In nothing else, Chas W. Freeman's surprise surrender Tuesday shows that when it comes to U.S. national security policy, the Arabs will never trump Israel in Washington, no matter how many think tanks they fund, law firms they hire and former American diplomats they buy.

Once Freeman's name surfaced as the Obama administration's choice to head the National Intelligence Council, he was as doomed as an Afghan villager in the cross hairs of a Predator drone.

A few days ago I wrote a column trying to clear up the campaign debate over the value of having "direct talks" with Iran, North Korea, etc.  

The Obama-Biden team, I wrote, had not been clear about what it means, which I thought opened them to phony charges of "appeasement."

What both sides should agree on is what "direct talks" mean, for the good of the country, if not themselves. It does not mean, as Obama has carelessly implied in some interviews, sitting down with, say, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, without pre-summit talks.

Of course, there are always pre-summit talks, also called "preparation," and these are done -- Yes, Virginia - without preconditions.  Given all the e-mail I've gotten,  I guess I didn't make that clear.

As Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, who refined "direct talks" with their secret dialogue with China, have often said, you cannot find out what the other guy wants, and tell him what you want, without first sitting down "without preconditions."

Think of it in terms of  Tony and Phil, in The Sopranos. First they send emissaries to lay out their position. If they still have problems, then they have the sit-down. If that doesn't work, then they apply a little pressure.

If that doesn't work, then they whack the guy. But hey, ya gotta try to tawk first. 

Chinese intelligence has ordered hotel chains to wiretap the internet communications of foreign visitors in Beijing during the Olympics Games, a U.S. Senator charged today.

At a news conference in the Capitol, Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan, produced orders to the hotels chains, allegedly originating with the Chinese Public Security Bureau, or PSB.

"The Chinese government has put in place a system to spy on and gather information about every guest at hotels where Olympic visitors are staying," Brownback told reporters.

"This means journalists, athletes' families, human rights advocates and other visitors will be subjected to invasive intelligence gathering by the Chinese Public Security Bureau."

Brownback said the hotel chains had provided him with additional documentation since he first heard about the eavesdropping demand "several months ago."

"Over the past few months, we've had the chance to gather more information directly from the source, the sources," Brownback told reporters. "As it stands now, separate international hotel chains have confirmed the existence of this order. More significantly, we received separate copies of the text of this order translated."

Aides handed out translations of the purported PSB documents.

Brownback called on China to reverse its plans and said he would introduce a resolution condemning them.

We reported here over the weekend that China was preparing a well-organized espionage campaign against foreign visitors.

The major espionage activity at this year's games will take place far from the fields of play, in Beijing's hotels, with China's agents shadowing important foreign officials and businessmen and women. They have already shown a penchant for targeting the laptops and Blackberries of Western officials. See the whole story today in my weekly SpyTalk column.

U.S. security officials are worried that China's spy services will have a Olympics field day next month stealing the Blackberrys of  American officials and businessman.

Yet another e-spy case has surfaced in the London Times, which detailed the seduction of a top aide to Prime Minister Gordon Brown by a "Chinese temptress." They met at a discotheque last January, according to the Times. When she left his room, his Blackberry was gone.

Chinese hacking expert Shawn Carpenter told me the newspaper's acccount rings all too true.

"I wouldn't be surprised in the least if this senior aide was targeted. . .The PRC Ministry of State Security / PLA (Peoples Liberation Army) have very high technical capabilities in the realm of hardware hacking and reverse engineering."

Lots of spook literature these days: Especially noteworthy are two new ones -- two! -- by former CIA operative Gary Berntsen, whose memoir of leading the first agency team into Afghanistan after 9/11 and cornering Osama bin Laden, Jawbreaker,  read like a true-life thriller.  

Now comes The Walk-In (written with novelist Ralph Pezzullo), a fictional thriller involving an Iranian defector that seems awfully close to reality, even as it follows conventional plot lines -- renegade CIA agent saves the world and all that.  Pub date is Aug. 12.