The Nation - News from Sept. 19, 1989

Award-winning journalist Seymour Hersh does not have to identify for now the sources he cited in a book claiming a former Indian prime minister was a paid CIA informant, a judge ruled in Chicago. Hersh is accused in a civil libel lawsuit of defaming Moraji Desai, who was Indian prime minister from 1977-80. As the jury trial opened, U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle cited state shield laws in denying a motion by Desai’s attorney to force Hersh to reveal his sources. Desai filed the lawsuit almost six years ago seeking $100 million in damages, charging he was libeled in the journalist’s 1983 book, “The Price of Power: Henry Kissinger in the Nixon White House.” Desai, who reportedly is too ill to travel to Chicago, denied in taped testimony that he was a paid CIA informant.