6:00 with the united states senators this wonderful memoir from john stennis, a powerful democratic united states senator and he said sy hersh would call me at 6:00 in the morning. i would be in my pajamas and we would talk for an hour before would go to work. what was it like? this guy who would start his day at 6:00 in the morning talking to united states senators and 11:00 at night still be in the newsroom on the washington bureau of the washington times surrounded by folders, obscure government documents with the phone still quote in his neck trying to convince people to talk to him? what was it like to live with this obsessive guy? the other thing i would like to ask speaking of threats, this interesting time in new york, he comes to new york for two years, 1978-1979, the tail end of 7 years in the new york times, actually this week to major projects when he comes to the new york times. one is on gulf and western which

is the owner of paramount and the new york knicks and new york rangers, does a big investigation and the other investigations is of someone who -- didn't know who he was but you shouldn't look at vito corleone as the godfather. you should look at sydney for shaq, the godfather, mob lawyer union lawyer, hollywood lawyer. big powerful guy who knew how to make things happen for his clients. sy begins to tackle sydney or shaq and you wants to talk to him. let me read one quick segment from the book. seymour hersh was in los angeles and he simply picked up the phone and called sydney court

jack. he took the call. i am here, he said. i want to see you. i won't see you. adding let me ask you a question. hersh set up whatever forget this as long as i live. what you doing? you are an expert in mass murder. you write about crime where people are dead and there are bodies all over. why are you writing about me? you write about murder, blood running in the ditches and murders. wire you interested in me? i am just a businessman. go back your mass murderers, the blood and the killing and the blood and the killing and board and all that you write about. not about me. hersh remember it vividly, korschach kept talking about murders and blood, never said a word that was running but the whole context was murder, murder, blood, murder. it set me on edge. it was pretty chilling. i would have liked to ask what was it like when that happened? sy was in new york cooking

hamburgers when he got a phone call and the person on the phone said sy, get out of your house go to a phone booth and call me. you got to call me. i can't trust your phone. he runs to the phone booth and the guy says somebody at the new york times has leaked to korschach's people all your phone records and bills you have been submitting to the times. they know everybody you talking to, every phone call you are making, you are in danger. i would have liked to know what was it like to live with this guy, when these dangerous things -- do you think the wife might have said stop it? not going to happen with seymour hersh. i never spoke to his wife. finally i went to washington d.c. scheduled to interview bob woodward who was very cooperative, very pleasant and useful. he and sy hersh have been friendly rivals for 40 years,

they jockey over who is the greatest investigative reporter in american history. both of them think it is them. that has been an interesting debate for many years and while i was in washington i said maybe i will show up at sy's blower and finally one day there he was, and you just coming to work and had breakfast together and spend a couple hours, he was very pleasant, wouldn't talk about himself, wanted to talk about foreign policy, wants to talk about the state of journalism but he would not talk about sy hersh. i am sticking to what i said. i am not going to sit down for any period of time to talk about myself. i am not the story. it is not about me. it is about what i write about. i am not the person you should be focusing on. i disagreed but we left friendly but there it was. he stuck to his guns, never sat down for me for a long period of time to help me put this 150,000

page book together. our last conversation this, this gets us to one of the questions i began with. last conversations were about what is up today. with the up to today? he is working on a very big book on dick cheney, george bush and barack obama. and covert intelligence policies. he was very close to writing the book when someone dropped a trove of documents, it has gone from not just the george bush administration worse than we ever thought, the book has gone from just being about george bush to being about obama and i suspect very soon we will see headlines and we will see sy hersh going across the country with his latest expos day about the george bush/obama foreign

policy. what does hersh think about the revelations of leaking of material by ed snowden? he has been the recipient of leaks like this for many years. if anyone knows what it is like to be friends with and have secret sources in formation of sy hersh, you read sy hersh story and don't know who's talking, just a lot of unnamed people, turned out to be right. but he said about ed snowden, he broke the law he has to be prosecuted but i have to tell you he has changed the nature of the discussion and that makes me think of sy hersh. she has changed the nature of discussion in america for many many years. the heat is on ed snowden. the heat has been done hersh for many years. when he wrote about the cia in 1975 he launched three

