Booze, Volcano Delays Helped McChrystal Reporter

Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings got unprecedented access to Stanley McChrystal with a little help from our old buddy Eyjafjallajökull. Hastings was supposed to meet McChrystal for two days in Paris and two days in Afghanistan. But thanks to the volcano, Hastings and McChrystal were “stuck” in Paris for 10 days. Eventually they had to take a bus to Berlin, and McChrystal and his aides were drinking “the whole way,” Hastings tells NBC.

“They let loose,” he says. “I don’t blame them; they have a hard job.” The Afghanistan half of the interview likewise lasted a full month because of volcanic flight delays. Hastings is currently embedded in Afghanistan, and just got word of the stir the article is causing. He stresses that the general knew he was on the record—“Most of the time I had a tape recorder in his face”—and gave most of the inflammatory quotes in the first 24 hours. (More Stanley McChrystal Rolling Stone stories.)