Renowned New Yorker Reporter Scheduled to Speak in Spring
By PengTao Teng ‘07
News Staff Reporter
On Tuesday, April 18, 2007, Mr. Seymour Hersh, a distinguished reporter and author, will be visiting Choate. Mr. Hersh will spend the day speaking to students in certain classes. In the evening, he will deliver a speech to the Choate community.
Mr. Hersh’s visit is made possible by the Thalheimer Educator-in-Residence Fund, a program in its first year, endowed by the parents of Jos Thalheimer ’01. The fund’s mission is to bring “an esteemed educator…who would provide educational insights and observations on broadly defined, Jewish-related issues” to Choate students. Among possible issues include religion, bio-ethics, The Holocaust, and public policy.
An investigative reporter, Mr. Hersh has helped to reveal some of the most powerful news stories of the recent era. In 2004, he was involved in the unearthing of the prisoner abuse and torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.
Recently, Mr. Hersh’s writings have focused on other aspects of the Middle East. He reported last year that the Bush Administration was considering using nuclear weapons to eliminate Iran’s nuclear ambitions, an accusation that was denied by the White House. After the height of the war between Lebanon and Israel, Mr. Hersh accused the US government of having given permission for Israel to attack Hezbollah long before the kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers, which sparked the war, took place. Again, the White House disputed this fact.
Mr. Hersh emerged into the spotlight of journalism in 1969 when he broke the now-famous story of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. For this reporting, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize the following year. He is a regular writer for The New Yorker on matters of military and security interests. Also a best-selling author, Mr. Hersh wrote Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib. Other well known works include The Dark Side of Camelot and The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House.
“There are a number of reasons why we selected [Mr. Hersh],” said Mr. Joel Backon, Coordinator of Speaker Programs at Choate. “Some of those reasons are mundane, such as whether the speaker’s schedule matches ours and the size of the speaker’s fee. Mr. Hersh was the speaker who met the above criteria and could best address the themes of the Thalheimer Educator in Residence Program,” continued Backon. He noted that Mr. Hersh’s expertise on current topics of foreign policy would be especially valuable to Choate students.
Although the plans for the day are not finalized yet, Mr. Backon believes Mr. Hersh would be stationed in Getz auditorium during the day, for humanities classes to meet with him and conduct discussions. Mr. Hersh will dine with selected students and faculty for dinner, and then address the entire school in the evening’s special program. Most of Mr. Hersh’s address is intended to raise awareness about global issues, but Mr. Backon hopes Mr. Hersh will also tackle issues such as the use of nonviolence as a foreign policy, especially in regard to the future of Israel.
