Come to washington after the civil war and they dont know besides. Which i think does have an impact. Are there other questions . [inaudible] all right. [applause] the book is available up to the register. I personally think you should go buy it. Im happy to sign anything. Thank you all for coming. I appreciate it. [applause] [inaudible conversations] oh, wonderful. [applause] booktv is on facebook. Like us and in the with us and watch videos and get uptdate information on events. Facebook. Com booktv. Next on booktv the life and career of Seymour Hersh. Over his career he broke stories on u. S. Government development of chemical and biological weapons. As well as the massacre in vietnam and watergate and messick spying and the abuse of prisoners in iraq. This is about one hour and 20 minutes. [applause] good evening. Thank you all for being here today and tonight. It is my pleasure to be here with you on this cold wintry evening in new york city and i got a text message just before i got up here from barack obama who sends his regards. But somehow said something about a speech he had given somewhere and he is unable to make it tonight. We can never belie him elected officials. Its actually my pleasure to be back here in new york city as dana mentioned. I grew up in work for a number of years on Staten Island and we would always take the Staten Island ferry across the harbor. There was a big event and a big moment for us as we came in the city. This was always a city and its great to be here in new york city, the worlds greatest city and also great to be here and what i consider to be the New York Public Library come the worlds greatest library. Im sure that we would have a dispute on that from the Labor Congress in london, but im sticking with that. Im also sticking with this. I think that it is wonderful that you join me here tonight here about the worlds most Investigative Reporter. Seymour hersh. I have seen a lot of friends out there and a lot of my former students and the rest of you i dont know but i suspect he may be here because youre part of the legion of fans and maybe some of you are enemies of Seymour Hersh who has a huge following of friends and enemies. A number of years ago the new yorker magazine where he worked for about a decade went over the million mark in circulation and the editor of the new yorker was asked how did you get to a million and he chuckled and said we had to not push them over the million mark. To thank you all for being here tonight. I also want to thank the New York Public Library for inviting me and Deborah Hirsch as well. Dana sedona for interviewing and ive also spent much of my academic career at the New York Public Library. In 1985 i was working on my doctoral dissertation on the famous turnofthecentury american Investigative Reporter named david phillips. Phillips was a wellknown muckraking journalist and wrote 27 novels. And we could read all of his 27 models. In the year 2004 and wrote a book on Charles Edward russell. And he was a 20th century muckraking journalist and very much part of that condition. He wrote steve after scoop in story after story and many of his stories at the pier and in magazines which you can find and the only place i could find those was right across the street at the New York Public Library. And then when i went to work with Seymour Hersh, i didnt think that i would really need to New York Public Library. He worked for the seven years for the New York Times with a new yorker, easy to get access to and when he worked for the New York Times for 1972 to 1979 he said there was a man named Abe Rosenthal was an american figure in american journalism and they died a couple of years ago his wife gave his papers and office memos and letters and many of the documents that he had compiled and gave them to the New York Public Library and so there is of the New York Public Library right off the street and they were wonderfully juicy memos and wonderful kinds of insights of things i found out about his relationship to the New York Times is a right across the street at the New York Public Library. So its a Wonderful Library and we were sitting up there with the archives and we were on this way and they are pavers were efficient and wonderful and i appreciate the efforts of the New York Times and we actually hope to get back to that archive. Lastly dana was a student of mine a bunch of years ago at the college of new law. And she was interested student and a grade a student. And i appreciated how she would always laugh at my jokes. And then she laughed that is your cue and so dana, thank you for introducing me. And let me just welcome cspan here tonight and so who is this man that i called this scoop artist. Seymour hersh, Seymour Myron Hersh born in 1937 in chicago. Born to immigrant parents. His father owned a dry cleaner and have a dry cleaning business in chicago and his mother was a housekeeper and he went to Public School in chicago in two years to Community College and then went to the university of Chicago Law School and got a degree in history and then eventually started law school they did not get along and he bailed out of law school and less than a year. He is the man most people regard as the best Investigative Reporter in american history. He is a man who has won more awards and prizes than any other journalist. He is an icon and a hero. Hundreds