SpyTalk

I had taken the incident from Patrick Tyler's marvelous recent book, "A World of Trouble: The White House and the Middle East from the Cold War to the War on Terror," published late last year by the prestigious house of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

"Tyler crams his tale with eyebrow-arching anecdotes," I wrote, "starting on page 1 with an astonishing portrayal of a drunken George Tenet at Saudi ambassador Bandar bin Sultan's Riyadh mansion one midnight in 2004, slurping scotch from the bottle and railing against the White House's attempt to blame the Iraq WMD fiasco on him.

"The CIA director strips to his underwear and wades into the pool, bottle in hand, terrifying the bodyguards, not to mention Bandar, who envisions a headline reading, 'American Spy Chief Drowns in Saudi Official's Pool.'"

Harlow wrote to me: "Saw your story which referenced Pat Tyler's 2008 book. You should know that Mr. Tenet, the two senior U.S. intelligence officials who were present, and Prince Bandar's spokesman all denied the specifics contained in Tyler's account."

He directed me to Tenet's Web site, which also included the former CIA chief''s somewhat ominous statement that, "At my direction, my legal counsel has now been in contact with Mr. Tyler's U.S. and U.K. publishers regarding the false and defamatory statements contained in Mr. Tyler's book."

Libel judgments are much easier to get in U.K. courts than here.

All of which was pretty impressive, in a sense, although it struck me as odd that in my online research on Tyler's book, I never came across news of the rebuttals or Tenet's threatened suit.

Google tends to throw such items high on the page, if they've attracted much attention. And hardly needs saying that such a media -- and CIA -- controversy usually gets plenty of lift in the blogosphere's swirling updrafts.

I asked Harlow whatever happened to Tenet's threatened lawsuit. He said Tenet "will have no further comment at this time."

I took that mean it had been dropped, if it ever progressed beyond the threat stage in the first place.

Along the way, I of course contacted Tyler, a highly regarded former diplomatic correspondent and investigative reporter, first for The Washington Post and then The New York Times.

Tyler told me Tenet had tried to stop publication of "A World of Trouble" with libel threats. He and his publisher had responded to a list of interrogatory-like questions from Tenet's lawyers, The threats of legal action appeared to have evaporated.

As for the incident at Bandar's house, "My response is that Bill Harlow is mistaken or misinformed," Tyler said.

He noted that Bandar had not signed the statement Tenet posted on his Web site.  .

Pointing to the extended footnote in his book on his sourcing for the incident, he said, "I spoke to everyone present. Bill Harlow was not present."

Two of those who were present at various points during the incident, besides Tenet, his bodyguard "Tim," Bandar and his sidekick Rihab Massoud, were Rob Richer, the CIA's Near East chief in 2004, and Scott Muller, then the CIA's general counsel.

Richer maintained on Tenet's Web site that Tyler's account is "inaccurate and untrue ... At no time did then-Director Tenet make the comments described by Mr. Tyler nor did the Director behave inappropriately."

It turns out, though, that Richer's sweeping statement should have been a lot less, well, sweeping.

For starters, the Near East operations chief wasn't present when Tenet, having retired earlier after taking a sleeping pill, according to Tyler's multiple sources, got out of bed after midnight, agitated by Bush administration attacks on him and the CIA.

Richer told Tyler he was awakened and caught up to Tenet and Bandar at pool side, where the CIA director, scotch bottle in hand, was raging at Bush and company.

But Richer maintains on Tenet's Web site that it didn't happen that way, so I asked Tyler if he had, and could send me, a transcript of his interview with the former Near East chief.

He agreed to send me the relevant portion of a much longer interview,

It not only shows Richer not contradicting Tyler's version of Tenet's behavior, but quite the opposite.

On the transcript, Tyler asks Richer, "What was he [Tenet] talking about?"

"My run is done," Richer said. "He was talking that the run is done. He said this is gonna be a rough period of time, I think I want to get out of government, at this point."

What about the portrait of Tenet swilling scotch from the bottle, draining half of it within minutes?

Richer says Bandar, a longtime confidante of top American officials, is "a scotch drinker and does have bottles around. So, you're right, there could be a bottle within hand reach."

What about Tenet swimming in the pool with the scotch, smoking one of Bandar's Cohibas? (The Cuban cigars are, of course, prohibited in the U.S.)

"George was in the pool," Richer says, according to Tyler's transcript. But nobody would call it swimming, he says, laughing.

"George was about 35 pounds over weight. He wasn't really swimming, he was bobbing in the water, okay, and he dropped his watch to the bottom of the pool and we had to dive down and pick it up."

Richer continues: "But he was kind of bobbing with a cigar in his mouth, the drink was in the side of the bar and ... we were laughing about...joking about (Yassar) Arafat and stuff we used to do. ...

"The pool scene I remember was just funny because George kept saying" -- here, Richer imitates Tenet slurring, according to Tyler's transcript note -- 'I got to lose some weight. I'm a pig,' and we were just joking about that."

Tyler's other sources also had Tenet railing about "the Jews" -- the Pentagon and White House neo-conservatives, most of them Jewish, who distrusted and even despised the "liberal" CIA and Tenet, a Clinton administration holdover.

He asked Richer about it.

"I hadn't heard about that part, the reference to Jews," Richer says, according to Tyler's transcript, "but I would say George did rail against (Deputy Defense Secretary Paul) Wolfowitz, (Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter") Libby and them. A lot of us did that were involved with them, in doing these bigger issues. So that was not uncommon."

To me, that sounded like Richer was corroborating, not contradicting, Tyler's version of the post-midnight events.

In contrast, CIA general counsel Scott Muller sticks to his story that he never heard or saw anything derogatory about his boss, according to Tyler's notes and transcript. And he insists he was with Tenet "for every minute."

But the CIA lawyer, who was drinking with Tenet, can't seem to remember a lot of what happened after midnight, according to his own remarks.

"Check your memory," Tyler tells him. "How much did you drink that night? Is it possible that your memory was impaired?"

Muller: "A -- no, I was paying pretty close attention. Uh, I don't think I swam. George clearly had....It was a long night. I frankly drank relatively slowly."

Tyler: What time was it when you came out of the house and joined Tenet et. al.?

Muller: "I don't remember looking at my watch to be perfectly frank. Remember having a cigar. Remember George having a cigar. " [sic]

Tyler tells Muller, according to the transcript: "What's funny about this issue, I'll be honest with you, Scott, I have three witnesses who say you weren't there when George came back out, your absolute memory on this is puzzling to me."

Muller answers, "It is absolute and complete."

"Ok, well, people remember things (differently)," Tyler says,

"It is unthinkable to me that anyone could remember it differently," says Muller, who defended Fortune 500 companies for 24 years before being appointed CIA general counsel.

"Maybe," says Tyler, it's "unthinkable to them that you remember it this way."

"Three people? Absolutely no way. I think I still have the bottle (of scotch) by the way. Not that that proves much. No, absolutely not."

No, it doesn't.

But me, I'm tilting to Tyler's version of that night. The author's transcripts speak louder than the rebuttals Tenet and Harlow gathered after the fact.

Then again, perhaps there's yet another transcript that could settle the dispute: Bandar's.

Who would really be shocked if it turned out the wily Saudi diplomat had his palace wired -- especially the guest room where the head of American intelligence stays, and the pool-side tables, where a visiting CIA director might have a few drinks and let down his hair?

No one.

The only question would be why Tenet would have chosen a Saudi prince, even one so intimate with top U.S. officials as Bandar bin Sultan, to vent his frustrations.

Come to think of it, people might ask why a CIA director was sleeping there in the first place.