congressional investigations, forced congress to ban the use of assassination as a technique of foreign policy. we lifted that ban, things do change. has brought about more changes in american life, the my lai massacre store did not alter the course of the vietnam war but was one of the females in the coffin, tremendously important public opinion turning point in the vietnam war. he has been a major important figure for many years. which leads me to what it is about sy hersh that resonates today. and number of stories are relevant. one of the overlooked stories that is relevant is 1968 he was one of the first people in a seminal books to be reading about chemical and biological weapons, he was warning as a long time ago these are put, secret weapons that we simply have taken for granted. he pointed out america made it changes its policy and instead

of simply saying we would respond with chemical and biological weapons if attacked america suddenly said we would use these as a weapon and he got america at that point to ban the use of biological weapons. not too long ago in syria, many people were killed in a ceramic gas attack so the question continues to be an important one. if i was on that story many years ago. what i said most of all in to me is most important about sy hersh is the power of the press, the potential power of the press. he has been responsible for kicking off the most important stories and reforms in american life. when woodward and bernstein were having trouble with the watergate story in 1973 is possible that story would have stalled, nixon would have continued to be president, that story had stalled and the new york times forced seymour hersh to get on to the store much to

his reluctance. not only caught up the time is that got them ahead, wrote stories woodward said without sy hersh we would not have been able to continue our watergate investigation. we welcome sy to this tour. woodward said hersh is like the marines, the first one on the beach, take the heavy hits, artillery goes after him and we all follow sy hersh. he gave us the best look at those george bush administration after the 9/11 attacks. after his book on john kennedy hersh was considered washed up considered to be done over. he had begun to work all little bit on the middle east and then 9/11 attacks happened. he was backing his car out of his driveway in washington d.c. and got a call from the new yorker, and said we know what you're going to be doing for the next year, you are working on

the cia the george bush administration and the middle east. he then gave over four year period look at what was taking place in the middle east that you could find anywhere. sy hersh has been for many years what a journalist should be. a pariah, constantly indignant, independent source of information, someone who gets below the surface, behind closed doors, tells us what things are really like. why he is so controversial, so revered and reviled, it is a funny story. after the of the great story appeared there was a protest in london and a little girl was at this protest holding a sign and the sign said protect seymour hersh, the last independent journalist in the world. sy got a chuckle out of that. is he the greatest american investigative reporter? the debate you will get into is between those people who believe it is bob woodward and those who

believe it is seymour hersh. is an apples and oranges comparison because woodward tells us inside stories from the top, he gets access to the halls of power and tells us what the people at the top are thinking and doing and have done and hersh says that is fine and dandy and useful but they don't tell us the truth. from hersh's debt of view we need people in the middle, at the bottom, those are the people and tell us what happened so in some ways it is mr. insider versus mr. outsider. hersh is mr. outsider and has been for many years and i don't think that will ever change. will we ever see the likes of "seymour hersh: scoop artist" again? i am optimistic about the state of american journalism. tremendous changes in journalism. journalism has taken a great hit. we lost hundreds of journalists, circulations have plummeted,

advertising revenues have plummeted, investigative journalism still prides, look at the pulitzers and you see a world of investigative journalism out there. hersh being one of many. the question is for my point of view will anyone ever do what at the 11 has done? no one will produce the range of scoops. the reason is i can't see anyone being as indignant or as angry or indefatigable as sy has been for 40 years. and he still continues to have a anchor at the conditions that he sees. one more closing segment that in some ways typifies sy hersh. anchor is what fuels hersh. he is as one of this suggests a man on fire.

the word morality or immorality is not part of the debate. too often it is not even on the pages. hersh is unabashed in describing when he thinks is the job of the reporter. description that if you follow the arc of his career and this book mirrors his work, quote i have been at it for 40 years but still consider myself a newspaperman. that is my soul, such an important business you have told the people at the top to the highest possible standards. those people who have the right to send our sons and daughters to die in the name of democracy, you have to say to them the same things that are so valuable in our personal lives and family lives we don't want to live. we want trust in that relationship. this business gives us a chance the average person, anybody gives us a chance to hold the highest people to the highest standards, to put your finger in their eye, a great way to spend your life. i have been chasing seymour

