The Independent

Experience and reputation allow journalist Seymour Hersh to play an outsize role in breaking news.

It was a typical Sy Hersh newsletter on Substack last week: “Fear and Loathing on Air Force One” was the headline; “Biden’s anxieties over the Ukraine War and the election in 2024 come into view” was the deck.

First came a salacious bit of political gossip: if Trump indeed becomes the Republican nominee, maybe he will invite fellow maverick Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be his running mate.

 Source? “Someone with excellent party credentials.”  Assessment? (Hersh’s own):  “a silly fear but one that does signal the Democratic Party’s growing sense of panic about the 2024 Presidential election.”

Next, a proposition presented as fact about a recent surprise: how to explain Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan abrupt turnabout on Swedish membership on the eve of NATO’s summit? Hersh wrote, “The public story for Biden’s face-saving coup was talk about agreeing to sell American F-16 fighter bombers to Turkey.”

“I have been told a different, secret story,” Hersh confided. Instead, he wrote, Biden called Erdogan from the plane to promise a much-needed $11-13 billion IMF credit for earthquake aid and central bank support.

Source? “An official with direct knowledge of the transaction.”  Assessment?  Probably four-fifths true.

After that came some mockery of the Biden administration’s controversial decision to send cluster bombs to Ukraine. They have no chance of changing the course of the war, according to Hersh’s expert. And the claim that the Russians used them first? “That’s just a lie.”

Source? “Those with access to current intelligence,” and “an informed official,” Assessment? Impossible to judge without far more information. 

Then came a reassertion of Hersh’s boldest prior claim.  Five months ago, in a  well-constructed story, his first on Substack, he asserted that US and Norwegian operatives had planned over nine months and then carried out, with President Biden’s blessing, a covert operation to destroy the Nord Steam I and II pipelines running from Russia to Germany beneath the Baltic Sea. The White House has repeatedly denied it.  An alternative theory – that Ukraine did it, without telling the US – has been advanced by government intelligence officials in Washington and Berlin.

Hersh’s sources? Multiple, all anonymous, including one with “direct knowledge of the [planning] process.”  Assessment: spin-artists and journalists on all sides are hard at work.  It may be years before consensus emerges.

Hersh’s most recent letter concluded with a second item of considerable interest: how to account for the carefully nuanced speech that CIA director William Burns gave in London last week, on the eve of the NATO meeting. Burns, now asserted by Hersh to have been “the liaison between the intelligence team operating out of Norway and the Oval Office.” Burns pronounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to have been a strategic blunder. He made no prediction about the outcome of the war itself. And in between he scattered glowing praise of President Biden. 

“I was told, Hersh wrote, “that Burn’s speech was essentially a job application….”  The national security administration is in turmoil, he was told; Burns wants to be Secretary of State in the next administration, whoever the president turns out to be.

Source? “A highly respected intelligence official.” Assessment?  Bears watching, carefully.

So that’s Sy Hersh.  His lengthy Wikipedia page gives a thorough and balanced account of his career.  His Substack archive is here.  The account he gave of his reasons for joining the company speaks for itself. Others make more money on Substack, but Hersh’s circulation is steadily growing and he shows no sign of flagging.

As far as I can tell, there is nobody like him in the newsletter business. Among the many dollars I spend on news, his are the best spent, week after week.