Right after the press reports that Nixon was too plastered to talk to whoever on the phone that night, there's this:

According to American officials, the Iranian official in Baghdad, possibly not believing Mr. Chalabi's account, sent a cable to Tehran detailing his conversation with Mr. Chalabi, using the broken code. That encrypted cable, intercepted and read by the United States, tipped off American officials to the fact that Mr. Chalabi had betrayed the code-breaking operation, the American officials said.

American officials reported that in the cable to Tehran, the Iranian official recounted how Mr. Chalabi had said that one of "them" — a reference to an American — had revealed the code-breaking operation, the officials said. The Iranian reported that Mr. Chalabi said the American was drunk.

WTF?

This is too f'ed-up to be real.

...then go read Josh Marshall on this.

...and Kevin Drum reporting on a Michael Ledeen article from the National Review.

[NB: More non-political stuff on its way!]