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   The Winthrop Rockefeller Distinguished Lecture Series in partnership with the University of Arkansas at Monticello will host two lectures by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker on Thursday, March 9.

  The free lectures are open to the public and will be followed by question and answer sessions.

   Hersh’s first lecture will be given at 3 p.m. in the Auditorium located in the UAM Memorial Classroom Building (MCB). This lecture will be an informal discussion on Hersh's life as an investigative journalist. The lecture is open to students and the public.

   On the evening of March 9, Hersh will deliver the formal Rockefeller Distinguished Lecture entitled "The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib." This lecture will be held in the Fine Arts Center Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. Hersh's lecture will focus on his New York Times best-seller book "Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib." The basis of the book is Hersh's journalistic finding that exposed the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal in Iraq. Copies of his book are now available for purchase at the UAM Bookstore as well as after his formal lecture. Following the question and answer session, there will be a book signing and public reception in the Spencer Gallery.

   Seymour Hersh has won the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism, four George Polk Awards and dozens of other prizes. Hersh received the Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for his work in exposing the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam. His book "The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House" won both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times book prize in biography.

   Hersh has written numerous investigative pieces for The New Yorker on military and security matters surrounding the United States invasion of Iraq and the subsequent occupation.

   In 2004, Hersh revealed how Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld circumvented the normal intelligence analysis function of the CIA in their quest to make a case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. That same year, he wrote a series of articles with accompanying photographs detailing the torture by United State military police of detainees in the Iraqi prison of Abu Ghraid. Hersh is quoted as saying, "You haven’t begun to see evil ... horrible things done to children and women prisoners, as the cameras run," during a speech at Columbia University in June 2004.

   In January 2005, Hersh revealed that the United States was conducting secret operations in Iran whose sole purpose was to pinpoint possible targets for air strikes. The government denied his accusation. Hersh went on to accuse the government of striking a deal with Pakistan. In the deal, the United States would overlook Pakistan's nuclear arms development in exchange for assistance in eliminating the threat of Iran's nuclear arms development. Hersh’s Rockefeller Distinguished Lecture hosted by the University of Arkansas at Monticello will be informative and controversial on current events.

   No reservations are required for either lecture. All lectures and events are free and open to the public. All events are sponsored by the Winthrop Rockefeller Distinguished Lectures in cooperation with the University of Arkansas at Monticello. For more information, call (870) 460-1078.

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