Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2018

The Current Transcript for June 14, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

[Russian Speech] Welcome to Russia.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: He may be a political pariah to many these days. But Russian President Vladimir Putin is the host of the beautiful game right now presiding over the World Cup the most beloved tournament on the planet with expectations of excitement that will draw in billions of viewers despite the uncomfortable politics that surrounds it all from the corruption in FIFA to Russia's military actions in Crimea and Syria. And all of that is kicked aside by fans who just cannot get enough of the sport. In half an hour we are looking at the fan fever that refuses to be sidelined. Also today he has broken some of the biggest stories to confront the U.S. military from the My Lai massacre in Vietnam to the U.S. abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. But journalist Seymour Hersh admits the investigations that he's asked his editors to support never made anyone comfortable.

SOUNDCLIP

When I walk into an editor's desk I saw a dead rat full of lice on his desk and say I want to pursue this and if I do it it's going to cause a lot of money. I may not be able to write it and it's going to cost its subscribers there is going to be lawyers wanting to see you.

AMT: He is a reporter's reporter who will tell you that the best most explosive stories are usually hiding in plain sight. Seymour Hersh joins me in an hour. And it was a bicycle car altercation on the streets of Toronto that went viral in 2016.

SOUNDCLIP

Oh.. 0h! You're going to jail. That is assault.

AMT: So we are starting at the dangerous and often deadly place where pedestrians cyclists and vehicles intersect. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Does Canada need a national cycling strategy?

Guests: Kyle G. Brown, Sean Chu, Judy Varga Toth

AMT: Well the former chief planner of Canada's largest city is calling for a state of emergency, while the renowned urban thinker Richard Florida is describing the streets of his city as Toronto's killing fields. Both are reacting to a spate of deaths including a 58 year old woman hit by a heavy truck while she was cycling on Tuesday. Witnesses say she was wearing a helmet.

SOUNDCLIP

Any time we look at a collision involving a cyclist or a pedestrian, it always ends badly for the cyclist or pedestrian. So drivers play the single biggest role in keeping the roads safe for the other road users by taking a second look, by reducing the speed and by leaving extra space.

AMT: Well that is Toronto Police Constable Clinton Stibbe his force also confirmed yesterday that a 36 year old cyclist who was struck by a car in May has died. It has now been two years since Toronto Mayor John Tory announced what he called his Vision Zero initiative to eliminate fatalities. But in that time 93 pedestrians or cyclists have died on Toronto's streets. Across the country cycling advocates have long been demanding better, safer bike lanes. But as the fatalities mount others say the time has come to look at other solutions including keeping bikes off the road. Kyle G. Brown suffered a bike accident in Toronto in 2008. He is a Canadian journalist he's now based in Paris France and that's where we have reached him. Hi Kyle.

KYLE G. BROWN: Good morning.

AMT: Take me through what happened to you on the day of your accident.

KYLE G. BROWN: Well it was a cloudy day like it is today in Paris. And I was cycling through the downs downtown streets of Toronto. I turned onto a small side street off of Queen West and from behind me a big truck came speeding along and before I uttered the words 'Oh, I should get on onto the sidewalk' I blanked out. The truck had run me over and dragged me underneath for between 50 and 100 meters. And then when I came to I was looking up into the sky into the clouds and thinking wow I'm late for my interview I should I should really get going. And as I tried to get up I realized I was pasted to the ground. I couldn't move. Below the waist, actually I was completely immobile and so I was wondering whether I'd be able to you know work and live a normal life again.

AMT: What are your injuries Kyle?

KYLE G. BROWN: So just to finish the image I just kind of extended my arms and realize that yes I still have my hands. I was happy to report that I was able to write. And so my injuries were- I'll never get to the bottom of the list because I always forget something, but I had a broken pelvis, two or three bones broken in the lower right leg, a de-gloving of the left leg which I'll leave listeners to imagine what that means. A couple of broken vertebrae, fractured shoulder, a fractured orbital bone. The list goes on.

AMT: It's amazing you survived. How long were you in hospital?

KYLE G. BROWN: I was in hospital for two months and indeed the doctor said that I was very lucky to be alive. I had lost a lot of blood.

AMT: And did you have head injuries as well?

KYLE G. BROWN: Yes. There was a head injury just below the eye. And that did cause me some worry obviously in the immediate aftermath. But thankfully I have recovered.

AMT: Were you wearing a helmet?

KYLE G. BROWN: No I was not?

AMT: And why not?

KYLE G. BROWN: I wasn't in the habit at the time of wearing a helmet. And I've actually I've often found this to be a distraction because as you've just announced people have died wearing helmets of course it will in some cases prevent head injuries. And in principle - or I should say in practice - I'm kind of in favor sometimes I wear it sometimes I don't. In principle however I do find that it's a distraction because number one - and this is one of the arguments by the way that the lawyer representing the insurance company for the driver put it to me, they suggested that I was negligent in not wearing a helmet which of course I resent it on these grounds that when we do ride a bike we should not be undertaking the activity as if we're engaging in some kind of blood sport. This is cycling. This is a mode of transportation. And so the idea that we should be wearing helmets, when in fact of the odd 2000 people who lose their lives every year in road accidents and that's in all forms of rural transportation, the vast majority, are drivers and their drivers killing other drivers. And so if we were to ask about helmets we should ask drivers whether they are willing because proportionately they're are more likely to be killed and therefore need the helmets more than we do.

AMT: Was the driver charged?

KYLE G. BROWN: He was charged with a traffic offense and it was referred to as making an unsafe turn for which he was charged about 120 dollars at the time.

AMT: What do you think should have happened?

KYLE G. BROWN: I think there's any number of charges currently available in the criminal code as well as highway traffic. I mean he could have been charged with reckless driving. You know that would have been the most sensible charge to me. But again this is part of- I see this whole thing on a personal level but obviously on a broader political level. Right from the point where the officer is issuing the charges right through the system, there is a sense of relativizing. Well was the cyclists kind of- Should he have been there? And all the rest of it. So that the officer it didn't even occur to him to apply harsher charges.

AMT: You live in Paris now. Do you cycle there? What's it like?

KYLE G. BROWN: I do cycle here. And as I was telling your producer the other day I cycled for years I was traversing the southern end of the city every day about 16 or 17 kilometers and I could do 90 percent of it using bike lanes. I mean make no mistake Paris is no [unintelligible]. It's no Rotterdam. It's no Copenhagen either. You know there are a lot of drivers here. They're in a hurry perhaps even less patient here than in parts of North America but the state has taken action. And over the last 20 years they've built a rather impressive infrastructure for cyclists and for pedestrians such that you don't feel as though in some parts of the city you're taking your life into your hands. So there are bike lanes across the city here. And of course this is something that I lobbied for a very short time when I was still in Toronto. But I was among those to call out for the most basic solution to this deadly problem which is bike lanes. And the fact that cities are not taking the time to paint a little white line down the road. You know it's not a budgetary issue. It's perhaps the most the cheapest infrastructural change you could introduce. So there's something deeper something more sinister to this.

AMT: Well I'm going to pick up on that with our next guest. Kyle thank you for speaking with me.

KYLE G. BROWN: My pleasure.

