What would an American war be without a Sy Hersh exposé? One was bound to come sooner or later for Ukraine; and now it has done with Hersh’s revelation that the Americans and Norwegians may be guilty for blowing up a Russian pipeline and then lying about it.
As with other Hersh exposés, the right question to ask is not why some governments are so bad at keeping secrets but why they authorise such utterly stupid actions and then fail, with even greater stupidity, to lie about them
So, here we go again. Anyone in need of a primer need only refer to a fine novel by Charles McCarry, called The Better Angels. Here is the scene where President Lockwood and his chief of Staff, a Yale man called Julian Hubbard, confront the head of the country’s intelligence service, a man called Philindros, about the assassination of an Arab grandee.
The President’s eyes, dark blue and filled with sympathy and intelligence, were his fine feature, the equivalent of Eisenhower’s smile of Kennedy’s easy wit. Even on television they seemed to take the person who was looking at Lockwood into their depths. Much had been said and written about their warmth, but as he looked at Philindros they were very cold.
‘Let me ask you this, Mr Director’, Lockwood said. ‘Why did you decide, on your own, that I shouldn’t be apprised of these options at the time we discussed removing Awad?’
‘Mr President, it was Julian Hubbard’s judgment that you didn’t want to know the details. It was a painful decision for you. Julian made it plain that it was my job to carry it through without making small talk about the methods. If that was an error I apologize. It was an attempt to be sensitive to what I took to be your wishes.’
‘That was all?’
Philindros returned Lockwood’s gaze with expressionless brown eyes. ‘Mr President, no – that was not all. The Awad matter was the first time in my experience that American intelligence had been instructed to kill a human being. Candidly, sir, it was the last order I ever expected to receive in my term as [Director]. It’s not a pleasant thing to be made a party to murder. I detested giving it. I detest the memory of it still.’
For once, Philindros did not defer to the President; he let Lockwood be the first to break eye contact.
A fly settled on Lockwood’s pancakes and fed on the syrup. Lockwood didn’t disturb the fly, though he watched it with close attention.