Washington investigative journalist, muckraker, author. Hersh came into the public limelight in 1969 after uncovering the My Lai Massacre. This took him from freelance journalism to a position at the New York Times, where he stayed until 1979. In 1983 he wrote The Price of Power, a indictment of Henry Kissinger's role in the Nixon Whitehouse. This was followed in 1986 by The Target Is Destroyed: What Really Happened to Flight 007 and What America Knew About It. In 1991 he wrote The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, which revealed (to hardly anyone's surprise) that Israel has amassed a stockpile of nuclear weapons.
Hersh is probably best known for his 1997 book, The Dark Side of Camelot, which upset virtually anyone with fond memories (or idealizations) of John F. Kennedy. Journalists who were comfortable with accusations leveled at Kissinger became super-critical when Hersh's scrutiny was applied to Kennedy. It's hard to find anyone who admires both men or despises both men.