AMT: Kyle G. Brown Canadian journalist he is now based in Paris France. While for years advocates have been calling for improved cycling infrastructure saying it can save lives, my next guest says bike lanes do little to encourage cycling and they devote a lot of money and resources to the transportation needs of a small percentage of the population. Sean Chu is a city councillor in Calgary. He's a member of the city's Pathways and Bikeways Project Steering Committee and we have reached him in Calgary. Hello.

SEAN CHU: Good morning, Anna.

AMT: Let me get your reaction first of all to what you just heard Kyle Brown say.

SEAN CHU: First of all I would say I'm sorry Kyle and that happened to you. It is tragic and sorry to hear that. And from what he said in Europe and we all know that North America, especially Canada were built different than Europe and the infrastructure is totally different, with bigger area. Europe has less land and that the demand. To be honest we don't have that kind of demand. In Calgary about 1 percent. And then we heard everybody talk about Portland USA and they say oh that's the mega of of cycling. However they actually plateau out at 4 percent.

AMT: So you're saying in Calgary bikes bicycle uses 1 percent of the population?

SEAN CHU: Yes.

AMT: And is that why you're pushing back against the plan to expand cycling infrastructure?

SEAN CHU: No I'm not. Actually, I cycle all the time. When my kids were young we almost every weekend would go out. We would have great time. I'm saying that Calgary has there are some pathways just that I think the best in the North America. The problem is that we do things lack of common sense. Every time we're building infrastructure is based on evidence as needed. However when the cut comes to a cycle track is that aspiration goal and that [unintelligible] maybes a wish and in the belief that you build [unintelligible] but it's not a case and they said that they will tell you the number went up a lot. However the only funnel the cyclists into one point and that's one number goes up. [Unintelligible] the same people most of the time.

AMT: So what do you what see done? The advocates say separating cars and bikes saves lives.

SEAN CHU: So if that's the case why we allow driving? Driving vehicles kill people, no vehicles not, it is the people driving it. Can we make it better? Yes. However would that make sense? For example we had the busiest road called Macleod Trail and the city administration want to take one lane away from it and for cycle tracks which does not make sense. And again we have 12 Avenue, most busy road in downtown, and they took the lane away and then make it - it used to be a straight line - they make s like a serpentine and do not make sense what so ever. And they have 13 advantages next right to it. They dedicate as Greenway, as cycling lane. For years now they don't use the but take the lane away. However if you put the mentality of anti auto and all suddenly everything makes sense what they are doing. And it is pretty pretty sad really.

AMT: Let me play you a clip. This is Toronto City Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti. He shares some of your concerns about bike lanes. Here he is.

SOUNDCLIP

I don't bicycles and I don't hate cyclists. I believe there's a place for them and it's not on the roads. I believe that there's networks in our city that can be easily converted into cyclists networks and I think ramming these bicycles onto roads and it's creating a nightmare and it's becoming even more dangerous for the cyclists.

AMT: So Sean Chu what do you think? Should bicycles be on the roads?

SEAN CHU: In Alberta, I don't know about Toronto I do know that in Alberta cyclist is considered as vehicle. So they actually can share the road. Is that more dangerous? I think so because you are driving. You have metal around you. Cyclists don’t. And for example that Kyle didn't wear a helmet. I think helmet would save lives.

SEAN CHU: Well he was dragged under a truck so he had injuries that you know if a truck runs you over even with a helmet on you've got a problem. Right now the dare motorway and yes so I have come to realize that a lot of this size cycling advocate there are sort of cult like mentality and no matter what we've got to do it. And does it really really make sense? It doesn't. For example in my work we have this Northland Drive. Yes it's a very wide street like 3 lane each and they took the laneway away and got need and they said oh we have hundred eighty trips per day but I door knocked the whole area. Talk to people, listen to people, people live there. No one ever sees cyclists on it but they won't tell you it's hundred eighty trips they will all pick up on that with my next guest Shaun. Thank you for your thoughts today. Thanks very much. Sean choose Calgary city councillor member of the city's pathways and bikeways project steering committee. He joined us from Calgary Judy Varga Toth has been listening in. She is the executive director of the advocacy group Canada Bikes. She says what Canada needs is a national strategy for cycling. Judy Varga Toth joins us from our Ottawa studio hello. Hello.

JUDY VARGA HOTH: Good morning Anna Maria.

AMT: You just heard our last guest say there's a cult like mentality around bicycle's what do you think?

JUDY VARGA HOTH: I would respectfully disagree. I think that we would say that we are very evidence based. We look at best practices we look at places around Canada North America and the world to see how things are done and we suggest that in Canada we follow those best practices.

AMT: Now you're calling for a national bike strategy a national strategy for cycling what would that actually look like?

JUDY VARGA HOTH: OK so what we're saying is that it's time for the federal government to take its rightful role in promoting a bike and walk friendly environment in Canada. We know that as you've pointed out there have been many collisions and crashes involving pedestrians as well as cyclists over the years and we know that there are solutions. And what we're saying is we need a strategy coordinated and effective strategy led and supported by our government, our federal government, to change the on the ground realities in many different ways. You know a strategy is just that it's a high level approach to improving the conditions and ensuring safe convenient and accessible ways for Canadians to choose to travel around whether they choose walking or cycling or driving. Why wouldn't you just have cities do that?

AMT: They're trying to do that now arguably not everyone's pleased with it but why do you need the feds to weigh in?

JUDY VARGA HOTH: Well I would say the cities themselves are calling for the Federal support just as the federal government has very wisely invested in public transit across the country. We're saying the same thing is needed and in fact just recently the Federation of Canadian Municipalities nearly unanimously passed a motion calling on the federal government to take on an important leadership role with respect to active transportation. So cities themselves are asking for this.

AMT: Are there countries that are already doing this that you can point to?

JUDY VARGA HOTH: Oh absolutely. In fact most major industrialized countries have a national strategy. You know we could talk about the usual suspects like Denmark and Holland but we would include countries like Germany like France. Smaller countries like Hungary and Slovakia, Australia. The UK has a fantastic walking and cycling strategy that they've announced that goes along not only with policy change and legislative change but significant investments in best practices.

AMT: And when you talk about significant investments what kind of money are we talking about?

JUDY VARGA HOTH: Well In the UK for example they committed it last year in 2017. One billion pounds into walking and cycling improvements across the country. And have they-.

AMT: What about in terms of deaths and injuries. Have you seen a decrease of that in places where these strategies go forward?

JUDY VARGA HOTH: Absolutely so I believe you would be aware of the Vision Zero approach which came out of Sweden in the late 90s where they just simply decided as a country that even one road fatality was unacceptable. So they looked around to see what could they do what were the the ways that they could improve the situation and the deaths have dropped dramatically in Sweden over that time. And in fact now they're moving to the next phase of their strategy which is called Beyond Vision Zero. So absolutely you see massive reductions in injuries. And at the same time I might add massive increases in the number of people who choose walking and riding their bicycle as their mode of transportation.

AMT: So it has been two years since Toronto got Vision Zero. Why do you think it's not working here?

KYLE G. BROWN: Well because we can say that we have a vision zero plan but if it's not backed up by the required investments both in terms of direct financial investments but also in terms of changing things like speed limits dramatically etc., then of course you're not going to see the result. So what you need is a strategy that actually has an implementation plan and that is implemented.

