Richard Perle Accuses Sy Hersh of Being a Terrorist

March 10, 2003
Richard Perle Accuses Sy Hersh of Being a Terrorist
BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

On the Sunday, March 9th CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, Richard Perle accused New Yorker Magazine investigative reporter Seymour Hersh of being a terrorist.

Here is an excerpt from the CNN Rush Transcript:
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0303/09/le.00.html

BLITZER: Let me read a quote from the New Yorker article, the March 17th issue, just out now. "There is no question that Perle believes that removing Saddam from power is the right thing to do. At the same time, he has set up a company that may gain from a war."

PERLE: I don't believe that a company would gain from a war. On the contrary, I believe that the successful removal of Saddam Hussein, and I've said this over and over again, will diminish the threat of terrorism. And what he's talking about is investments in homeland defense, which I think are vital and are necessary.

Look, Sy Hersh is the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist, frankly.

BLITZER: Well, on the basis of -- why do you say that? A terrorist?

PERLE: Because he's widely irresponsible. If you read the article, it's first of all, impossible to find any consistent theme in it. But the suggestion that my views are somehow related for the potential for investments in homeland defense is complete nonsense.

BLITZER: But I don't understand. Why do you accuse him of being a terrorist?

PERLE: Because he sets out to do damage and he will do it by whatever innuendo, whatever distortion he can -- look, he hasn't written a serious piece since My Lai.

BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
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IS PERLE'S COMMENT ABOUT HERSH PERSONAL? 03-09-03

An e-mail prompting a google search found a rather interesting item:

IN 1970 the Federal Bureau of Investigation caught Richard Perle passing US secrets to Israel. According to Seymour Hersh's The Price of Power (1983) pg 322:

In mid-October 1970, [Henry] Kissinger testified, when a second wiretap was authorized for Helmut Sonnenfeldt, who was Kissinger's closest friend on the NSC [National Security Council] staff, his role was even more tangential.... Richard N. Perle, a foreign policy aide to Senator Jackson, was overheard discussing classified information that had been supplied to him by someone on the National Security Council Staff..... Kissinger - perhaps seeking to ward off a Nixon explosion - handed him (Haldeman) the FBI wiretap on the Israeli embassy and requested that the FBI be assigned to determine which NSC staff member was in contact with Richard Perle... Kissinger had to know that Hoover and Haldeman would suspect Sonnenfeldt, who was known from previous wiretaps to have close ties to the Israelis as well as Perle.

So that's what this may be all about. Hersh blew the whistle on Perle's passing of classified information to the Israelis thirty years ago. Isn't passing classified information on to a foreign government a crime?
Hmmmm.

This certainly helps to explain that rather over-the-top comment, doesn't it?