Seymour Hersh

"The U.S. Navy’s Diving and Salvage Center can be found in a location as obscure as its name... The center has been training highly skilled deep-water divers for decades... to do the good—using C4 explosives... as well as the bad, like blowing up foreign oil rigs, fouling intake valves for undersea power plants, destroying locks on crucial shipping canals..."

"Last June, the Navy divers... planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.... Two of the pipelines... had been providing Germany and much of Western Europe with cheap Russian natural gas for more than a decade..."

"Asked for comment... a White House spokesperson, said in an email, "This is false and complete fiction."... a spokesperson for the Central Intelligence Agency, similarly wrote: "This claim is completely and utterly false." Biden’s decision to sabotage the pipelines came after more than nine months of highly secret back and forth debate inside Washington’s national security community about how to best achieve that goal. For much of that time, the issue was not whether to do the mission, but how to get it done with no overt clue as to who was responsible."

"There was a vital bureaucratic reason for relying on the graduates of the center’s hardcore diving school... The divers were Navy only, and not members of America’s Special Operations Command, whose covert operations must be reported to Congress and briefed in advance to the Senate and House leadership — the so-called Gang of Eight. The Biden Administration was doing everything possible to avoid leaks as the planning took place late in 2021 and into the first months of 2022."

"President Biden and his foreign policy team—National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, and Victoria Nuland, the Undersecretary of State for Policy—had been vocal and consistent in their hostility to the two pipelines... Action that could be traced to the administration would violate US promises to minimize direct conflict with Russia. Secrecy was essential...."

"America’s political fears were real: Putin would now have an additional and much-needed major source of income, and Germany and the rest of Western Europe would become addicted to low-cost natural gas supplied by Russia—while diminishing European reliance on America."

"Many Germans saw Nord Stream 1 as part of the deliverance of former Chancellor Willy Brandt’s famed Ostpolitik theory, which would enable postwar Germany to rehabilitate itself and other European nations destroyed in World War II by, among other initiatives, utilizing cheap Russian gas to fuel a prosperous Western European market and trading economy..."

"Tensions were constantly escalating between Russia and NATO, backed by the aggressive foreign policy of the Biden Administration. Opposition to Nord Stream 2 flared on the eve of the Biden inauguration in January 2021, when Senate Republicans, led by Ted Cruz of Texas, repeatedly raised the political threat of cheap Russian natural gas during the confirmation hearing of Blinken as Secretary of State. By then a unified Senate had successfully passed a law that, as Cruz told Blinken, "halted [the pipeline] in its tracks." There would be enormous political and economic pressure from the German government, then headed by Angela Merkel, to get the second pipeline online. Would Biden stand up to the Germans? Blinken said yes, but added that he had not discussed the specifics of the incoming President’s views. "I know his strong conviction that this is a bad idea, the Nord Stream 2," he said. "I know that he would have us use every persuasive tool that we have to convince our friends and partners, including Germany, not to move forward with it.""

"Planning In December of 2021, two months before the first Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, Jake Sullivan convened a meeting of a newly formed task force—men and women from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, and the State and Treasury Departments—and asked for recommendations about how to respond to Putin’s impending invasion, the first of a series of top-secret meetings... what became clear to participants, according to the source with direct knowledge of the process, is that Sullivan intended for the group to come up with a plan for the destruction of the two Nord Stream pipelines—and that he was delivering on the desires of the President.. the participants debated options for an attack... CIA argued that whatever was done, it would have to be covert..."

"If the attack were traceable to the United States, "It’s an act of war."..."

"Over the next few weeks, members of the CIA’s working group began to craft a plan for a covert operation that would use deep-sea divers to trigger an explosion along the pipeline...."

"Still, the interagency group was initially skeptical of the CIA’s enthusiasm for a covert deep-sea attack... Throughout "all of this scheming," the source said, "some working guys in the CIA and the State Department were saying, 'Don’t do this. It’s stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out.'"..."

"What came next was stunning. On February 7, less than three weeks before the seemingly inevitable Russian invasion of Ukraine, Biden met in his White House office with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who, after some wobbling, was now firmly on the American team. At the press briefing that followed, Biden defiantly said, "If Russia invades . . . there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it." Twenty days earlier, Undersecretary Nuland had delivered essentially the same message at a State Department briefing, with little press coverage. "I want to be very clear to you today," she said in response to a question. "If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward." ..."