AMT: Do you see this as an issue for major urban centers or beyond that as well?

JUDY VARGA HOTH: Well that’s a really great point. And that's one of the reasons we're calling on the federal government to take action is that in fact this issue goes well beyond the major cities. We know that just a couple of days ago somebody cyclist 37 year old died in Marcum. So it's a built up area but it is definitely not an urban major city. We know that very small places also see these kinds of traffic fatalities. And recently we know that three young boys were killed on the side of the road in northern Manitoba in Nelson House. And in fact the chief of the Cree Nation there the band council chief is calling on the federal government to invest in a safe bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure for his community. So in fact this is an issue that goes right across the country to every part of the country whether it's a remote region whether it's an urban core whether it's a suburb.

AMT: Well Judy Varga Toth for your thoughts on all of this today. Thank you very much. That is Judy Varga Toth executive director Canada bikes. She joined us from Ottawa. Let us know what you think should the federal government be part of this strategy. Why doesn't it work as well as our political leaders say they want it to work. Tweet us at the current CBC. Find us on Facebook go to our Web site cbc.ca/thcurrent and stay with us. The news is next and then the whole world is watching the FIFA World Cup. Will Russia's international controversies interfere with the world's enjoyment of the summer soccer. That and more on the World Cup coming up right after the news. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

Why fans still flock to the World Cup despite politics and controversy

Guests: Shireen Ahmed, Laurent Dubois

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current. Still to come, Seymour Hersh is a legendary reporter and the story that made his name is still an astonishing one all these decades later.

SOUNDCLIP

When I began this story. I didn't know how bad it was. I thought they just dropped bombs shells on a mission. And I began to realize they were killing like you've never seen before, it is a massacre out of the 13th century.

AMT: The Pulitzer Prize winner joins me in half an hour to talk about the My Lai massacre in the Vietnam War and some of the scoops that made him the reporter he is today. But first the beautiful game warts and all.

SOUNDCLIP

[Song: Live it up]

AMT: You are going to hear a lot of that over the next few weeks. Live it Up. The official song of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. That song has divided fans. Some are asking what - it's a Latin American flavour and vocals from Will Smith have to do with the World Cup taking place in Russia. But it's easy to get caught up in the song's excitement and that more or less sums up how many fans around the world are looking at this summer's soccer championships. It was back in 2010 that Russia was selected to host the tournament. And since then Russia has, shall we say, drawn some penalty cards on the world stage. There has been the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, support for Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian war, massive doping scandals, reports of soccer hooliganism and concerns about discrimination in a country against people of color and the LGBT community. But if there is anything that can help a country transcend pariah status it would have to be playing host to the biggest celebration of the world's favorite game. Charles Maynes is an independent reporter and producer based in Moscow and we reached him there hello.

CHARLES MAYNES: Hi Anna Maria, how are you?

AMT: Well I'm curious to know how important is it to President Putin that this tournament is successful?

CHARLES MAYNES: Well I think there's no doubt that this is a personal project of the Russian president. He lobbied for it personally in English in fact a rare thing for him when he secured the bid back in 2010 and really promised that Russia would be a place to be open and welcoming to the world. And I certainly think that it's part of his political facade that he creates here that says that Russia is a rising power that Russia is back on the world stage not only as a political power but also as a sporting power.

AMT: And so what has the Russian government been doing to try to avoid potential problems?

CHARLES MAYNES: Well he listed off some of these various issues that have come up with this World Cup. If we get to the idea for example of soccer hooliganism and racism you know they've been working trying to obviously put their best face forward as the host of them. Russia wants to look good to the world. If you look at for example with the soccer hooliganism the security services here say that they've gone ahead and essentially tamped down these possible troublemakers. They say that they haven't issued them any fan IDs. So these people will not be able to get to the stadiums. Just talking to people who are tied in to the soccer hooligans and culture. they say that basically there can't wait for this whole thing to be over as they go back to fighting like they used to.

AMT: FIFA has brought in new rules to deal with racist incidents at games. What can you tell us what it has done?

CHARLES MAYNES: Well yes they've been working with trying to essentially crack down on fans that have been involved in racist incidents in the Russian league here sort of hear constantly stories of throwing epithets and throwing bananas onto the field. Things like that. So really trying to kind of teach Russian fans what's proper behavior. And again trying to keep those who were been caught behaving badly in the stadiums from getting access to these World Cup games. It's a very complicated command passport system so that they are sort of shielding people, who might cause these problems or create embarrassment for the Russian government, from getting access to the stadiums.

AMT: How has the Russian government's handling of this tournament compared with how it dealt with Sochi?

CHARLES MAYNES: You know if you go back to 2010 there was a lot of the similar you know accusations levied against Russia for discrimination against the LGBTQ community, for environmental and human rights violations. But at the same time and those were all true and they're still true to a large degree. But back in 2014 you saw Vladimir Putin much more willing to acquiesce to Western pressure. If you think back to that time in the run up to the Olympic Games in Sochi he essentially did all these gestures to try to appease Western critics. He released members of Pussy Riot who were in jail. He released the tycoon turned prisoner of conscience Mikhail Khodorkovsky from a long prison sentence just ahead of the games and he released it. Greenpeace activists who'd been arrested over protesting that oil drilling by Russia the Russian state and the Arctic. I think that's changed now. You don't really see the Russian government genuflecting at all. I think in the face of all this criticism over Ukraine, over sanctions, over election meddling, over Syria, over doping all these things are basically ignored Russia to all the criticism and they're just moving forward.

AMT: I want to ask you a little bit more about LGBTQ activists because they have worried about how gave fans might be treated given these so-called gay propaganda law and has [unintelligible] made any movement at all?

CHARLES MAYNES: Well the law still on the books and that's probably not going to change. Certainly it's not. But at the same time we've seen the Russian government make some gestures to censure the FIFA bylines and say that there's that you can't discriminate against LGBTQ community. They have not banned for example rainbow symbols in stadiums. But the other hand we hear about stories about Russian Cossack guards. These are these pro government militia who are saying that they will be on patrol to report you know kissing in public or are men holding hands and things like that. So I mean even beyond that we get these sort of controversial decisions involved with hosting the Cup. For example take the decision to allow the Egyptian national squad to train in Grozny. This is the capital of Chechnya where the leader of the republic is an iron fisted leader named Ramzan Kadyrov has carried out essentially pogroms against gay men in the region. Least that's the accusation. Kadyrov denies it. And you saw these problems kind of come to the fore when Ramzan Kadyrov is using the World Cup and hosting the Egyptian squad as kind of a chance to promote Chechen Chechnya. And he saw this kind of burst into the open when he dragged Mo Salah the Egyptian star forward, who is currently nursing an injury, out of his hotel room to parade him before cameras at the stadium. So you know whether Salah knew what he was getting involved with it's hard to say, but I think there's a sense that this was a PR coup for Kadyrov.

AMT: How did the Egyptian team end up using Chechnya as a base for World Cup training anyway?