hersh for 25, 30 years. intensely for the last six years and it is a great way for me to spend the last six years. this is the man who is one of the heroic figures in american life. he is a difficult person, and abrasive character, he has many enemies probably has many flaws. but this is a man who has told us more about the realities of america than any american journalist ever in american history. pete seeger diet last night and i was reading some comments this morning to close on this note, reading comments from bruce springsteen, the 90th birth day at madison square garden, bruce springsteen called peach a living archive of america's music and conscience, testament to the power of song in culture and ability to nudge history long and i thought about seymour

hersh. of want to substitute the sentence, sy hersh is a living archive of america's journalism and conscience, testament to the power of fact expos day and the ability of journalism to nudge history along. jason sy hersh has been a great way to spend last six years of my life and i thank you all for joining me tonight to hear about this. [applause] >> open up to questions. >> thanks for your talk and for the book. i just want to be clear on this. i am 53. i just barely remember 68, 69

although i do remember it was discussed at school during cayley's trial when we were just little kids. wasn't it the times who published the story? >> no. sy was a freelance journalist. no one wanted that story. look magazine turned down. life magazine turned it down, the washington post wouldn't run it. no one would run the story. he had an agent who basically was able to syndicate this to a number 35 newspapers and when these 35 newspapers published hersh's freelance peace someone got on board and it wasn't until 60 minutes brought hersh one of the soldiers in the massacre, put him on the air and when that appeared and life magazine published photographs of the massacre the story really took off but no one wanted the story.

cayley was never even found out. i asked the foremost scholar that question. is it possible if hersh hadn't written the story we wouldn't have known about my lai? it might have taken 10, 15 20 years. probably would have to lead to some lesser offense, would have made and go off and never talk about it and would have been ten years before a historian dug up the story and what we knew about the war and how this change the course of the war might have been different. the story might come out but not at that point in time. there were other journalists who knew about atrocities and there was something about sy something in his makeup that made him pursue the story when others would not. you went into dangerous zones. when he wrote this story very few people were happy. it needed didn't happen, he lied about it and even if it happened

he shouldn't have written it and he was a wickedly and fiercely attacked and the attacks have continued for 40 years of his career. >> i was wondering, this is a general question about the journalism business these days. the threat against journalists is more substantial than it used to be legally, also physically executive secrets and things that are and of legal process against whistle-blowers and in some cases hypothetical, actual physical pressure and threats from the government and higher against journalists? >> the threat to journalism today is simply stay in business. the real issue for journalism is journalism so rapidly changed because of the internet and the real problems certainly for the

investigative reporters to find the time and money to do their work. and many publications have cut back and that is problematic. i am not sure we are getting any more threats in terms of sources or legal aspects lawsuits and lawsuits against journalists, the real threat to journalism is to continue to have the money and resources to do our job as investigative journalists. journalists turnout we treat story today and investigative journalist will take six months to write one big story and that is very expensive. there is an organization that has been funded by nonprofits, some new energies, very exciting in that there is tremendous possibility of unlimited space you now have lots of space low narrative journalism have lots of chances but the real threat

to american journalism today is less coming externally although i do worry, in some ways there's a threat to democracy and if we don't have independent journalism we don't have independent exist of it -- investigative reporting we have the koch brothers spending $400 million to influence elections. we need a corrective for that, nothing about their politics, we need a corrective in the amount of money being spent in our political sphere. that is very worrisome and very dangerous. >> if i remember correctly, tell me if i am wrong but in march of 2002 or 2003 hersh exposed the forged niger letter the yellow cake uranium story in the new yorker in march and the story went nowhere until june when it became a scandal when everybody else picked it up. why did it take so long?

