 Sy Hirsch has a piece at his sub-stack account entitled How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline. The New York Times called it a quote-unquote mystery, but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret until now. For insight into this, let's turn to our first guest. He works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the Ecumenical Church of the Savior in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst includes serving as chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and preparer-briefer of the President's Daily Brief. He is co-founder of veteran intelligence professionals for sanity, and he is, of course, Ray McGovern. As always, Ray, welcome back. Thanks for having me. So Sy Hirsch writes, last June, the Navy divers operating under the cover of a widely publicized Midsummer NATO exercise known as BALT OPS-22 planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream Pipelines. This is according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning. What I'll say, Ray, is usually when we hear of unknown sources, we tend to question the veracity or validity of the piece, but if it's Sy Hirsch, I got to give it its due. Ray McGovern. I know Sy Hirsch. I know you do. I know him to be a meticulous reporter, winner of five Pulp Awards, Pulitzer Prize. You name it, back in the day when honest reporters were so honored. This piece has all the earmarks of the size meticulous approach, and he clearly has a very good source who felt a constitutional obligation to honor his or her, both to the Constitution of the United States, which is the supreme oath, any of us take, and that is to make sure that you tell the truth, especially when the Constitution is being violated. This was an act of war, pure and simple, curiously enough it was against Germany, and curiously enough President Joseph Biden at a press conference in the presence of the Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz said this was going to happen if Russia invaded Ukraine, and of course he was asked, well, how do you do this? How can you be so confident that this will not stream or be killed? And Biden said, well, just trust me, it's going to happen. And so she, bilingual, the Reuters reporter, turned to Scholz, and this is not widely available right now for obvious reasons, and she said, well, I mean, do you agree with that? I mean, hello, how do you feel about this? And this hack, this political hack said, we do everything together, we do everything together, we will be together on this. So that's available now. It's available, not Syhershi's piece yet, but that interview is available in Germany. You know, I describe Olaf Scholz as kind of the epitome of the abused spouse. He stands there and is abused not by his master, Joe Biden, not only by, but also by this hack that he has as foreign minister. Her name is Baalbock. She is the most vociferous of all the people saying that we are at war. That's what she said, we are at war with Russia. So the question will be. It has been 90 years, count them, nine, zero years since the Nazis were making a push for power in Germany. Okay. What happened? The Reichstag, the German parliament building was burned down at the end of January, 1933. Okay. What happened? The Germans caved. The Nazis didn't have a majority, but they scared the lemon daylight set of German citizens. First of all, social democrats gave in. Next of all, the central party, the Catholic party, no one spoke up. We know the rest of the story, all right? Now, sometimes history is replete with iron age. Here it is exactly to the month. 90 years later, will the German people acquiesce in their energy, in their industry, and then their bodies being frozen out this winter? Well, will they rise up and say, look, Mr. Schultz, you don't know what the hell you're doing. And neither does Baalbock get out of here and replace that government. Now, key to all this, of course, is the fact that I already mentioned Cy Hersh's piece has not been published in Germany. The New York Times hasn't published it. The major media haven't published it. Where did Cy have to publish this on substack? Now, at one point, he had a friend at the German newspaper, D-Vet, and they published an incredible expose on Syria. It turned out to be true, but Cy couldn't get it published anywhere else. He used to publish in the New York Times, then in the New Yorker. He has been banned. So the question is, will it be possible to inform the, to inform not only American people, but more important, the German people that they've been had? Okay. This is, this is depriving them of livelihoods and industry. Will they, unlike 90 years ago, act like adults, stand up and say, now we've had it blowing up our gas pipeline. That's too far. We're going to look, we're going to look at things differently, first and foremost, our involvement in Ukraine. Right. Domestically here, in this piece, if it is to be believed, which I believe it, and it certainly warrants an internal investigation here, the Biden administration admitted that what they were doing was an act of war, which means they understood that only Congress could, in fact, cont, constitutionally clear that action. And they, with malice and a forethought, took action to mitigate their accountability to the constitution and Congress. A, and Joe Biden was the head guy there. He was the man that eventually they decided rather than just put explosives on it, apparently Biden wanted to give the word for when it was done. This is an impeachable offense. This is a requirement of Congress to act on it. Your thoughts on Congress not acting on it, I don't suspect they will. And, and, and if there will be ultimately in long-term any ramifications for that, your thoughts on that anyway. Oh, right. Well, again, if the, if the big tree falls in the forest and there's no one around to hear it fall, does it make a sound? It is incredible how the New York Times, actually, I've taken to calling the New York Times, the New Journal, the New Yellow, the New Yellow Times, after yellow journalism, which most people know, is, you know, it is what you do when you, when you exaggerate or slant things beyond the truth, the, the New Yellow Times can prevent this from being heard and prevent more, more important now, uh, corroboration from being voiced. We have corroboration now from Gil Dottoro in, in Brussels, Larry Johnson in Tampa. It's coming in. And so I applaud the source that told Sai Hirsch, all this information. I believe that implicitly, Sai has never been wrong on really important issues like this. As I say, he's meticulous and he was distraught. And I know this personally, distraught at all the stuff about Russia He and Bob Perry used to, my mentor, Robert Perry who consortium news used to commiserate on the phone and, you know, what's happened to the, to the media. So here, here again, we have the media right in the middle of this thing. Only Tucker Carlson has