Seymour Hersh

23. Who Shot Down the Korean Airliner?

258 CHAPTER 23 Who Shot Down the Korean Airliner? A Victory for the Chicago Kid Henry Kissinger was furious at Seymour Hersh. But as angry as he was, he did not sue. He knew that as a public man, his options were limited. “No public official has a right to demand immunity from criticism, even from a measure of unfair criticism,” he wrote. Moreover, he said, “the last thing I desire is a regurgitation of Hersh’s charges.” He did not get his wish—The Price of Power took on more significance when the National Book Critics named it the best nonfiction book of 1983. And then another of Hersh’s victims, albeit a minor one, struck back with a defamation lawsuit that forced Kissinger to publicly confront his nemesis. Hersh was sued for libel by Morarji Desai, India’s prime minister from 1977 to 1979 and a minor character in one of the book’s most scathing chapters. Desai, eighty-seven when the book came out, was accused by Hersh of being an informant for the Central Intelligence Agency during the Johnson and Nixon administrations. Hersh reported he received $20,000 a year and “was considered one of the Agency’s most important ‘assets.’”1 Desai came up only as part of a larger context. Nixon and Kissinger were secretly attempting in 1971 to arrange for Nixon to visit China, a diplomatic coup if it occurred. Various foreign diplomats helped Kissinger, including President Yaha Khan of West Pakistan. Khan, however, was also the man who unleashed his troops in late March 1971 to quell secessionist forces in East Pakistan. The rampage became genocide with from half a million to three million people killed. Nearly ten million fled to India. Despite protests from the U.S. State Department, America “remained mute,” wrote Hersh, adding, America’s “conduit to the Chinese would not be challenged.” And Khan knew it, Hersh said; WHO SHOT DOWN THE KOREAN AIRLINER? 259 he could get away with slaughtering opponents. To protect the summit meeting, “no price was too great, not even the butchery of hundreds of thousands of civilians.” The United States rationalized the policy by saying Khan’s opponents were pro-India and pro–Soviet Union. Add to the mix the fact that Nixon did not like Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, whom he called a deceitful “bitch.” Nixon and Kissinger said they had “reliable sources” who were telling them Gandhi planned to attack East Pakistan, a blatant attempt to humiliate the Pakistanis that might bring China into the conflict. Hersh said a key informant was reporting to the CIA from India. “Undoubtedly,” Hersh wrote, it was Desai, who had been fired by Gandhi as deputy prime minister in 1969, even though he stayed in the cabinet. “I have been able to establish firmly” that Desai worked for the CIA through 1970, he wrote in a footnote. Kissinger “was very impressed with this asset,” Hersh asserted. “American intelligence officials,” all unnamed, were Hersh’s source.2 The allegations about Desai were contained mainly in one paragraph, 325 words, on page 450. Desai sued Hersh for $50 million. Since 1964, in order for public officials to win a libel lawsuit they must prove that the writer knew what he or she wrote was false or that the writer was reckless in ascertaining truth. Desai chose a federal court in Chicago (saying he could embarrass Hersh more in his hometown) to prove what is known as “actual malice.” Hersh had a team headed by his long-time Washington DC counsel Michael Nussbaum. The case did not get to trial until 1989 (Desai was too ill at age ninety-three to attend) as Desai’s attorneys set out to prove that Hersh had uttered “a scandalous and malicious lie.” To do so, they sought to force Hersh to name the six sources who told him Desai was an informant. But federal judge Charles R. Norgle ruled that if Hersh turned over his notes from his interviews with the sources, he would not have to reveal their names. He did so. A six-person jury heard two weeks of testimony, but the highlight came on October 2, when the judge insisted Kissinger appear. It was only the second time he had ever testified (the other time was in a case involving his wife). His lawyers tried to allow a taped deposition to suffice. Coming to court with bodyguards and two attorneys, and dressed in a gray suit, Kissinger...