CHARLES MAYNES: Well the facilities there are good. That's one of the key points in Russia's Bill to 11 cities are hosting the Cup. But the Russians and many of them from scratch. And one of the places where Ramzan Kadyrov the Chechen they've invested heavily in soccer over the last several years. And it's become kind of a point of pride and the local team there belongs to Kadyrov and the facilities are there good. So this was the government's decision to allow them to host.

AMT: How do Russians in general feel about the amount of scrutiny their country is under during this tournament?

CHARLES MAYNES: You know I think they're mixed. I mean I think certainly there are Russians are good hosts. They like interacting with people and I think some see this as a chance to kind of show a different side to Russia than the one that they feel that they've, that most of the world sees through the politics of the day.

AMT: And what about the Russian soccer team? What are Russians thinking about their own chances?

CHARLES MAYNES: That is the sort of point. The Russian government has poured so much money into hosting this world cup. They spent a record 12 to 14 billion dollars to get ready for this event. And yet the Russian squad by all accounts is terrible. By and large that's the sense that there's a lot of concern that there might just be a big national embarrassment.

AMT: There's an unofficial song they have for the team.

CHARLES MAYNES: Yes we've seen this one was one track has kind of taken off over, this comedian singer named Slepakov released a song called Ole ole ole and it imagines the Russian team's failures after Vladimir Putin has nominated Ramzan Kadyrov in this kind of imagined scenario to run the team and fight to the very end. But in fact they lose horribly and Ramzan goes home.

AMT: OK Charles well, we'll all be watching. Thank you.

CHARLES MAYNES: Thanks so much.

AMT: Charles Maynes as an independent reporter and producer based in Moscow. That's where we reached him.

SOUNDCLIP

[Crowds sheersing and chanting].

AMT: The sound of fans from Iran Russia and Portugal getting into the World Cup spirit in Moscow yesterday from the German news network Deutsche Welle. In spite of all the politics and controversy around the world cup fans are still flocking to Russia to support their teams. The World Cup is the planet's most watched sporting event. Over the next month almost half of the world's population is expected to take in at least part of the games.

SOUNDCLIP

[Viking clap]

AMT: And if you don't recognize that that is the sound of the Viking clap made famous by Icelandic soccer fans. Their team is making a world cup debut along with the team from Panama. Even people who do not follow sports will end up getting behind some of these underdog teams and my next guests say that is part of the beauty of the tournament. To talk about why soccer fans are still so loyal to the game in spite of corruption and politics that surround it, I'm joined by Shireen Ahmed and Laurentt Dubois. Shireen Ahmed is a sports journalist who is also plays soccer. She is one of the hosts of Burn it all Down a feminist sports podcast. We've reached her in Toronto. Laurent Dubois is a professor at Duke University. He teaches a course on soccer politics and he's the author of a new book called The Language of the Game: How to Understand Soccer. Laurent Dubois is in Chapel Hill North Carolina. Hello to both of you.

LAURENT DUBOIS: Hello. Thanks for having us.

SHIREEN AHMED: Good morning.

AMT: Laurent let's start with you. We're hearing that excitement against the backdrop of controversies that we heard about from Moscow. Does the world cup pose a moral dilemma for you?

LAURENT DUBOIS: Well I think actually soccer has always saturated with a lot of these contradictions and ambiguities. Sometimes I think people from outside imagine a kind of a more simple world of fandom but in many ways I think all of our fandom is very complex. And certainly this tournament has been used really since going back to the 1930s when Mussolini used it first political ends and the Argentinian junta in the 1970s, it has been used for political ends. And at the same time there's a whole countercurrent in which this is really about connecting across borders and opening up possibilities for communication and it is not just the one most watched sporting event, but the largest event in human history. In a sense more people watch this tournament than have ever watched anything before so there's contradictions but there's this kind of sense of connection and unity that I think draws people back and is really in a sense maybe too valuable to give up on even when it's misused as it often is.

AMT: Shireen Ahmed what about you, you struggle with that?

SHIREEN AHMED: Absolutely. I think that I mean it's easy to up the World Cup as a problematic fave but inherently so many problems with it. We're talking about everything from militarization from displacement of people's environmental genocide human rights abuses while creating building stadiums. And in this particular World Cup in Russia we've seen huge threats against LGBTQ communities in so much that fairness. An organization in the UK establish a diversity house because you know they just sort of felt the need to be present to provide a safe space if need be. So I mean absolutely we have to keep these in mind as someone who looks at something you know with a critical analysis but then again you're thinking if I withdraw myself from this stuff I boycott this I'm taking what's inherently mine in the world which is the beautiful game.

AMT: And you do love the game.

SHIREEN AHMED: I love the game. I mean it's so difficult. One of my favorite quotes. Football writing is actually something Laurent wrote and it says that football is also one of the most effective tools for mass torture ever devised. And we love this game. We love the love, we love the drama, we love the passion and you know it has a way to unite has already mentioned it's a weight of political expression. It's always been that way. Football is a form of so many things and I certainly am not prepared emotionally or otherwise to cut myself off from that well.

SHIREEN AHMED: And there's a lot of talk about how the World Cup can divide whether by race sexuality or nationality, but Shireen what about the ways in which it unites people. How do you see it succeeded in succeeding in doing that? Well first of all here in Toronto I've never seen so many Egyptian flags on cars in my life. So that's one thing. I think there's also been for a lot of people such as myself. I mean I'm of Pakistani descent and I'm Canadian and Canada hasn't been in the World Cup since 1986 or one and only time. So I'm not as emotionally invested as a part of national identity into these teams. So I get to watch with a certain you know enthusiasm and I'm just one step away. But that doesn't mean I'm not as invested. So what it does do is it opens it up and also this form of football like you've got teams from AFCON from South America you've got Japan you've got Iran and now Saudi Arabia and their inaugural appearance in the World Cup. So you're actually exposing the whole world to players and new styles that they never knew of. And I think this is really important.

AMT: And Laurent to what extent have the fan base for soccer become a global one. Not really limited to countries that tend to have higher profile professional leagues? W.

LAURENT DUBOIS: Ell that's the thing is actually most people watch the World Cup not able to root for their own country right. That's that's the fate of the U.S. this year, it's often been the fate of Canada. But that's actually more normal condition actually right. China is not there. You know India is not there. So what I actually think happens is that people do it, through the World Cup, they experienced the world they're able to choose, allegiances they're able to discover, allegiances they're able to sort of find in a sense a connection to- a lot of people in this World Cup will be connected to Mo Salah and that's going to be an interesting connection right. People discover the world through the game and I think that's part of I mean the person who founded the World Cup was a veteran of World War Jules Rimet in France and his whole idea was that there had to be a space for kind of nations to meet and encounter one another but that wasn't a space of war but rather a kind of space through which communication could happen. And the fact of the matter is that it has become that on some level just because it is so widely shared.

AMT: Everybody's talking about Mo Salah. For those who aren't following yet, who haven't yet known that they're going to want to follow him? Shireen Tell us, remind us who he is.