of american journalists and the darling of the political left and the man the political right loves to despise and demonizing the man who in 1969 revealed to us the massacre by american soldiers of 500 civilians in a small village in vietnam and he is the man who is often overlooked and he singlehandedly manned a production of stockpiling of biological weapons. One of his early and wonderful achievements and as we will see some of his achievements have not held and some of them have actually kind of faded as conditions have changed. He is the man who in 1975 revealed to a nation that does Central Intelligence agency in direct violation of law was tapping the phone and opening the mail of american citizens think Edward Snowden, he was telling us about the ways of the American Government and getting viciously attacked for it back in 1975 and today it is Edward Snowden getting all of the heat in 1975 in all of that went back to Seymour Hersh after coupon eia. The man whose 1983 book revealed the dark underside of the Nixon Administration and they will call the price of power. Including under the Nixon Administration and with Henry Kissinger. In 1998 he showed us the darker side of John Kennedys white house in a book about the dark side of the white house and im blanking on the name. The dark side of camelot. A sorted view of the white house that we had not gone up to that point. He is the man who had finished and washed up over the hill at the age of 67 and he was viciously attacked for his book on john kennedy. Everyone said that it is over for him and hes washed up and he will never do it again in 2004 he revealed to startle that american soldiers were torturing iraqi prisons. Newsweek magazine called him the viagra of american journalism. And there he was not actually gave him this book, lots of great stuff in between as well. He had butted heads with every american president since Lyndon Johnson. Sy hersh showed us otherwise. Richard nixon said that otherwise. Gerald ford said that they were not spying on american citizens and he showed us otherwise. Ronald reagans head of the Central Intelligence we threatened to throw her in jail for a book that he wrote about the downing of korean airliner by the soviet union. Reagan backed off. Dick cheney later to become Vice President brenda brave into his house and have him thrown into jail because he was writing stories that the Ford Administration did not like about activities in america. George w. Bush will refuse of taking gifts after world war i, needless to say the bush family never talk to Seymour Hersh again. George w. Bush called him and abject liar. The Obama Administration, soon after obama was dead set call your man off and tell them to stop and he did not understand it he said theres something wrong with that man. Undoubtably his state of the union speech tonight included so many names and that he cannot be trusted and he had a homerun with that story. Either you love him or you hate him. Thats over four decades he begins his work as a journalist in the late 1950s and early 1960s and he has been doing what is doing from lawyers than you can ever possibly imagine and he continues even today to be completely and totally indignant and angry which really substratum from so many other journalist. I hear one of the Great Stories about him, legion and legendary and is clearly one of the top individuals in American Life and one biographers take a look at this we look at president s and secretaries of state and Supreme Court justices and others and we need to look at journalists and as we look at them we need to look at Seymour Hersh, who has been the premier journalist in america for four decades. Hes a great character. He breaks so many of the rules of ethics in journalism and probably where he did some of his stories and why he infuriates so many people. He makes so many people angry and i will tell you that in that sense he is infuriating to so many people because the way he goes about getting his story. On the other hand he is great in a different sense and he is heroic. Fearless and going to places that no one else will go and other people had that story and knew that story and he decided that it was a story that had to be read and he went and got it and he wrote it and no one would write that the israelis had Nuclear Weapons and that they had refused to have International Action of their weapons and he wrote that story hes a maverick in his outspoken and he is a progressive. So that is a bit of a snapshot of this guy and i thought i would try to do two things for us it came out in october raise hogs and the reason the hogs and the reason a number of important outcome of the loot with below link that asks for my isnt he the greatest american investigative journalists are there other rival of them did he cooperate in the writing of this by the business authorized book in what is it about Seymour Hersh that resonates today and where has he been for the past two years the only people to come up said i havent for two years and where has he been. Has he retired and we know that he is absolutely not. He has worked on a very good book right now with the Cheney Bush Administration and he was just about to publish and thought he was the most to be finishing it and then somebody dropped in his lap a trove of docs indicates a Covert Intelligence activities that