May 6, 2007

In his review of former CIA director George Tenet's new book, At the Center of the Storm, in today's Washington Post, the paper's assistant managing editor, Bob Woodward, plucks out this potent passage, and adds a particularly stinging critique of the author's actions:

"In his remarkable, important and often unintentionally damning memoir, George Tenet, the former CIA chief, describes a meeting with Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, two months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In much more vivid and emotional detail than previously reported, Tenet writes that he had received intelligence that day, July 10, 2001, about the threat from al-Qaeda that 'literally made my hair stand on end.'

"According to At the Center of the Storm, Tenet picked up the phone, insisted on meeting with Rice about the threat from al-Qaeda, and raced to the White House with his counter-terrorism deputy, Cofer Black, and a briefer known only as 'Rich B.'

" 'There will be a significant terrorist attack in the coming weeks or months,' Rich B. told Rice, and the attack would be 'spectacular.' Black added, 'This country needs to go on a war footing now.' He said that President Bush should give the CIA new covert action authorities to go after Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organization. After the meeting, Tenet's briefer and deputy 'congratulated each other,' Tenet writes. 'At last, they felt, we had gotten the full attention of the administration.'

TENET ANYONE? PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER CONDOLEEZZA RICE, AND C.I.A. DIRECTOR GEORGE TENET CONFER IN THE OVAL OFFICE, OCTOBER 2001 (PHOTO BY ERIC DRAPER/THE WHITE HOUSE)

"Tenet," Woodward goes on to write, "should have been the instant messenger to the Oval Office in the summer of 2001. His lapse and apparent decision not to carry the request for action to the president himself doesn't mean that the 9/11 attacks might have been averted. But the failure does reveal Tenet's limitations. He was the president's intelligence officer, the top man responsible not only for providing information, but also for devising possible solutions to threats."

It is fascinating how often it is Woodward himself who is the journalist at the center of the storm. His reporting forced one president from office (Richard Nixon, in the Watergate scandal) and incensed another (Ronald Reagan, in his about-to-be-released diaries, published in this month's Vanity Fair, who noted: "September 28, 1987: Staff meeting started with Bob Woodward's claim in his book & his interview last night on 60 min. that he'd interviewed [CIA director] Bill Casey just before Casey's death. He's a liar & he lied about what Casey is supposed to have thought of me.")

Woodward was later lambasted by the left for serving as Bush II's Boswell in the first two books of his "Bush At War" trilogy, only to take out the long knives in his final installment, State of Denial. Indeed, not only was Woodward among the first journalists to whom the Bush gang leaked information about C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame, he was among the loudest in downplaying the ramifications of the case. And, finally, it was Woodward, according to Tenet, whose reporting of Tenet's alleged "slam dunk" quote in the Oval Office, prompted Tenet to write his book in the first place--so as to set the record straight.

So, now, the Post has assigned Woodward review Tenet's book. That, I believe, is a conflict of interest and entirely unfair. It's a bit like having John Dean--the Nixon official-turned-author/commentator, who was famously grilled by Congress for his role in the Watergate scandal--review the memoir of Mark Felt, the man whom Vanity Fair revealed (with yours truly serving as editor of the story) as Woodward's confidential Watergate source, Deep Throat. In fact, The New York Times Book Review did exactly that, when Felt's autobiography, written with John O'Connor, came out last year. Dean, predictably, slammed the book.

Felt, in the end, has had his comeuppance. He and his family revealed his true identity on his own terms, and he has been able to live out these last few years of his life with a measure of pride and peace of mind. And to top it off, Tom Hanks has bought the film rights to his story. He'll reportedly play Felt on the big screen.

Who, one wonders, will play Woodward this time?

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