Wilson Hits Back at Novak in New Book

By: E&P Staff In his new book, published today, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson gets a chance to slam his nemesis, columnist Robert Novak, and he hardly holds back.

Novak, in a column last July, named Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative, blowing her cover, after he'd received tips from two White House sources. The incident is now under federal investigation.

In "The Politics of Truth," Wilson calls Novak "not so much a scrupulous journalist as he is a confirmed purveyor of the right-wing party line, whether it's touting the truth or -- as it all too often is, unfortunately -- promoting the big lie." In naming Plame, Wilson writes, Novak "was slavishly doing the bidding of the cowards in the administration who had decided that the only way to discredit me was to betray national security. I will defend his First Amendment rights as a journalist, but I don't have to like what he did."

Ironically, the author reveals that Novak, in a 1990 column, declared that Wilson "shows the stuff of heroism" after he had helped wives and children of U.S. diplomats in Kuwait flee that country during the tensions around the first Gulf War.

Wilson also criticizes the press for not reporting more aggressively about the alleged White House campaign against him and his wife. He says that when he has probed reporters who have followed this story closely he has received "disturbing" responses related to being afraid to "cross the administration."

In chapter 17 of the book, Wilson traces the Novak/Plame affair to Tuesday afternoon, July 8, 2003. On that day, he writes, an unnamed friend of his showed up at Wilson's office in Washington and told him he had just bumped into Novak on the street. When Wilson's name came up, Novak allegedly told this man that his wife "works for the CIA."

Feeling it was "the height of irresponsibility for Novak to share such information with an absolute stranger on a Washington street," Wilson reached the columnist by phone the following day to protest. He says that Novak apologized, but then asked Wilson to confirm the tip. Wilson says he refused.

Wilson writes that Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus called a day or two later to alert him that "they are coming after you," apparently referring to the administration.

On July 14, 2003, Novak's now famous syndicated column, naming Plame, appeared. "It was nothing but a hatchet job," Wilson writes, adding: "The publication of the article marked a turning point in our lives. There was no possibility of Valerie recovering her former life. ...

"While Novak has since downplayed the request of the CIA that he not publish her name, I wondered which part of 'NO' he didn't understand."