"Several of those involved in planning the pipeline mission were dismayed by what they viewed as indirect references to the attack. “It was like putting an atomic bomb on the ground in Tokyo and telling the Japanese that we are going to detonate it,” the source said. “The plan was for the options to be executed post invasion and not advertised publicly. Biden simply didn’t get it or ignored it.”..."

"According to the source, some of the senior officials of the CIA determined that blowing up the pipeline “no longer could be considered a covert option because the President just announced that we knew how to do it.”.."

"The plan to blow up Nord Stream 1 and 2 was suddenly downgraded from a covert operation requiring that Congress be informed to one that was deemed as a highly classified intelligence operation with U.S. military support. Under the law, the source explained, “There was no longer a legal requirement to report the operation to Congress. All they had to do now is just do it—but it still had to be secret..."

"The source recalled, “Bill Burns [CIA Director]comes back and says, ‘Do it.’”..."

"“The Norwegian navy was quick to find the right spot, in the shallow water a few miles off Denmark’s Bornholm Island . . .” Norway was the perfect place to base the mission... In the past few years.. the Pentagon has created high paying jobs and contracts, amid some local controversy, by investing hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade and expand American Navy and Air Force facilities in Norway..."

"Today, the supreme commander of NATO is Jens Stoltenberg, a committed anti-communist, who served as Norway’s prime minister for eight years before moving to his high NATO post, with American backing, in 2014. He was a hardliner on all things Putin and Russia who had cooperated with the American intelligence community since the Vietnam War. He has been trusted completely since. “He is the glove that fits the American hand,” the source said...."

"On September 26, 2022, a Norwegian Navy P8 surveillance plane made a seemingly routine flight and dropped a sonar buoy. The signal spread underwater, initially to Nord Stream 2 and then on to Nord Stream 1. A few hours later, the high-powered C4 explosives were triggered and three of the four pipelines were put out of commission. Within a few minutes, pools of methane gas that remained in the shuttered pipelines could be seen spreading on the water’s surface and the world learned that something irreversible had taken place."

"In the immediate aftermath of the pipeline bombing, the American media treated it like an unsolved mystery. Russia was repeatedly cited as a likely culprit, spurred on by calculated leaks from the White House—but without ever establishing a clear motive for such an act of self-sabotage, beyond simple retribution."

"No major American newspaper dug into the earlier threats to the pipelines made by Biden and Undersecretary of State Nuland."

"Asked at a press conference last September about the consequences of the worsening energy crisis in Western Europe, Blinken described the moment as a potentially good one: “It’s a tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy and thus to take away from Vladimir Putin the weaponization of energy as a means of advancing his imperial designs. That’s very significant and that offers tremendous strategic opportunity for the years to come, but meanwhile we’re determined to do everything we possibly can to make sure the consequences of all of this are not borne by citizens in our countries or, for that matter, around the world.”"

"More recently, Victoria Nuland expressed satisfaction at the demise of the newest of the pipelines. Testifying at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in late January she told Senator Ted Cruz, Like you, I am, and I think the Administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea."

"First, many thanks for your interest in what the pipeline story was all about: a very dangerous Presidential decision. You are careful readers."

"I’m an old hand at dropping bombshell stories that are based on the disclosures of sources I do not, and cannot, name."

"There is a pattern to the response by the mainstream media."

"It dates back to my breakthrough story: the My Lai massacre revelation... Editors... wanted nothing to do with a story about a massacre committed by American soldiers."

"It was a frightening time for me, in terms of my faith in the profession I had chosen.... I was more than a little rattled—make that terrified—by the failure of senior editors at prominent magazines to jump at a story that would get international attention, especially when those editors professed to deplore the war and want it to end."

"The operational staff, the people who do "kinetic" things for the United States, they do what the president says, and they initially thought this was a useful weapon he could use in negotiations. But at some point, after the Russians invaded and then when the operation was completed, the whole thing became increasingly repugnant to the people who were doing it. These were people who worked in top positions in the intelligence services and were well trained. They turned against the project, they thought it was crazy.Shortly after the attack, after they had done what they were ordered to do, there was a lot of anger about the operation and repudiation among those involved. That’s one of the reasons I learned so much."

