Hersh Lecture Canceled for Monday Night

The lecture by journalist Seymour Hersh scheduled to be given tonight at the Walton Arts Center has been canceled. Hersh's flight connections from Washington, D.C., were interrupted, preventing him from reaching Fayetteville in time for the lecture.

The Distinguished Lecture Committee will consider whether or not to reschedule Hersh's lecture at a future date. For more information, contact Charles Alison of University Relations at 575-6731.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Seymour Hersh, one of America’s best known investigative reporters, will be the fall Distinguished Lecturer at the University of Arkansas. Hersh will speak at 8 p.m. Monday, Nov. 28, at the Walton Arts Center. The lecture is free and open to the public, although tickets are required for admittance.

Hersh has been a contributor to The New Yorker magazine for more than 30 years, uncovering some of the most important stories during those times. He has focused his research during the last three decades on the abuse of power, especially in the name of national security.

In his lecture, titled "Chain of Command: How We Got from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib," Hersh will trace the roots of the current quagmire in Iraq with a special focus on human rights violations and the Bush administration’s preference for ideology over sound military strategy and foreign policy advice.

Hersh first wrote for The New Yorker in 1971 and began regularly contributing in 1993. He has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, four George Polk Awards, the National Magazine Award and more than a dozen other prizes for investigative reporting early in his career about the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, the CIA’s bombing of Cambodia, Henry Kissinger’s wiretapping, and the CIA’s efforts against Salvador Allende in Chile.

In the 1980s, Hersh revealed the CIA’s illicit sale of U.S. weapons to Libya, criminal activities by Panama’s Manuel Noriega, the CIA’s participation with South Africa in spying on the African National Congress, and incompetence during the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada.

Most recently, Hersh has written articles for The New Yorker about the Iraq War, in which he broke the story about U.S. torture of prisoners.

Hersh has published eight books, most recently "Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib." His book prizes include the 1983 National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times award for biography, and a second Sidney Hillman Award for "The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House."

He also appears often on television political shows and has interviewed several times in the last year by Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show."

The Distinguished Lecturer Series is supported by student activity fees, the Associated Student Government and the University of Arkansas. Past lecturers have included Benazir Bhutto and Ehud Barak, James Earl Jones, Dave Barry, Ben Stein, Al Franken and Robert Redford.

Tickets for the free event will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis at the fourth-floor information desk at the Arkansas Union and from the Walton Arts Center’s box office. Tickets will be available for students beginning Nov. 14 and for the general public beginning Nov. 16. A reception will follow in the lobby of the Walton Arts Center.

General parking for the lecture will be in the parking lot at the southwest corner of Dickson Street and West Avenue. Accessible parking for vehicles bearing handicap permits is also available in the lot behind the Walton Arts Center. For questions, contact Kathryn Sampson, chair of the Distinguished Lecture Committee, at ksampson@uark.edu.