Did Medal of Freedom buy Tenet's silence?

Raw Story
Wednesday June 27, 2007

Revealing that former CIA director George Tenet gave up $2 million in delaying publication of his memoir, an essay in The New Republic speculates President Bush or his father -- or someone close to them -- convinced Tenet to delay and write a book uncritical of the president.

Tenet began preparing an auction of his memoirs almost immediately after his 2004 resignation, garnering a winning bid of more than $4 million from Random House's Crown Publishing Group, reports Patrick Tyler in TNR. Tenet suddenly got cold feet when it came time to put ink to paper on the deal, and he ended up delaying a book contract for the next 18 months. When it finally came time to ink a deal, the value of Tenet's memoir was cut in half, and he settled for around $2 million from HarperCollins, Tyler reports, based on a source in the publishing industry.

"Which raises a question: Why did a man who seemed so bent on cashing in put off writing his memoir -- at a loss of some $2 million?" Tyler asks.

"There can be no doubt that, while the delay was costly to Tenet, it was valuable to the White House," Tyler writes. "The net effect was to push the book's publication date beyond the 2006 elections."

At the time he was hemming and hawing over the book deal, Tenet received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Tyler notes, but Tenet insists that's simply a coincidence.

Tenet wasn't "clear on what conversations he'd had with members of the Bush family during the 18-month interval between actions," the article notes.

Former Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar also hyped speculation of a Bush intervention in the publication delay.

"I knew President Bush called him," Bandar, a close friend of Tenet, told Tyler. "The question is: Was it 41 or 43?"

The article speculates President George H.W. Bush was more likely to have intervened, although both he and Tenet expressly deny such a meeting took place.

EXCERPTS FROM THE NEW REPUBLIC:

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When I asked Tenet whether he had received a call from President Bush--either one--to express concerns about the book, he became quite agitated and said everything I had heard in that regard was a "complete fabrication." I was almost startled when he said, "I swear on my father's grave" that no such counsel from the former or current president had been forthcoming. A week or so later, when I asked him to put in writing what he wanted to reiterate about the matter, Tenet said this: "Neither President GHW Bush nor President GW Bush--nor anyone acting on their behalf--influenced me or sought to influence me. No one." For his part, Bush Senior sent me the following statement: "It is absolutely not true. I never discussed with George Tenet when or if he should write a book. There is not even a semblance of truth to this." Whether or not Bandar's theory is true, the Bush camp was clearly paying close attention to the book. It wasn't just the CIA that vetted Tenet's memoir; the White House press office did as well. What's more, according to a foreign diplomat who visited the Oval Office earlier this year, President Bush seemed well-briefed on the revelations in Tenet's manuscript. The visitor, whom I have known for years, asked the president about Tenet's book in passing. Bush replied that he understood the book would soon be cleared and that it contained no criticism of the president but had some tough words about "others" in the administration. (The White House did not respond to a request for comment.)

In the end, the Bushies got just about everything they wanted out of what could have been a dicey situation. For one thing, the book wasn't nearly as nasty toward Bush as it might have been, especially given the depth of Tenet's private disdain for Bush's handling of the Iraq war and the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. For another, the White House, armed with foreknowledge of the memoir's contents, was able to put Tenet on the defensive from the moment the book appeared--unlike when Richard Clarke's book came out and the administration seemed caught off guard.

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FULL ARTICLE HERE