Spygate

Ex-CIA Agent (no redaction necessary) speaks out

by Bill Sulon

February 5, 2008

Valerie Plame Wilson knows how journalism is supposed to work in a free society.

As a former staffer on The Collegian newspaper during her undergraduate years at Penn State University, and as someone who grew up in the post-Watergate era, Wilson assumed reporters should use anonymous sources to expose government wrongdoing, not protect it.

Journalism has not quite worked that way lately, as Wilson found out with devastating consequence in 2003. A member of the media, conservative syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak—relying on high-ranking anonymous White House sources—identified Wilson as a CIA operative. Novak's column ran shortly after Wilson's husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, wrote an op-ed piece in The New York Times accusing President Bush of misleading the American people in the run-up to the Iraq War.

The disclosure by Ambassador Wilson infuriated White House officials and made Valerie Wilson "fair game," according to former Bush political adviser Karl Rove, whom Novak would later confirm was one of his sources. Wilson adopted the phrase as the title of her book which, despite censoring by the CIA, paints a damaging portrait of the current administration and the reporters who cover it.

Media missteps

Wilson, who will visit Dickinson College on Sunday, Feb. 17, to discuss her ordeal and sign copies of her book, said she was unfairly targeted by an administration she called the "most vindictive in history," and a compliant media corps that, with few exceptions, was more interested in access than investigative journalism. She will be at the Anita Tuvin Schlechter (ATS) auditorium at 7 p.m. to give the Poitras-Gleim lecture, the keynote address of the 45th Public Affairs Symposium. The theme this year asks the question, "Is Privacy Dead?"

According to evidence disclosed at the trial of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Novak wasn't alone in his close relationship with high-ranking White House insiders. Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine's Matthew Cooper were among those who were told of Valerie Wilson's role at the CIA, but only Novak disclosed it. Miller, who spent time in prison for refusing to identify her sources, wrote a series of articles that were based on anonymous White House sources who assured her that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The U.S. went to war with Iraq and much of the media followed along until it was too late.

"The media understands their culpability and they're still grappling with it," Wilson said in a telephone interview from her home in New Mexico. "The whole run-up of the war with Iraq was aided and abetted by journalists who didn't take the time to wear out shoe leather and seek other sources that might have given them some reality and balance to their stories—a reality other than what the administration was telling them."

Instead, Wilson said, many in the media defended Miller and Cooper in their efforts to protect the identities of their White House sources in the Libby trial.

No First Amendment protection

"I thought there were a lot of pompous talking heads, talking about sanctity of the First Amendment and how they implied that the protection of sources is in the Constitution," she said. "Surprise—it's not. I'm admittedly biased, but I always believed that the protection of sources should be used for the exposure of government wrongdoing, rather than the protection of it. What Cooper and Miller were doing was simply protecting government. It's Watergate turned on its head."

Wilson's career as a counter-proliferation spy ground to a halt, and she retired from the CIA in 2006. She decided to write a book to defend herself and her husband. She had to sue her former employer and submit the manuscript to the CIA for review to publish her side of the story.

"We've endured four and a half years of a character assassination campaign," Wilson said. "Everyone in the world was allowed to talk about me except me. I was happy to get the opportunity to set the record straight."

Fair Game includes sections that were blacked out by CIA censors. Wilson and her publisher decided to leave the redactions intact rather than try to rewrite the book. In a publisher's note, readers are told that many of the cuts were related to material that would have disclosed Wilson's dates of service, "information that has already been widely disseminated."

Libby was convicted in March 2007 on four counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements to a grand jury that investigated the possible leaking of Wilson's identity by government officials. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison and fined $250,000. President Bush commuted the prison sentence.

Wilson said she believes that Vice President Cheney was in on the decision to leak her name to the media. When asked if President Bush played a role, she said, "No comment."

A new, unwanted role

Wilson misses her job. She said she never sought the public and media scrutiny she has encountered since Novak outed her.

"I was very proud to serve my country on counter-proliferation issues," Wilson said. "I did not seek nor require any external recognition from my job. However, that's not the hand we were dealt, and we were able to publish despite the CIA effort to censor me."

Wilson, who grew up in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia, said she looks forward to returning to the East Coast to visit Dickinson students. She said her visits to college campuses and other venues have been beneficial to herself and the audience.

"I'm not a public person, but this is a very important story," she said. "It's a cautionary tale. I have found that in speaking across the country, and when I explain things in chronological order, that people really get it and are appalled. They understand why it is important to hold government accountable for its words and deeds."