took place during the bush years that extended into the obama isnt so he had to keep going and he has now been working on that and he will be back and he will have been held. The other thing that i thought i could do besides answer those questions with this. One other question is the question of will we ever see the light of him again in the age of the internet and these little thin pieces of information and can we ever expect to someone again like this. The other thing that i thought i could do for you tonight is tell you a little bit about what is not in the book in one i have done to chase them. I have been on this book for probably about 10 years or so although my interest goes way back beyond that and i thought i could plug about my six years of muckraking journalist diehards. He becomes a Famous International wellknown person in 1969 in 1969 he is a freelance journalist and his phone number, by the way is publicly listed and he calls himself a Clearing House individual on any story they can call him and you will get him and he will snarl. And then he will dismiss you. And so he gets a tip and the tip is simple that the United States government in fort benning, georgia, and the soldier has been accused of ordering are actually killing a number of billions in vietnam. And the story smells like its true. He begins to make calls all over washington. No one can confirm it. And his name is in the name of latimer and he says that im coming out there and he drives out of salt lake city. He begins to talk to him and he loves. He says the guy, look, he is accused of killing 100 to 250 civilians. And its only 100 and 11. How many generals in the army were fooled by this time and time again. And he gives the story confirmed. And its one of the huge as military bases in the country. 140,000 acres to 100,000 people work there on a daily basis and he walks in to 100,000 acres and he says that i have to find william howard. Its like looking for a needle in a haystack is not breaking any laws, not yet. Because of the telephone operators committees trying to get a telephone number for him there trying to look at the way it is located i may give up today but im going to find them and its late at night and he is totally drunk and has been having drinks and finally one soldier says hey, and he finds them after 12 hours of searching and he gets together and he has an amazing likability to cuddle up to every toxin and i talk to people who who should by all rights have hated him and yet they talk to him and here he is, this guy from florida whose life and background is totally foreign and alien and suddenly he convinces him, lets go back to your apartment, they go out and they buy a couple of eggs may get a bottle of bourbon and they go to his girlfriends apartment and they drink the bourbon and they get drunk together and she tells him them the story. In the story is horrible. Basically american soldiers, he is accused of killing some but its probably more in the 500 of the people that were killed, they simply rounded up the civilians and they put him heritage and they shot him and they killed him. And the young child crawled out and tried to run away and the worst was the atrocity of this very awful war. He was back to washington and he eventually writes it into books trying to cover up the massacre and he becomes an International Hero and it makes the worldwide headlines all across the world and everyone knows can as well. And i have to tell you that i was 19 years old at this point in time. I was in a more college and i remember it but i dont think i connected with it and it was a little bit too distant for me. In 1974 i graduated from graduate school and got a masters degree in journalism and came back to reporting and i was a little bit more interest to in pursuing the world of journalism and you should know in 1974, that was a big year for americans. Richard nixon resigned as president and it is the year that many people believe that he was toppled by two reporters from the Washington Post and all the president s men, to separate them and bob woodward was very cooperative and i went to talk to him and i kept thinking that he really doesnt look like that at all. But bob was actually very helpful and very cooperative in the making of this book. And so since 1974 along with hundreds of others of my generation and my age and i have the sense that we could save the world and journalism was going to be the aggressive place where we can make wonderful things happen and of course we are looking for role models. The person i began to look at is Seymour Hersh. And he was a different kind of journalist. And i wasnt alone on my looking at him as the rock star of american journalism and investigative reporting. He told me that he came to a conference in new york city in the early 1970s and he said that the keynote speaker at this event was Seymour Hersh and he was like a rock star and everyone wanted to the lie cam. So we have this legendary status early and i began to get interest in him. That interest was piqued by the fact that in number of 19 of war he broke his story which some people think is the story of the decade. In that story was Pretty Simple and resonates even today. He found out that the american Central Intelligence agency the indirect violation of the law was actually opening the mail of american citizens and having