I accuse

In the book, you discuss the performance of the media in the crisis that befell your wife after Robert Novak published her name last July.

Novak obviously has his right guaranteed under our Constitution, which of course I support, to print whatever he and his editors may want. My beef about Novak is that it didn't seem to me that [outing Valerie] added anything to the story. And what part of "no" didn't he understand when he tried to get the CIA to confirm the story?

With respect to the rest of the press, there's got to be some bottom below which you don't sink in terms of sleazy reporting. I don't think that this met the test of fair and balanced coverage. Novak tried to portray me as some Clinton appointee, when the only political appointment I'd ever received was from George H.W. Bush. By and large the press, in reporting on this case, felt a genuine fear about this White House.

You quote a journalist saying they were all afraid they'd be "shipped to Guantánamo" if they displeased the White House over this story.

That's right. "Guantánamo" is now a metaphor for being cut off completely from access and sources. I've had any number of reporters who have talked to me about how even the most minor criticism of the administration led to phone calls to their editors from senior officials in the government. I think that's a clear pattern of intimidation.

In the book, you mention that Novak ran into a friend of yours on the street, before he wrote the column about your wife.

One day last July -- before he called the CIA to get clearance -- Bob Novak was walking down Pennsylvania Avenue. And this fellow walks up to him, and they fall into conversation. And the conversation turns to the subject of the day, which is this uranium business. The fellow asks what he thinks about it, and Novak says the White House should have dealt with it weeks ago.

So this fellow asks a question, "What about this guy Wilson?"

And Novak responds, "Wilson's an asshole and his wife works for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction." Then they reach a stoplight and go their separate ways. Then this fellow, who's a friend of mine, comes right over to my office and lays this all out.

This guy is somebody that Novak had never met?

Never seen, before or since. Now if it just so happens that Novak was telling this to a person who knows me, how many other people who don't know me did he tell? And how many of them might bear a grudge against the CIA, and now they have a name that personifies that grudge? Of course the whole world has the name after he published it.

I called [CNN executive vice president] Eason Jordan at CNN that afternoon and said, "What the fuck is going on?" And he said, "Gee, I don't know Bob very well. Why don't you call him yourself." And, of course, nothing has happened to that sleazeball.

Did it surprise you that all these journalists whom you had helped so much in Baghdad, as the deputy chief of mission during the first Gulf War, suddenly acted as if they didn't know you? Even Novak's byline had appeared on a column that lauded your heroism over there.

What we did for them in Baghdad far exceeded anything the U.S. government had ever done for journalists before or since. We actually had them filing out of our facilities because we had direct line access. As for Eason [Jordan], I think the lack of responsibility, the lack of willingness to take this on, was appalling. After all, we were talking about somebody who was wandering around the streets of Washington giving out classified information to strangers.

In the case of Novak, why should I be surprised? If you're a bottom feeder, you're always a bottom feeder.

At some point after the column was published, you actually ran into Novak at a TV studio and went out of your way to confront him.

I certainly made him walk by me to get where he was going.

You shook hands with him. Was that what you wanted to do?

I did shake hands with him, sure. No, there were other things I wanted to do, but he's an old man. He might get away with pushing people down in the snow, but I don't.

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