Tenet's tide of publicity no accident
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The George Tenet media tour last week is the latest example of how the Bush administration has been very, very good for the book business.
Tenet's tell-all, "At the Center of the Storm," went on sale at most stores (more on that issue later) last Monday after the burly ex-CIA director enjoyed his first publicity shot on CBS's "60 Minutes" the night before.
News outlets gave his book prominent play early in the week as he trudged from studio to studio to flog his account of the groundwork leading to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.
It's become a common staging of the release of an important and costly book. First, the publisher pays several million dollars to a well-known author, then announces a publication date.
Meanwhile, it sets up a "60 Minutes" interview or excerpts in the Sunday Washington Post in advance of the publication. The publisher consequently issues an "embargo" on the book's release to other media outlets.
This "embargo" is essentially meaningless, without legal authority and always broken.
Usually a bookstore in New York or Washington will ignore the "Do Not Open Until ..." directive on the book boxes, displays the book several days early then tips off a reporter who buys the book and writes a story ahead of the release date.
I did an informal check of several chain stores in the city last Saturday and found them all in compliance with the "embargo." The book was on sale at a Washington, D.C., shop several days ahead of schedule, and that's how journalists found it.
The marketers secretly appreciate this "violation" because it adds to the publicity buzz, and that means more sales.
The whole operation becomes a media carnival, producing a handful of hurried reviews and commentary that often miss salient points or exaggerate the book's historical importance.
"At the Center of the Storm" is a 556-page tome by a key player in one of the most controversial and troublesome episodes in recent American history. It deserves more than a cursory reading and reviewing.
By manipulating the marketing of a book like Tenet's to create a publicity stir, publishers undercut its real value as a document for citizens and historians.
By taking the bait, the media rush to snap judgments and superficial conclusions.
In a few weeks, Tenet's book will be reduced to yet another footnote among the hundreds of revelations and disclosures that previous books on this administration have brought us.
And it has been a literary Niagara of titles, starting with a handful of former administration officials, such as onetime Attorney General John Ashcroft; Christine Todd Whitman, ex-director of the Environmental Protection Agency; and Paul Bremer, who ran the civilian occupation authority in Iraq.
The invasion of that country has been the major cause of book productions with everybody getting into the act, including retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks, who directed the 2003 assault.
He scored a $5 million book deal, making his retirement a bit more comfortable.
Bush's critics from the administration, however, outnumber the supporters. Leaders of the pack are Richard Clarke, former security adviser, and Washington's celebrity couple, Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame, the former CIA agent at the center of the Lewis "Scooter" Libby conviction.
Wilson's book, "The Politics of Truth," was published two years ago. Now his wife has her account of the incident under contract and is trying to broker an agreement with the agency on how much she can reveal of her supposedly undercover role.
Another player in "Plame-gate" will toss his two cents into the story in July. Robert D. Novak was the syndicated columnist who revealed Plame's undercover status in 2003.
Called "The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington," Novak's memoir cuts to the chase in the first chapter, which he devotes to the incident.
Full of his usual defensive bluster and antagonistic dismissal of anyone who's not a disciple of far-right thinking, the account exonerates him of any wrongdoing.
The rest of the 636-page book is largely devoted to Novak's career as a political columnist and is published by Crown Forum, Random House's right-wing imprint.
First Published May 4, 2007 2:53 pm
