Journalism Fails To Find Answers, Hersh Complains

Seymour Hersh says he is bored with journalism.

The New York Times reporter who investigated the My Lai massacre told an audience of about 50 people in Winthrop House last night he is frustrated because all but one of the major questions raised by the stories he has covered remain unanswered.

The Visiting Fellow of the Kennedy Institute of Politics claimed that for all of the time he spent covering CIA activities in Chile, he knows only 5 per cent of what he suspects occurred there. "We were suckered beautifully," he said.

There has been no final resolution as to who ordered General Lavelle to bomb North Vietnam after the bombing had officially been halted, Hersh said, or on whose decision it was to drop 110,000 tons of bombs on Cambodia while President Nixon claimed publicly, "We have never violated the neutrality of Cambodia."

Hersh said he still does not know who ordered the My Lai massacre or for what purpose, but said he suspects it was a CIA Phoenix operation.

Watergate is the one story I have covered which resulted in some answers, Hersh said, although many loose ends remain, such as Nixon's financial dealings with Rebozo. He said he believes the Watergate case resulted ultimately in Nixon's resignation only because of Nixon's arrogance in not destroying the White House tapes