NEW DELHI HERSH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000402830010-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 7, 2012
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: June 19, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
3 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402830010-7
REUTER
19 June 1983
NEW DELHI
Hersh
Former Indian Prime Minister Moraji Desai said today he had sued investgative
reporter Seymour Hersh for libel in U.S. District Court in Chicago for alleging
Desai had been in the pay of the CIA.
Desai, 87, told Reuters the suit, which seeks 55 million in damages, was
filed on his behalf by a lawyer Friday.
The allegation against Desai, prime minister from 1977 to 1979, was made by
Hersh in his book "The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House."
Hersh alleged Desai had given the Nixon administration secret information
during the 1971 Ingo-Pakistani war and had been a CIA t Central
Intelligence Agency) agent during the Johnson administration, receiving
520,000 a year.
Hersh, contacted at his Washington home, told Reuters he had not yet seen the
suit and would have no comment until he and his lawyers had examined it.
However, he told Reuters in an interview last week that he stood by the
allegations in his book concerning Desai.
It was not his uncle, brother or cousin but it was Moraji Desai," Hersh said
of the allegation that Desai had worked for the CIA.
Hersh said in the interview that Desai's links to the CIA went back well
before the Johnson administration and that the sources for his information were
F. -former high White House official and a former high CIA official.
He also said he believed Desai's motives were "pure," that he was a fanatical
anti-Communist who wanted to help the United States against the Soviet Union.
Hersh also told Reuters he had more information about Desai than he had used
in his book.
Earlier this week Desai called Hersh's allegations a "mad, absurd lie" and
said he would sue for libel if the book were published in India.
The politician declined to say today what had prompted him to have the suit
filed in Chicago.
The allegations against Desai have received wide publicity in Indian
newspapers, most of which have dismissed them as untrue.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402830010-7