SHIREEN AHMED: Mohammad Salah is actually an Egyptian player is a 25 year old who came who was transferred from Roma a team in Italy and he was transferred to Liverpool Football Club. And he's had an astounding year. He's won things for everything from the British football Press has awarded him player of the year. He's one of the most goal scoring players. It's just been he's had a phenomenal ride in terms of goals scored; in terms of you know attendance records thriving. And you've got chants now from Liverpool fans that are saying things like you know 'take me to a mosque I'll convert if he scores again'. Like he's literally- and he's also considering the World Cup is carrying Egyptian pride on his shoulders. This is the first time in decades that Egypt will be at the World Cup and it's literally off a goal scored off of Mohammed Salah. So this is a big deal and I must mention the end of Ramadan is coming to a close and I'm sure most the Muslim majority world has been praying for this man and his team.

AMT: And Laurent I guess this speaks to the idea that that people begin to see people in a different way right. Because of him they might look at Egypt even in a different way?

LAURENT DUBOIS: I think that's it. Right that you kind of get a different image a different connection. The fact is that when you root for a player right when you're connected with a team there's almost this like sort of visceral connection this sort of embodied connection between fans and players and that's a powerful thing and in a world with so many borders and divisions. The team that I root for, one of the teams I root for, is France and that's a country you know that has deals with all kinds of problems around racism and immigration, and then sends a football team or soccer team to the World Cup that is you know full of players, in fact the majority of the players are of immigrant background. And they provide a different vision of what France is kind of in some ways a more honest vision. So you have of course they're national representatives but they also represent their own nations in a different light and is often the case. And so those alternatives are really really valuable to us.

AMT: I have to veer off a little but I want to ask about the decision to award the 2026 World Cup to three countries at once; Canada Mexico and the U.S. intended as a way to attract new fans to the game a lot of soccer fans in Canada are excited. I've got a clip for you the two of you to listen to Nick Sprague is an American soccer NGO called love football. We asked him what he thinks this will mean for our neighbors to the south.

SOUNDCLIP

Soccer is massive in the U.S. but it also competes and sometimes struggles to break through a lot of the noise and the clutter created by all of that other competition. So having this tournament where the eyes of the whole country will be on soccer in the United States, it's going to be delirium and in my view it's what's going to set us down the path of soccer becoming the number one sport in the U.S. by the end of that decade, by 2030.

AMT: Shireen Ahmed how do you think the 2026 World Cup in Canada will affect how soccer develops here.

SHIREEN AHMED: Well I think the first thing it's important to note is that soccer is huge in the U.S. and in Canada primarily because of the women's teams who are so high accomplished. And this is something that often gets forgotten and forgotten in mainstream discussions. I think that my biggest fear obviously is that the American exceptionalism that will creep in to this, there's 60 matches that are predicted to be played in the U.S. 10 in Canada and 10 in Mexico. Now you know I think that the joint bid was one to sort of pull it forward because just America alone people might recoil, simply for that fact. The sense of America the feeling entitlement and an ownership over the game which they simply don't have now. I love the development the way it happens in the United States and it should you know grow as it has in other places in the world. But my only concern is there'll be a conflation between how great America is and football and I really really hope people start calling it football. I mean I'm okay with soccer as well. But I mean there's that other thing. So the linguistic thing but I really hope that soccer culture and a more global wake and the U.S. soccer scene can be affected by that because currently it has not.

AMT: Laurent what do you think of the three countries hosting especially over such a huge geographical space?

LAURENT DUBOIS: I mean it's going to be a huge and complex tournament. It's going to be the largest geographical area ever for a World Cup tournament. It's also going to be an expanded tournament with more teams. So there was some sort of joke on Twitter yesterday that sort of said well it will be awkward having a World Cup between the three countries with the giant walls built between them. You know there's a way which is sort of counters at least where it feels like we are right now between Mexico, Canada and the United States. But I also agree with Shireen and I think you know part of American soccer culture, U.S. soccer culture I should say, is very complicated and there's lots of layers to it. It involves lots of different communities. In fact lots of different immigrant communities for him soccer is very important. And then this kind of nationalistic approach to it. There's lots of different strands to it. I think it's going to be a remarkable and interesting time. It does come on the heels of both the Russia and the Qatar World Cups which were awarded under conditions of deep corruption that have now been investigated. This bid was given as in a new system where they sort of all of the representatives voted versus a small committee. So that's a significant shift. I mean it is an opportunity obviously in the United States but as Shireen insists always in her work, we have to fight to have soccer be or soccer or football be something positive and have a positive force in our countries and that's going to be important to fight for.

AMT: And just going back to the fans for what has begun today. I was just reading in the Associated Press. The most demanded tickets for Argentina's opening game are being offered online for as much as 2300 US. What does that tell you?

LAURENT DUBOIS: Well I mean yeah these are really expensive games interestingly. Has a little side note what we are saying. This has been the case in 2010 2014 and now 2018. Apparently, the largest group of foreigners at the World Cup in Russia are actually people from the United States, about 90000 and that's partly because of the class and money issues. It's an expensive tournament to go to. That's one of the things I think that will be really important and interesting to fight for in the U.S. you know how do we make sure that these games are kind of accessible to people at all levels. But there's a core of intense commercialization of course of this and FIFA is making a lot of money. The countries pay for the infrastructure and FIFA makes the profits and they're very very kind of greedy and they pull in the profits as they can out of this. So that is part of it and it's only going to get more and more intense I think as we go ahead, as is the case and broader more broadly in soccer as a professional sport.

SHIREEN AHMED: Just to jump in here I think it's also important to note that some soccer nations don't actually have inclusive policies at their home. Like for example in Iran, women can't attend matches and support their own team. So in fact I have a friend who works with the open stadiums organization that is lobbying heavily within it on in grassroots ways to allow women into stadiums. And the first match she will ever see person is Team Iran tomorrow. And this is huge I mean yes it's absolutely expensive but for her it's a once in a lifetime opportunity and this is something all said how can we make it more accessible and more inclusive globally.

AMT: And this is another example of the politics playing along on the sidelines in a different way.

SHIREEN AHMED: Definitely. I mean there's so many problems than we expect. I mean I have high expectations of FIFA to step in and you know not only help resolve that issue but it's not that easy it's far more complex than not but I mean talking about these issues and bringing them to the forefront and talking about the struggles in smaller grassroots communities particularly. Football isn't only about big teams. It's also thrives in smaller spaces. That's how it has survived the corruption.

AMT: Well we have to leave it there on that optimistic note thank you both.

LAURENT DUBOIS: Thanks for having us.

SHIREEN AHMED: Thank you.

AMT: That is Shireen Ahmed. She's one of the hosts. Burn it all Down a feminist sports podcast she joined us from Toronto. Laurent Dubois is a professor at Duke University and the author of The Language of the Game how to Understand Soccer. He joined us from Chapel Hill North Carolina. Let us know what you think about what they've been saying. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our Web site cbc.ca/thecurrent. Politics of the game, the politics of Russia and the emotion of the fans. Where do you weigh in on all of that. Stay with us. Coming up Seymour Hersh has reported on some of the biggest stories of the past 50 years for his latest book he's talking about some of his own personal history. He joins me in our next half hour to talk about his life as a reporter. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current on CBC Radio One.

[Music: Theme]

How reporter Seymour Hersh uncovered a massacre, and changed the Vietnam War dialogue

Guest: Seymour Hersh

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current. On March 16th of 1968 U.S. soldiers entered the village of M Lai Vietnam. By the time they left as many as 500 men women and children had been murdered. One of thr soldiers, a member of a Charlie Company, was haunted by what he did that day. We're about to hear his memory of it and a warning this is a graphic depiction of violence.

