09:26 AM EST on Wednesday, March 9, 2005

BY CATHLEEN F. CROWLEY
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Seymour Hersh has his own version of history.

AP file photo

Seymour Hersh

Hersh is writing what he calls an "alternative history" of the Bush administration in articles that have appeared in the New Yorker magazine over the past three years.

According to Hersh's account, the White House and federal government have been overtaken by a handful of neo-conservatives; President Bush and his advisers decided to go to war with Iraq in February 2002 and ignored any advisers who opposed the invasion; and the torture at the Abu Ghraib prison was ordered by people in the highest levels of U.S. government.

Hersh has a record of breaking big stories, like the Abu Ghraib scandal. He writes about things people don't want to believe, and some don't believe.

In 1970, he won a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting after exposing the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and its subsequent cover-up. Hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians, including women and children, were killed by American soldiers in the massacre.

Hersh was invited to speak at Brown University last night at the 39th annual Meiklejohn Lecture. The event honors the memory of educator, Brown alumnus and civil libertarian Alexander Meiklejohn.

Meiklejohn, who was dean of Brown from 1901 to 1912, was a strong proponent of free speech and was one of the founding members of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Brown University graduate Jesselyn Radack introduced Hersh as her hero last night. Radack was a lawyer with the Justice Department and blew the whistle on what she felt was the unethical treatment of the "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh.

Radack said Hersh's stories about Abu Ghraib reminded her of something Meiklejohn once said when he was criticized for speaking his mind on unpopular issues.

"I differ from most of you on most of the issues of life, and I'm going to keep it up," she quoted.

Hersh took the podium and spoke at break-neck speed for an hour-and-a-half, roaming from topic to topic. He backtracked, he jumped ahead, he went on tangents and cracked jokes before the crowd of nearly 500.

Hersh, a critic of the president, said Mr. Bush is impermeable to criticism, whether from the press or the people.

"He's convinced he's doing the right thing. I don't know whether he thinks he's doing it on behalf of God or trying to do what his father didn't do, or more likely, he's a true believer in the ideology of the neo-conservatives," he said.

"Because of this belief, it doesn't matter how many body bags come back," Hersh said. "I'm not saying he's indifferent to it, but at some level he thinks he will be vindicated."

Hersh recently wrote Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib, a book that investigates the post-9/11 events that led the invasion of Iraq.

Hersh said President Bush decided to invade Iraq in February 2002, just months after the September 11 attack.

Mr. Bush and his advisers would not listen to anyone who disagreed, said Hersh, who relies on a stable of unnamed sources from all levels of the military and government.

Anyone who supported invasion was anointed, promoted and consulted, he said. Everyone else was left out in the cold.

"You've got to drink the Kool-Aid," became the mentality within the administration, he said.

He said he believes the president will go down as one of the worst presidents in history, and that Mr. Bush believes just the opposite.

Hersh worked for the New York Times during the 1970s and has rejoined the paper twice for special assignments. Hersh has written six books, including The Prince of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House, and is the winner of more than a dozen major journalism awards.

"I think if there is a principle in what I do it is to hold people to the highest standard possible," Hersh said last night.