A view of the Nord Stream 2 gas leak just south of Dueodde, Denmark, on September 27, 2022. Photo: IC.

Editor's Note: 

The bombshell story by renowned American investigative reporter Seymour Hersh (Hersh) that revealed the US' culpability in the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline has attracted global attention. When Hersh recently gave an exclusive interview to Global Times reporters Chen Qingqing and Bai Yunyi (GT) , he revealed that the order to blow up the pipeline was issued directly by US President Joe Biden, despite some insiders' unwillingness to carry out the mission. Hersh also stated that he believes the Biden administration won't see a positive end to the Ukraine crisis. Whether people agree with Russia or not, they must realize that it's hard for Russia to lose the war.

GT: Your article goes into great detail about how the US blew up the Nord Stream pipeline. Could you tell us more about what convinced you of the US' culpability in this incident? And as far as you know, did US President Joe Biden know about the plan to blow up the pipeline from the beginning, or did he learn about it later on? 

Hersh: I can't go beyond what I wrote, because obviously there are people [involved]. I've been in the business for 50 to 60 years as a reporter in America. I've written a lot of stories that involve a lot of sensitive things about the intelligence services [that are] most of the time, very critical.

In almost every case, I've never named a source or said much about the sources. Because the obvious thing is that I have to protect the people that talk to me. In all my years of doing the kind of work I do, nobody's ever been accused of anything, nobody's been exposed, and that's the most important thing.

I've written five more stories in the last month and a half about this. I'm staying with it because I'm very worried about American policy, not only toward the Ukraine war and toward Russia, but also toward China, obviously.

The point is that I can't talk to you in any significant way about how I learn [about] what I do [write]. All I can do is, if you look at the detail in the story, it's very precise. Even [down] to the language, [there was] a group that was called in to study the problem - this [was] before the war began - when President Biden wanted some options. He thought, maybe, [of] how he can stop Putin from going to war. 

So I can't answer you about how I know what I know, just [to] say I've been doing it a long time. And there's no question that the pipeline was blown up directly on the orders of President Biden.

Some of the people involved to do the work - we work out of Norway, which has a long history of working secretly with the US, certainly in WWII against the Germans - aren't very happy about what happened either. Destroying a pipeline that kept Germany and Western Europe warm and wealthy is not a good idea politically.

Carrying a banner which reads "Put Nord Stream 2 into operation," protestors at a demonstration against the federal government's energy policy and sanctions against Russia converge in Schwerin, Germany, on 19 September, 2022. Photo: AFP

GT: You said that you worry about American-brand politics. Have you faced any pressure or political backlash since the publishing of your articles? 

Hersh: People who talk to me inside the military, the government, [and] the intelligence services are people who take their oath of office. They don't take it to their boss, or the general, or the admiral, or the governor, or the president. They take it to the Constitution. Those are the people that talk to me, even from inside, who wanted to do what they're doing - collecting intelligence, doing operations - [and] still believe that some truth must come out.

I'm very critical of Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland. Those three are very deeply anti-communist in a profound and idiotic way. 

That's all I'm writing about. And nobody's going to bother me in America for that. Even though I'm publishing for myself now, because I don't respect the American press that much today, they're too frightened of another Trump. They support Biden much more than I think that they should and they are not critical enough. 

The material I'm producing is the same as [what] I would have written for the New Yorker, for the New York Times, and was published without naming a source. If you pick up the New York Times any day, almost every story about foreign policy has an unnamed source in it.

So when they criticize me for not naming a source, just because they don't want to do the story [about the Nord Stream]. The story will hurt the Democrats.

GT: You said in a recent interview that the mainstream media did not cover much of the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev. You said, "The war I know about isn't the war you're reading about." Could you tell us what you know about the war between Russia and Ukraine?

Hersh: What shocks me when I was writing very critically about the Vietnam War [was] the Democrats in Congress [and] in the Senate know there were always people against the war. Now we have the Democrats in the Senate and the House who support Ukraine, unanimously, and only a few Republicans are against the war. We're in a crazy situation [with] Congress. I just cannot imagine the speaker of the Senate, Schumer of New York, saying to his fellow colleagues: We must have an investigation to see what the truth is. They're not going to do it. The White House doesn't do an investigation either. They know what they did.

We were increasing the forces. We have now two army brigades. The 82nd [Airborne Division] has been in Poland, very close to the border with Ukraine. We've just added the 101st airborne, which is a very aggressive, good military unit. 

They're now in Romania. And every day, boatloads of guards are coming into that part of Western Europe, which makes me very nervous about what's going to happen. This war is not going to end well for the Ukrainians and the Biden administration. The American public is not being told the whole story by the media. It's just not going to end well.

Whether you agree or disagree with Putin, I don't agree with going to war. We made an agreement [with the Soviet Union] in 1990 when East and West Germany merged, to let that country stay in NATO, and we made an agreement in writing that we would not expand NATO one inch to the east. Now we've added 14 more countries to NATO. I can understand the provocation. I wish he hadn't started the war, but I will tell you, he's not going to lose the war.

The first group of additional US troops to Europe in support of NATO allies arrive in Wiesbaden, Germany on February 4, 2022. Photo: IC

GT: Do you think it's likely that the US will engage in a direct war with Russia? 

Hersh: We have built up American forces, and every day more ships come with more weapons. And for the American forces, there are two brigades there - the 82nd and the 101st - very close to the war. I think the idea would be that we would use NATO as a pretext. NATO would go in [to the war] and we would support NATO. That would be the cover. 

I don't think that they're contemplating a direct conflict. We don't know what's going to happen. It's very unpredictable. I know it's not going to end well for Ukraine. 

My guess is that Russia will sue for peace, the requirement being - it's more than a guess - it's an understanding that some people believe Russia will sue for peace and settle as long as Russia can keep some control over Donbas, the regions that are heavily Russian that Russia already controlled militarily. But the deal is that they have to disband their military. It's very tricky because a political defeat for Biden, I think, would make it almost impossible for him to be nominated again.

GT: Do you think it's necessary for the United Nations to conduct an independent investigation into the Nord Stream incident? Or is that even possible?

Hersh: We've done more to undermine the authority of the UN than anybody else. In the [UN] Security Council, they had a meeting the other week, and guess who objected bitterly to any notion of its Security Council debate about the [Nord Stream] pipeline and the story I wrote. The US, of course. That doesn't get reported very much in America. We can't investigate this.

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