Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh to discuss U.S. foreign policy, human rights
Award-winning journalist and author Seymour Hersh will give a talk, “This Day in History: Reflections on U.S. Foreign Policy and Human Rights Practices,” on Thursday, April 3, at 4:30 p.m. in Evans Hall of Cummings Arts Center.
Hersh has helped expose some of the biggest conspiracies and cover-ups in U.S. history, from the My Lai massacre that occurred during the Vietnam War to the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraq War. In his talk, he will offer a wide-ranging discussion of current international events, focusing in particular on the role of the United States in international politics.
“There is no shortage of events related to U.S. foreign policy and human rights, from the recent incursion of Russia into Crimea, to the ongoing war in Syria,” said Tristan Borer, professor of government and international relations and one of the talk’s organizers. “Seymour Hersh is able to bring his considerable knowledge of international events to bear on these issues, analyzing current U.S. foreign policy and issues pertaining to military intelligence, national security and the press.”
Hersh, a freelance journalist who was a longtime contributor to The New Yorker, also previously reported for United Press International, the Associated Press and The New York Times, where his work on the Watergate scandal rivaled that of the Washington Post’s Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. He received a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for his My Lai exclusive and has won five George Polk Awards, the George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language, and the National Book Critics Circle Award for his book “The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House.”
“The audience at Connecticut College will get an opportunity to hear the insights of one of the most well-respected investigative journalists of our time and come away with a better understanding of some of the most complicated international political events of the moment,” said Borer, who noted that Hersh’s talk is the final event of a two-year lecture series focusing on human rights. Other topics have included legal issues surrounding Guantanamo Bay detainees, the role of social media in human rights mobilization and the work of the founding director of the North American chapter of Doctors without Borders.
“It is fitting that this series ends with a lecture by an internationally renowned investigative journalist — a person who has devoted his career to exposing human rights atrocities,” she said. “The lecture series as a whole, and this talk in particular, are concrete examples of Connecticut College’s commitment to educate students not only about global events, but about the impact of these events on the students themselves.”
The talk is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Scott McEver at 860-439-2842.
March 27, 2014