Hersh Is A Thorn Too

Interesting history here. Everybody goes way back. So much familiarity. From the Chicago Tribune:

Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh has been a thorn in the side of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld during the Iraq war. Rumsfeld's discomfort was at least as acute in spring 1975.

Then chief of staff to President Gerald Ford, Rumsfeld proposed "immediate initiation of an FBI investigation" into Hersh and his sources, according to a 58-page file from the Gerald R. Ford Library. Rumsfeld and his top deputy, Dick Cheney, now the vice president, considered options including a "search warrant -- to go after Hersh papers in his apt.," the Ford library file shows.

Hersh was then a New York Times reporter whose May 25, 1975, story revealed details of risky and provocative U.S. spy submarine missions in Soviet waters, in violation of the three-mile limit. The top-secret spy sub program was diplomatically sensitive because U.S. and Soviet leaders were publicly engaged in detente. In a memo to Ford, then-Atty. Gen. Edward H. Levi recommended against an FBI probe, and Ford quashed the idea, according to the Ford papers and an interview with then-Deputy Atty. Gen. Harold R. Tyler Jr., who drafted legal memos supporting Levi's hands-off position.

"This is for the birds -- that was my reaction at the time and now," said Tyler, who became a federal judge and is now an attorney in private practice. "God almighty -- forgive me for laughing," Tyler said. The proposal to investigate Hersh "baffled me." Hersh declined to comment on the file. "The record speaks for itself," he said. Rumsfeld said, through a spokesman, that he did not recall the incident.

Further irony: Atty. Gen Levi was, of course, the man behind the Levi Guidelines, instituted to rein in the government after the excesses of COINTELPRO. The same Levi Guidelines Ashcroft has since duplicitly trashed with PATRIOT I & II.

There seems to be a whole series of Hersh articles in Friday's Tribune. I'll be reading over coffee in the morning and come back with more.