had the, uh, cojonas, so far to play this story. Will it go further? I just, well, I don't know. I'd like try to be the optimist they can the New York Times can the major media suppress this indefinitely Well, I suppose they can they've they've suppressed other stories equally important Like the fact that the Russians are proven not to have hacked into the DNC and that the proven that the Russian The Russian Offensive there with Facebook Mounted to nothing so if they can deceive the American people as the American people are willing to be deceived then you know, this will not have his desired effect the fact that that Cy had to go on on Substack to do this is really a lured manifestation of the fact that not even the most the most prized the most meticulous Investigative reporter in the United States could not get this published elsewhere that speaks volumes part of this piece side discusses meetings that Victoria Newland and Anthony Blinken and Jake Sullivan held in the executive office of the president where they debated options for an attack on the pipeline and He writes at the CIA argued that whatever was done it would have to be covert and at the time the CIA was directed by Bill Burns as Side describes him a mild mannered former ambassador to Russia. I know you know Burns well He says that Burns quickly authorized a CIA working group whose ad hoc members Included someone who was familiar with the capacity of these Navy deep-sea divers Your thoughts on Burns's involvement in this. I Do know Burns. He let me Well in effect shame James Clapper by pointing out to an audience That Clapper had admitted that he That he fudged the evidence on weapons of mass destruction before the attack on Iraq Burns was Some of us hope that he might be the adult in the room But Burns is the epitome of a cog in the in the wheels of the system He's a State Department type. He got to be number two in the State Department You don't get to be number two in the State Department unless you salute Whether it's a harebrained scheme or not you salute. Well, here you have the epitome of a harebrained scheme Did did Burns salute? Yes, as soon as the president says do it. He turned to his people and he said do it and they say they rubbed their hands Man, it's gonna be fun. We can do this. We can work with the Navy. We can do it. Okay. Now. What did the analysts say? well Burns didn't give a rat's patootie about what his analysts say What's I hear she includes the notion that this salmon Listen, yeah, this is really crazy. This is really stupid. This is gonna come back to bite us That's what we always used to say on Kakamemi schemes like this What's the point here? The point here is that the operations people at CIA get all the money get all the attention and get all the Influential but whatever director comes in and another side lesson here is that if you're gonna pick a director For the CIA. Yeah, don't go to the State Department for a yes, man You don't go to the Congress for somebody who compromises for God's sake You you find somebody like Admiral Stansfield Turner Four-star who had made his own his own mark on life and was not gonna take any crap from the veils It's gonna tell the truth. He's the last guy we had like that God forbid we keep having these Well these bureaucrats that salute when the president says jump one thing I did want to ask you I had some thoughts You know the last interesting the last Sentence where you know, whoever the sources says, oh, yeah, they did this thing. It was a brilliant operation blah blah blah He says the only flaw was the decision to do it. Here's what it seems to me I'm guessing it seemed like it came from somebody in the Pentagon based on the knowledge They basically said, you know, these idiots in the executive department that not a good move Ah, CIA was in not real smart saved the State Department at bad move Pentagon wasn't mentioned and there are generally some I have heard recently that there are some pragmatists It almost seems like they're me. Well, anyway, your thoughts on the origins of this if you have any Well, all I can say is that Psyhurst has proven for about 40 years now that he is a trusted journalist and When someone and I suspect it, you know aptly pertain to this particular source When someone sees that an act of war has been has been committed by our government against all the Against the Constitution Maybe maybe not against the US designed rules-based order Well, you know, we all swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution United States against all enemies Foreign and domestic Now this guy took that seriously. I Suspect he went to that little corner in that bar where Psy meets his I know where that is meets his sources. They told him this whole story. So I said it only took him three months I believe that and American people it's eminently believable the question is the fallout and whether whether the mass media can prevent this story From seeking into the consciousness of Americans who have been taught who have been brainwashed over the last seven years Okay, seven years now to hate Russia. Okay. I will Roger Had that wonderful aphorism the comedian way back century or two ago. Well, I just put it this way So the problem is this It's not what people know It's what people know that ain't so That's the problem and the people think that the Russians are Are just evil to the core that here's an example Okay at the time when Psy Hirsch's story is going out Here's the New York Times on February 9. Okay a yellow journalism piece by a fellow named Constantin here Frenchman apparently and it says that Vladimir Putin was personally responsible for killing the 298 aboard Malaysian Airlines mh-17 over Ukraine in July of 2014 now it says that in the title it says that in the first paragraph and third paragraph as well We can't prove the Putin was really give me a Give me a break. Okay, so this is a day when they should have been Featuring size research. They're still at it blackening Putin first and foremost the rest of the Russians and you know This was consequential Remind let me remind you that after the coup in Kiev after the annexation of Crimea The US could still not get the Europeans to shoot themselves in the foot by sanctions It was only after Malaysian Airlines mh-17 was downed According to the New York Times by Vladimir Putin himself that they could get real sanctions that bit though Europeans more than a bit anyone Including the Russian so this was consequential. This was the beginning of really strict sanctions And I just wonder if the the West Europeans or the East Europeans will ever wake up and say, you know This is a this is a bad deal to get involved with what the US wants because they want what was Russia And this is gonna come to what the Chinese used to call a no-good end Ray McGovern as always. Thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate that analysis and we look forward to having you back Hey, most welcome