SOUNDCLIP

She was running with a bag from the treeline. She was carrying something, I didn't know he was a weapon or what, but it was a woman. I knew it was a woman. I did not want to shoot a woman, but I was getting order to shoot. So I am thinking that she has a weapon, running, so when I shot and I turned it over it was a baby, shot about three or four times, and the bullets went through inside the baby too. Then I turned over and I saw of baby face [unintelligible] the training came to me, the programme me to kill and I just start killing.

AMT: An American soldier recalling one of the darkest moments in American warfare the My Lai massacre. It was a war crime that the U.S. military tried hard to keep covered up and one which the world might never have known if it wasn't for the work of a determined reporter. Seymour Hersh tracked down and spoke with Lieutenant William Calley the only person ever convicted in connection with that massacre. His investigation won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1970 a prize for international reporting. And in the years since he has never let up. Seymour Hersh is an often controversial journalist but one who has broken some of the most consequential stories in U.S. history. He's looking back at his own career with a new book entitled Reporter: A Memoir. Seymour Hersh joins me from Washington D.C. Hello.

SEYMOUR HERSH: Hello.

AMT: That clip stops me cold. What are you thinking when you hear it now?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Oh it's so depressing because I'd love to think that we learn something from My Lai about what war is about and how to conduct it. But you know you've seen how we've behaved in often very bad ways in Iraq in the Iraqi war etc. in Afghanistan. We have horrible prisons that weren't even acknowledged to the Congress which allegedly funds them. And so it's that things don't change. It's just said it's so hard to get them to change.

AMT: Remind us what happened at My Lai.

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well what happened is they were a group of kids most of them were what they called- Robert McNamara changed the rules in 65 and 66. Too many literate bright white educated kids were getting drafted and were coming back and telling horrible stories and writing stuff. He lowered the standards. He called the project 1100. We dropped the standards dramatically. So they'll get ghetto kids; black ghetto kids, Hispanic ghetto kids, American white ghetto kids to get in the army. This is a group who could not have been in the Army a couple of years earlier. They trained together. They went to Vietnam. They knew nothing about the culture and so they had marched around living in the boonies a shower or maybe once a week, a hot meal once a week, living in the front lines and not seeing the enemy. But there were 100 men in the company, probably 20 had been wounded or killed, three or four or five killed with snipers, bamboo sticks, they would fall into a pit be stuck with a stick with poison. So they lose people on a mission and they come back and want a payback and they go to a village and they see an old man. They were allowed to take it out and people they saw rather than the enemy. So the night before My Lai they're told on the basis of their information you guys are going to actually see the enemy. There's a North Vietnamese battalion there, we've been looking for a long time. They're going to be in this village. You're going to shoot it for the first time. So they gin them up and then the kids there were [unintelligible]. They smoked their dope and the officers drank their booze. But they all got on a helicopter 4:00 in the morning in a flew village. They did do. They're ready to kill and be killed in the name of America and they walk in to a village expecting in a firefight. A real fight. They get to payback all the boys, their colleagues that got killed. They find women, mostly women and children, cooking breakfast and heating up the rice for breakfast then they begin executing them. And they just went on execution them. There was a ditch in which will they put a lot of people that they would clip after clip and put people in ditches and just execute one after the other. And I wrote five stories in five weeks about this. I was a freelancer.

AMT: So were talking a massacre of 500 people and you get the real detail of how they are killed and Calley becomes the fall guy.

SEYMOUR HERSH: Absolutely. But you have to understand something which is that when I begin this story I didn't know how bad it was. I thought they just dropped bombs some shells in a mission. And I began to realise you know you heard that introduction about the young men shooting all women and there was a baby who got the bullet. They Were throwing live babies up in the air and catching them on bayonets. They were raping everything, everyone. They were killing like you've never seen before. It's a massacre out of the 13th century.

AMT: Let's talk more about it there was like murkiness and deception in Washington during the Vietnam War. How did you first come to hear about a massacre in that place?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well I actually had been a reporter for a seminary years. I grew up in Chicago, a lower middle class family. My father and mother were from Eastern Europe and they didn't talk much to us. There wasn't much communication. Was a self education process. And I did get to a good university, the University of Chicago. I tried law school and I hated it and I eventually found myself wondering what to do with the rest of my life. Anyway I learned about something called the City News Bureau which was an agency in Chicago. Chicago is famous for crime in a corrupt courts. And the purpose of this police agency was financed by the four papers. There were about 50 or 60 people who worked there from them on the street as reporters we covered the courts and various police stations. We were the first on the scene and we would file stuff about what's going on and then the editors of The Chicago dailies, the four papers, would say whether or not they just send the guy to there or rewrite what we did for the paper the next day. And so we were the cutting edge and I did that in 61 I was a reporter and I learned a lot about being on the street and dealing with crime and cops. I went in the army. I had edited at a suburban newspaper. I got a job with the AP in Washington. And Chicago first in Chicago I covered civil rights, MArtin Luther King. I was a good reporter always and they sent me to- they let me do what I wanted in Chicago. They sent me to Washington where they let me cover the Pentagon. And so in 65 I start our covering the Pentagon and I followed the war carefully. I imagined I was- I wanted to be Neil Sheehan of UPI Malcolm Brown of AP and David Halberstam and Homer bigot and we say for. I wanted to be them. And so I got to know people who were in the war, they came back from the war and I was told in 65-66 and even into 67 it was a mass murder thing. And there wasn't much you could do with it. There were church groups there publish books collecting all of the various stories everywhere in the world about American atrocities but that was it in the mainstream press there was the Russell Tribunal, remember Bertrand Russell tribunal there was a section there and American soldiers they had testimony from three soldiers wrote all about how horrible things are now that are stuck with me.And then you get a call from somebody who actually said there's something to be charged. Well what happened as I was doing I was in I was out of the A.P. I was freelancing and I got a call as you said from a very wonderful lawyer Geoffrey Khan this is them and he was then out of Yale law school working as a little goody law group that had been set up. And he gave me a tip he said some G.I. shot up a village and you know killed a lot of people as many as 75 and it's all over the Pentagon. And so I just believed it. I just knew from my other reading and my following the war, it just made sense that this kind of thing would happen and also made sense that the Pentagon would be so reluctant to publicize such a thing. They'd want to bury it. So I did what I would a reporter would do. I went to every public having worked in the area I understood how much you know- our army is army is a machine.

AMT: It has a paper trail.

