The fact is that people at the CIA asked Mrs. Wilson to talk to Mr. Wilson about going to Niger to investigate the Yellowcake claims is a part of the story that seems to be getting no play.
The reason why Novak wrote about this was because Wilson rebuked the Yellowcake evidence put forward by British intelligence and repeated in the now-famous "16 words" in the SOTU address.
She is a crux of why he went their to begin with and his . She is an integral part of the story. So, when Novak revealed that she was a CIA employee (including her name), it was part of the story.
Releasing her name, in light of the fact that so many people in Washington D.C. (and even Mr. Wilson's own biography) knew her name and what she did might not have been the best journalistic decision, but it was hardly "do not publish" information. Even the CIA said that they would prefer that he didn't release the name, but didn't insist on it.
Novak, while maintaining his journalistic intregrity, would have likely excluded the name if the CIA explained the potential national security issue. He would have likely said, "Wilson, whose wife works with CIA..." The fact (indisputable fact) is that the CIA didn't do so...they merely preferred that he not mention it.
You said, "His "denial" is simply that they didn't contact him to give him the info - they volunteered it in conversation about the Wilson matter".
Novak's statement says:
"Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson's report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction."
It doesn't say that the administration official gave them the name, rather, that Mr. Wilson's wife was the inspiration for his trip to Niger. This is absolutely true. Senior CIA officials asked her to discuss it with them. It is also known, through Mr. Wilson's own biography, that his wife's name is Valarie Plame, not to mention to the Washington D.C. cocktail circuit.
In a few posts, I had the order wrong. The administration official indicated that the wife was the inspiration for Mr. Wilson's trip to Niger. That's it. Novak could have already known or found Wilson's wife's name (by a simple Google search). Then he confirmed that detail with the CIA, with the CIA only preferring him not publishing the name, not insisting that it not be published due to national security concerns. "Another senior official told me the same thing. As a professional journalist with 46 years experience in Washington I do not reveal confidential sources. When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson's involvement in the mission for her husband -- he is a former Clinton administration official -- they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. "According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of undercover operatives."