talk about that story. >> not sure i remember the specifics of the story, why it took so long. obviously it became a bigger issue, ambassador wilson was accused and his wife was out of but i don't remember the details on that story. i can't help you with that one. >> you mentioned a letter from henry kissinger. >> a 20 page memo. >> how did you evaluate his arguments? >> the book does detail, i also tried to get henry kissinger to talk to me but he would not end his people would not. i had the memo so i had is point of view in position. there was some validity to some of the things he said but there were so many things he didn't respond to so i wasn't particularly no one was particularly convinced. what he was really trying to do the editor of the new york

times, the new york times had given tremendous space when his book came out, on page one of the new york times, op-ed columnists were constantly writing about henry kissinger, according to hersh and his trying to call off the new york times so this was the memo tried to provide enough evidence to rosenthal and what he was saying literally was you guys should look at the facts and here are the facts, you should stop writing about his book. one more funny anecdotes. i was not convinced. i did not find the facts he presented convincing. one of the people in the henry kissinger book suit at the 11 and it went to trial in federal court in chicago and when the trial took place henry kissinger had to testify. the second time he had ever testified, second time he ever testified publicly in a court room. the other time had to do with his wife or some other unrelated issue and henry kissinger had to

take the stand and hersh, the defendant, henry kissinger had take the stand and the first thing he says in that wonderful german accent of his is i really would have preferred to never see this man again for the rest of my life. but here i am. hersh won that lawsuit. it was dismissed. >> please tell us about correct me if i'm wrong, seymour hersh said the reagan -- >> what he said was it was overly trumped up by the obama administration and there is a lot we don't know about what happened. that came in the context of a speech about obama and this was a chapter or something like it in the book he had coming out.

he actually went back on that little bit. what happens there was fake, he simply said it was trumped up and play it into something beyond what he thought it was. hersh capt. 7 trouble all the time. he was very conservative when he writes. when he gets in front of a microphone sticks his foot in his mouth lot and give speeches, when he came in 1985 we paid him $2,000, he gets $25,000 a speech so he stepped up a bit over the years. >> you mentioned your view in the current trend in mid journalism the funding is drying up and things like that. i wonder are you familiar with the work of james o'keefe the

entrepreneurial lesser-known young journalists? do you see any para parent to seymour hersh? >> to say that sy is the only investigative journalists in america does a disservice to a lot of people doing tremendous -- all sorts of names, woodward and hersh, i am optimistic about journalism that there will continue to be new ways of people as indignant and as a greek as seymour hersh. whether anyone can persist for as many years and have as many scoops and stories as seymour hersh, that i am doubtful of. certainly not that there will be investigative reporting and investigative journalism.

it is a new world. the internet has given us all sorts of new possibilities. what is a little bit weird is ed snowden weeks his material and gets it right out there. he would have leaked that material to a journalist and now they leak it to publications that then use it the whole wiki leaks concept. the nature of traditional journalism has been good, some of that very good. >> the question wanted to ask maybe i am misremembering, made that -- didn't heed predict the u.s. would be invading iran and make a strong stand on that. and if you know anything -- >> he wrote a number of times

that the george bush administration was making very specific plans for an invasion of iran. that never happened and people said he got it wrong. what a number of people told me is when his articles kept coming out in the new yorker it wouldn't be -- wasn't possible for them to do an invasion after his writing about but what he was writing about was the plans they were making for possible invasion. he never said they were going to invade. he said my sources are telling me there are flans and here is what the plans look like and my sense is someone asked sy why do you still do journalism? one of the things he said was there are still people out there, sources who need to me. they need someone to go to to be able to get out of the story. in some ways he was getting out the story from people often in the middle levels of the department of defense, the white house, who were very nervous and anxious about this possibility and it is possible he prevented

such an innovation n va s io n . do you rogan edlund review of books, first thing in many years and he wrote about the fact that syria had it sarin gas attack that killed 2500 people the obama administration blamed syria and he said his forces were telling him there was other evidence indicating that it wasn't the syrian government, there were other people in and around syria who could have been responsible they cherry pick the intelligence and decided to ignore that because it was much more politically expedient. the new yorker turned that article down which was shocking wonderful article, very sy hersh. has his relationship with the

new yorker ended? every editor he ever had, sy hersh said if you took three quarters of the editors in the world and through the off the bridge we would be better off so he never gets along with editors and that was certainly the case but this has been a very interesting paternal force and a very controlling force of hersh. whether their relationship is richard i don't know. we will see soon enough when the book comes out. >> where there any other questions? all right. >> thank you all for being here tonight. if you want to have a book of front of the above to sign so thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> tonight, white house press secretary jay carney on the intersection of media and politics. ..