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well that's right. There had to be somebody in the legal office the Advocate General's oversight I went to their various offices at the Pentagon and went through files and I went to the public relations office and I went to public releases and I found nothing to indicate anything smacking of anything other than a GI shot up a gin mill once or twice that I couldn't find anything so I went back and then you know working in the Pentagon and knowing officers they're good people off awful a lot of people the most wonderful people and there was a colonel I knew I liked a lot, and I see this colonel that I knew well. I'd written some stories about his particular interest. I see him walking with a limp down the corridor and black humor is very big in the military. And so I said a you know my God. And I noticed he'd been promoted to general last night he really got in the Vietnam. So what happened is that I got wounded and so I actually said 'Oh you took a bullet to make general right' and we all left. That's what you can do in the military. And so we walked along and just chatting with them I said So what are you doing now you're back here early, because he was wounded he said if I work for the Chiefs therefore the Army, General Westmoreland. Chief has left the army. I mean come on that's where you want to be in a discreet way. Except said there's some guy shooting up everything. And it's one of those moments you get, as a journalist. He stopped in the corner, there are a lot of corners at the Pentagon and he reached down with his right hand and he wacked his [unintelligible] that one that had been shot up. He said that guy Kelly he didn't shoot anybody higher than that. There's no story. He's just a criminal. And of course you know.

AMT: He just confirmed.

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well you know I mean I couldn't be straight with them at that moment. I couldn't say 'oh my god thank you'. I said 'Oh well I hear you' right, somebody I and then I was ecstatic. But of course they couldn't share that with him.

AMT: But suddenly you knew that you were chasing something real.

SEYMOUR HERSH: And I knew that it was going to be good. And if you don’t think at some point, I am 31-32 I’ve been doing this for 10 years, nine years. If you don't think I thought 'Ah Prizes.' I dent know whether I thought prizes, fame, glory or this really screw the war in which order but I had all those thoughts to get the story.

AMT: I’m going to stop you there and you do find William Calley, when you meet him. What do you expect? What do you find?

SEYMOUR HERSH: I wanted to find a mass murder you know blood oozing. I found a five foot five very translucent skin I could see the veins are very frighten the Tenet puffing himself up, describing what happened as combat and all these talks about massacres crazy. There was a terrible counterattack attack and of course civilians we get killed in that kind of stuff. Artillery comes and bombs and it was just a horrible fight but my God I mean the notion that there was a slaughter with no opposition was where in as initial conversation to me and it was quite pleasant, his nickname was rusty. He was staying get this in the senior Birchell officers’ quarters which are four high ranking generals. That’s why I had such a hard time finding them. As I wrote there many more I would have looked first in a neonatal intensive care unit for him before I went there. Were generals stayed, he was staying in pretty plush place for a kid that was up for the mass murder.

AMT: They were hiding him.

SEYMOUR HERSH: I don't know. All my instincts said that I can find them. I had a hell of a time finding him. I Tried every club, any way I can find people. I had a hell of a time I did find. It took a long day anyway.

AMT: You spent hours and hours with him.

SEYMOUR HERSH: I spent the night with himI met him about twelve thirty and eventually he muddled the story in. It was very strange at 4:00 or 5:00 his girlfriend, who was a nurse at the hospital at the base and we went and picked her up in a car. We went there went to a x and bought a steak and then has a bottle of booze. When she was going to make dinner at five o'clock one morning it was a crazy night. She learned I was a reporter and went nuts. Of course she did not want to be connected to him and I think she broke up right after I left. We had a meal and then at six or seven he wanted to go bowling with me. I think he thought I was going to be the last person that was a lawyer he was going to talk to again about this. And his Captain Ernest Madine who just died the other week, a lot of profiles about him, got off with no charges found not guilty. He said I did what the captain ordered at 6 o'clock int he morning which was the time officers get up I guess, he called them he said 'Listen'. He held the phone so we could both here and the captain got on the phone. He was also at Fort Benning probably going through the same process as Calleywas in investigation. And Madina got into the captain Im here with the reporter. He said Would you please tell him that I was just following orders and Madina said I have no idea what you are talking about a slam down the phone. And I look at his face Calley Im sure he thought it, butthis time he knew. Fall Guy. He was going to take the fall. This went up the generals who covered it up as I learned later.

AMT: And we can'tunderline how much has you, as you began to collect the stories and report said that no one has reported this. This is Americans out war. This becomes a turning point. How did what you reported change the way America saw the Vietnam War?

SEYMOUR HERSH: I think those who hated the war were much more comfortable in talking about it and saying how much they could. Those who like the war found it a little more difficult to justify it. So I dont think there's any question Richard Nixon had something he could rally called Middle America. I think after this politically the war was much more dicey but he kept prosecuting. You remember we did the Christmas bombing there. Get a peace treaty we bombed the hell out of North Vietnam in Dec 72 Kissinger and Nixon. So it didn't turn the war overnight but certainly you know you're asking me to shine myself and I don't want to shine myself that much. It didn't stop us from being brutal again in war. I mean do we fight wars any better. I'm sure there were Germans and Nazis and I'm talking about that I'm sorry about combat. Turns out nobody fights for any better. Horrible horrible war diesel and that's why we should listen more to some of my generals who always say no. And so that was one thing I'll tell you something else that came out of it. I was a freelance reporter and I couldn't get the book I couldn't get what I had published and interview with Calley, I had evidence of a document I'd actually seen it again and twice in my reporting and I couldn't get- I couldn't get it really by it.

AMT: Because It was about American soldiers. .

SEYMOUR HERSH: They wanted to be second. That's what it was so.

AMT: They wanted someone else to break out.

SEYMOUR HERSH: There you go. That's what it is guys that we have a shelf life because I'm walking around and I walk into an editor's desk and I throw a dead ref full of lice on his desk and say I want to pursue this and if I do it it's going to cost a lot of money and I might get it. My percentage was just slightly better and 50 percent. Sometimes things get stories after and it's going to cost you money and I may not get be able to write it and it's going to cost your subscribers and there's going to be lawyers wanting to sue you. There's every reason I don't want to do it. So after a little while it's really not about me. It's about- There's a certain amount you can do if you're really going against the grain.

AMT: Well are you, the United States also invaded Iraq and you were involved in uncovering another war crime during that war after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. How did you first come to hear that abuse was going on at the prison called the Abu Ghraib.

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well you did not have to hear, all you had to do is read. There are a number of good groups; Amnesty Internationa which has a lot of wonderful reporting on atrocities and torture. Human Rights Watch, I don't like everything they do but there was a guy named John Sifton in there, brilliant stuff on torture and abuse in prison. So there was a lot written beginning with the war began, and we begin their war in March and April of 2003, by the fall already there were stories about abuse of prisons. There was a general, a two star general in intelligence, I got him on the internet and I wired a lot of money to somewhere that was safe for him, 700 dollars and he drove out of - You could do this over Christmas of 2003 - drove out of Baghdad and he came near Damascus and we holed up over Christmas for four days and I have five pads full of notes. I don't tape anything. And one day, the third or fourth day he said to me just in passing, he was making a living. This guy his English was perfect. He was a linguist and he also was involved in signal interceptions for the Iraqia, very skilled. He was selling fruit from his back yard in front of his house. That's how I made a few dollars to stay alive. There was no pension available then. We were crazy we cut off the pension to everybody.

AMT: And I just want to confirm you're talking about a former Iraqi military man.

SEYMOUR HERSH: Two star General.

AMT: Iraqi.

SEYMOUR HERSH: Iraqi in the Iraqi army.

AMT: And you wire him money to travel to Damascus to meet with you.

