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The Perle-Hersh Transcript WatchRichard Perle promised us a 90-page Sy Hersh dossier. So, where is it?

By Jack ShaferPosted Thursday, June 17, 2004, at 5:19 PM ET

How do you spell HTML?Fifteen months ago, Richard N. Perle very publicly promised to sue Seymour M. Hersh for libel in an English court over Hersh's investigative profile, "Lunch With the Chairman," published in The New Yorker.

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When Perle made his threat, I denounced him as a libel tourist for exporting his lawsuit to England, where libel law favors plaintiffs, rather than bringing the suit in an American court. I also predicted that Perle wouldn't file before the one-year statute of limitations ran out because his case was groundless. For the next 12 months, I rode Perle like a herring-gutted nag in this column. Every time he surfaced in the news—which turned out to be about once a month—I penned a fresh installment of the "Richard Perle Libel Watch," daring him to sue.

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In Week 1 of the "Richard Perle Libel Watch," Press Box double-dared Perle to sue Hersh. In Week 2, Press Box forum-shopped around the world for a better libel venue for Perle than England. In Week 3, Press Box chronicled the call for a congressional investigation of Perle's business ties. In Week 4, Press Box sobbed crocodilian tears as Perle resigned as the Defense Policy Board chair and the press exposed new potential conflicts of interest. In Week 9, the Los Angeles Times reported an instance in which Perle's private consulting overlapped in an unseemly manner with his DPB duties. In Week 20, Press Box visited The Nation's investigation of Perle, in which the magazine raised the question of whether he was exploiting his government position by charging foreign broadcasters for interviews. Week 34 described Perle's potential exposure in the Hollinger scandal. In Week 45, Press Box excerpted Pacifica Radio's Amy Goodman interview with Perle. Goodman asked if he still intended to sue Hersh, and Perle waffled by saying, "there's time." In Week 48, Press Box had no new Perle news upon which to hang a libel watch installment—other than the fact that the one-year statute of limitations for a libel filing was almost up. In Week 49, Press Box reported Perle's policy recommendation that Bush behead his entire intelligence brain trust. In Week 50, Perle fertilized the ground for future libel action when his lawyer announced that his client had resigned from the Defense Policy Board to make it easier to sue news organizations that "falsely accused him of conflicts of interest." In Week 52, Perle appeared on C-SPAN's Booknotes and slagged Hersh. In the finale, Perle declined to sue. Surprise!

On the first anniversary of his libel threat, the bully Perle chickened out. Citing the advice of his attorneys, Perle told the New York Sun (March 12, 2004) that instead of a filing in an English docket, he would try his case in the court of public opinion. The Sun reported:

Mr. Perle will plan to make available either on the Web or through a news conference 80 to 90 pages of transcripts from his lawyer's interviews with individuals interviewed by Mr. Hersh that he said "make it absolutely clear that his reporting in his article is false," Mr. Perle said. "With the benefit of that information I would expect The New Yorker to make a correction."

As a scholar of journalism and a distinguished fellow in Perlean studies, I would very much like to see those transcripts. Christ knows I could squeeze another Perle column out of them. So where are they? It can't possibly take three months to rent some server space and upload 90 pages of text to a Web site.

Maybe Perle's stumbling block is technological. If that's the case, Perle can messenger or e-mail the transcripts to me, and I'll get them posted on the Web overnight. I'll even send the URL for the transcript pages to David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, so he can weigh whether a correction is in order.

If you're reading, Mr. Perle, my e-mail address is . I hope to hear from you at your earliest convenience. If not, you'll be hearing from me. Frequently.

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