"I don't think they've thought this through thoroughly. I know that sounds strange. I don't think Secretary of State Blinken and some others in the government are deep thinkers..."

"I'm sure there were some people who thought, Boy, is this going to give the American economy a long-term boost..."

"I think they've always been obsessed with re-election, and they wanted to win the war, they wanted to win a victory, they wanted Ukraine to somehow magically win. There might be some people who think that maybe it's better for our economy if the German economy is weak, but that's crazy."

"I think we got caught up in something that won't work, the war won't end well for this government."

"The people involved in the operation saw that the President wanted to freeze Germany for his short-term political goals, and that horrified them. I'm talking about Americans who are very loyal to the United States."

"The CIA, as I put it in my article, works for power, not for the constitution... But even that community is appalled that Biden has decided to expose Europe to the cold to support a war he will not win. This is nefarious to me."

"What I did was really deconstruct the obvious. I mean, you have to hear what the president said. But, of course, there were secret plans, that I’m writing about, and they include — there was a committee set up. Jake Sullivan was directly involved. He was the national security adviser, still is. They set up a team to look at options about how to put pressure on the Russian government to back off."

"The threat the president had yet to make had not been made, and this is December, before New Year’s Day, of the year before, 2021. And the question inside the committee, and it included the usual — CIA, NSA, Treasury Department, State Department, you name it ... The option was: Do you want us to do something kinetic or something not kinetic? In other words, not kinetic would be more sanctions, and something kinetic would be, you know, taking out the pipeline"

"Victoria Nuland’s statement, that you mentioned, came actually before the president’s... at that time, I think, the committee involved — a lot of sophisticated people in the intelligence and operation community concluded you could do it... that led to the comments, which really, of course, made the people on the inside go half-crazy, because it was supposed to be completely covert... it was simply described as a classified operation. None of the rules of reporting to Congress involved are involved — were involved."

"It’s a tiresome game to me... I’m embarrassed to say it after all those wonderful years I had at The New York Times. I wasn’t even thinking of taking a story like this to The New York Times. They’ve decided that the Ukraine war is going to be won by Ukraine, and that’s what its readers get, and so be it. That’s their call. So, I just did my reporting."

"Nord Stream 1 was a godsend for the German economy and Western Europe. They produce so much gas at such low prices that the German government was actually able to resell some of the gas the Russians were providing at a profit, without Russia objecting."

"And so, the German economy is huge. It’s booming. You know, the cars, we know about. Germany has the largest chemical company in the world, BASF. And everybody is — right now it’s hell to pay. It’s gotten very cold there. There’s a lot of anger"

"The world has taken a very bizarre turn. I also — you know, it doesn’t matter what I think."

"There’s no question there’s been a polarization of the press since Trump got in. We’re now on two sides — you know, right, left, Democrat, Republican, however you describe it."

"We’ve got a president, a Democratic president, that has done some good stuff domestically, but I can tell you I’m not understanding the total commitment to Ukraine. And I’m not understanding what I read, because, obviously, I have access to a lot of people who see things."

"I’ve been... writing about covert activities for — am I that old?...the stories I’ve been getting about the war... have been pretty dire."

"I think the end is just a question of time. Right now it’s a question of how many more people Zelensky wants to kill of his own people. It’s going to be over."

"There’s also an enormous continuing of hatred of all things Putin in this country, which is — foreign policy disagreements are one thing, but it’s very personal here."

"I don’t think there’s any chance that Putin wants to take over Europe. I don’t think he wants to take — he wants to have Ukraine tamed, but he’s not interested in doing anything more."

"Here’s what Biden did... the ultimate point of the story, why so many people, even the intelligence community, are very troubled by it... he said, “I’m in a big war with Ukraine. It’s not looking good. I want to be sure I get German and West European support. And I know winter is coming, and if it’s going to be bad, I don’t want the Germans to say, ’We’ve got to check out, because we’re getting massacred. We’ll be massacred with no cheap fuel, and our economy will go bonkers. We’re going to check out, and we’re going to open up the gas line,’” which they could do. So he took away that option."