Woodward apologizes for silence on CIA agent

WASHINGTON -- Bob Woodward apologized to The Washington Post yesterday for failing to reveal for more than two years that a senior Bush administration official had told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, even as an investigation of who disclosed her identity mushroomed into a national scandal

Woodward, an assistant managing editor and best-selling author, said he told executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. that he held back the information because he was worried about being subpoenaed by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel leading the investigation.

''I apologized because I should have told him about this much sooner," Woodward, who testified in the CIA leak investigation Monday, said in an interview. ''I explained in detail that I was trying to protect my sources. That's job number one in a case like this. . . .

''I hunkered down. I'm in the habit of keeping secrets. I didn't want anything out there that was going to get me subpoenaed."

Downie, who was informed by Woodward late last month, said his most famous employee had ''made a mistake." Despite Woodward's concerns about his confidential sources, Downie said, ''he still should have come forward, which he now admits. We should have had that conversation. . . . I'm concerned that people will get a misimpression about Bob's value to the newspaper and our readers."

The belated revelation that Woodward has been sitting on information about the Wilson controversy reignited questions about his unique relationship with The Post while he writes books with unparalleled access to high-level officials, and about why Woodward denigrated the Fitzgerald probe in television and radio interviews while not divulging his own involvement in the matter.

''It just looks really bad," said Eric Boehlert, a Rolling Stone contributing editor. ''It looks like what people have been saying about Bob Woodward for the past five years, that he's become a stenographer for the Bush White House."