But I'd like to think that I wouldn't need Steve Brill to know that Starr was leaking. I'd like to think I would have been very, very troubled by Starr's leaking and the fact that Starr is confirming stories. I'd also be raising a lot more questions than they have about Lucianne Goldberg and Linda Tripp. I know Lucianne, I ran across her doing the Kennedy book, and I can tell you, her lips are to the gossip columnists' ears. There is nothing illegal or unethical about her, but she is dangerous. I had a conversation with her, and before I could get back to her, what I said was in the newspaper. Do you believe there is a "vast right-wing conspiracy" against the Clintons? It seems clear that there is some agenda here. I am not talking about a right-wing agenda -- it's maybe a mercenary agenda that should be explored more fully. I've said from the beginning: There's got to be more to Monica Lewinsky. Starr must have more on her, something more than just that she allegedly gave the president oral sex. That would have been what I was looking for. But you could no more get a conviction of Monica Lewinsky in a Washington, D.C., jury, particularly a black jury -- I mean, she did a man and she didn't tell the truth? What is the story? Sociologically, the Lewinsky thing is unbelievable. For the last two weeks I have been out of Washington and the people I talk to don't care. Yet they watch the coverage because it is better than the soaps. There is also sex involved. If it was an arms deal, people wouldn't be so titillated. Plus, she is provocative-looking. Physically there is something -- you could sort of daydream about her. She is provocative-acting. She's not Marilyn Monroe, but the same sort of pubescent fantasy can exist. It is titillating. The media is taking a beating this summer. Retractions and fabrications are all over the place. We screw things up all the time. These are pretty huge things -- the CNN/TIME nerve gas story for example. All this doesn't surprise me. There is such an explosion of fame, fortune and glory in the news business now. Reporters are visible in ways that they have never been, particularly with the 24-hour cable. Let them go. Let them make assholes of themselves, let them fawn all over each other, let them reach for the sun, fabricate, go through this horrible spell of crap because everybody wants to be famous for their two minutes. If I did the My Lai story again, it would all be about me. It would be how I found what I did, what I had for lunch, what I said, what I smoked. N E X T+P A G E+\| Why the Internet keeps journalists honest