SEYMOUR HERSH: Right because it's safe then they get out. It was much safer for him to talk to me there than in Iraq. He would be suspect if an American reporter showed up. And so we held up in the third or fourth day, we started talking about torture, but he mentioned that he had friends whose wives and daughters were in Abu Ghraib, and the one thing he said in common, an amazing line, this is December 25th the 24th right before Christmas. He said they all ride home when they can get messages home where they send their message or somebody who is release. It's an American run jail about 30 miles south of Abu Ghraib, out of Damascus. And they all write home and say you must come and kill me because I've been filed. I'm sure most people understand; in the Arab world shame is the driving factor. In our world, it's guilt. We work our guilt they work on shame. And defile could mean anything it could mean physically defile them. It could mean even taking pictures of them naked when they're in the shower or doing stuff like that but it certainly was very troublesome. Please come kill me I've been defiled as a wife and if I am a daughter I cannot be married. That kind of stuff was been written, communicated. So I knew there was somebody there and so in the back of my mind and began asking questions and I eventually discovered that there is a major scandal being suppressed by the Pentagon. I learned that CBS had found some of the famous photographs that your audience will remember of a woman with their hand next to an Iraqi prisoner being masturbated. These kind of stories are death for somebody in Iraq. The shame.

AMT: Also pictures of dogs going after...

SEYMOUR HERSH: Those pictures. But I also learned there was a report written by a brilliant officer who lost his career over it. So I got that stuff.

AMT: But CBS had it and they were not running it. What happened?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well it's a story I actually tell in the memoir. I had found more pictures. And I also found a brilliant report that was devastating but just devastating. The guy who did the report, his name was Tony Taguba. I mean for two more years. I wrote a profile about him later for the New Yorker, a most amazing honest gut I've ever met. The report was devastating I also learned of course that CBS had the pictures and they weren't running it because the suits Dan Rather was the head of CBS 60 Minutes. Dan Rather heard the story and I know Dan, Dan would want to run it. I can tell you that without talking about it and they hadn't run it. And I convinced Rhem Nick who was skeptical but to his credit he went along. I said CBS has to run these photographs before we do because they have an audience of 19 or 20 million in 60 minutes and then I will come every Thursday we're going then Sunday. They should run on Thursday then we come out Sunday with our story with the reporter and we link to the whole report and my story that's going to it did it's going to be amazing.

AMT: Because the report backs up what you're seeing is a social any way around it talks about total corruption at the top. And so David agreed. It did not take him on and we had different pictures. We had somewhat better I ran them the next week. So I called up a woman named Mary Mapes. She's in a movie that they did about some other story who was the producer for Dan day. She lives in Texas. I called them up early that week and I knew there was tremendous rancor about this because the suits they call them and CBS were afraid the White House was pressuring not to do it, it will cost us the war. And I told her nicely I said I have this report you guys it's Tuesday if you don't do those photographs there is the idea that I have to put in my third graf for my story Sunday you didn't do it. So that Thursday, this is the most amazing thing I ever saw, rather began as report. I read about this. It's astonishing. We have a very disturbing story, we're going to tell you - it was the top of the show - the only reason we are doing this, you should know, because we know other media have this and are prepared to write this. They still are afraid that they claim for it. So they read it. The story as I predicted went nuts on Sunday nights. I wrote three articles in three weeks for the New Yorker.

AMT: You know the other thing I am struck by in terms of as you go through the stories of how you investigate the threads are there and you start to pull on them, and pull and pull and you start to get these stories out there. In some way - and I'm not trying to discount your hard work because your legendary okay I'm not trying to count your hard work but what you're telling us is that the stories are there for the looking, for the finding journalistically.

SEYMOUR HERSH: Hiding in plain sight, all of them. They're all there. The stories I'm working on right now. There's two books I think have dug out and which one first. They're both hiding in plain sight. It's just yeah it's self-censorship. I learned as a kid my first job as a police reporter even I witnessed a couple murder and my editor said forget it. In Chicago you don't write about a car murder. I was how to go after the Army anyway and I didn't do it. I didn't push the editors to do it and I've only been a reporter from Munson's city news, my first job. I went off thinking what a imperfect, imperfect profession I was going into and how imperfect I was too because I went along with this cover up I didn't write about a cop shooting what he called 'the nigger.' I Heard him say it in the back, told him to run and claimed he was running away from arrest. Just murder and he said that to his colleagues I was there at the right time. And so I knew then self-censorship was a huge process. Look, you are in media. We have a passion for truth and for telling things. You do the show you do for that. I do what I do for the same reason. I'm sorry. Not everybody has that same passion but a lot of us do a lot of us do have that passion.

AMT: You haven't weighed in journalistically underneath various scandals swirling around the Trump administration.

SEYMOUR HERSH: I've stayed away because right now I just think he may be playing the press more than one of the believe the he is. I think it's all just good for ratings. Cable news - my theory about cable news - is it destroyed any vestige of serious reporting. You learn something even at the New York Times, you got to get it in quick and cable news is going to make it big and then you go on that night to talk about your story that you just did three days on. You know one thing Trump did in the campaign, in the primary campaign, he get rid of the Bush family. In the presidential campaign he got rid of the Clinton family. You got to give him credit for that. He just maybe I call them in a funny way I don't like him I don't like a guy that doesn't read act on impulse. I don't like him and there is nothing I can tell you. I wish he were a different president. But he is in no way a circuit breaker. But the Democrats better start campaigning and something other than Trump some more.

AMT: Well if you were assigning, if you were saying okay go find the real story where would you send your reporters?

SEYMOUR HERSH: None of your business.

AMT: I have to wait to read it don't I? Absolutely. We have to leave it there. Great to talk to you. Thank you for your decades of work.

SEYMOUR HERSH: They are not over.

AMT: I know and I am glad. Well I'm glad.

SEYMOUR HERSH: Thank you for having me on. It's always a pleasure to talk to you.

AMT: Great to talk to you. Bye bye. Seymour Hersh words are prize winning investigative journalist his new book is called Reporter: A Memoir. He joined us from Washington D.C. That's our program for today. Stay with radio 1 for Q. We started off today talking about the conflict between cars and bikes on city streets Ontario's TV brought together two politicians from different sides of that issue. We're going to leave you with sounds of political blind date federal NDP leader jag meet Singh gets together with Doug Ford, now the progressive conservative premier designate of Ontario, for a bike ride in Toronto. Here it is. I am Anna Maria Tremonti. Thanks for listening to The Current.

[sc].

JAGMEET SINGH: I wanted to show what it feels like to be a cyclist in Toronto and I wanted to show the different types of cycling infrastructure that exists.

DOUG FORD: Jagmeet brought me known here I got a call saying Get a bicycle helmet. I thought 'Boy, I haven't been on a bicycle in 30 some odd years and Singh`s dropped up, got a helmet on, and here we are.

JAGMEET SINGH: This is the best, fully separated and you`re protected right under present. This is where you going to feel the safest. So this is another level. This is like less protection, you get lines in the road here. Still a little bit of separation but this is where you start to feel a bit more vulnerable.

DOUG FORD: You`re nervous when there is no bike lanes. I was thinking from behind and we have to do everything we can to make sure there is never a death in the city. One death is way too many. When it comes to roads we have to make sure that they're safe. I felt so much safer when there was separated.

Thursday June 14, 2018 Full Episode Transcript

Social Sharing

More from this episode