The spy who took on the White House

Valerie Plame Wilson takes on the Washington establishment in her new book, “Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House.” Plame was at the center of a firestorm in 2003 that began when she sent her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, to Niger to investigate whether Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase uranium. After he wrote a column critical of the Bush administration's rationale for invading Iraq, Plame was outed as a CIA agent. The rest, now history, is chronicled in her book. Here's an excerpt:

Publisher's Note
All employees of the Central Intelligence Agency must sign a confidentiality agreement that requires that they submit their writings to the CIA for prepublication review. Valerie Plame Wilson, whose work for the CIA entailed covert operations, of course abided by this agreement, and her manuscript was reviewed by the CIA and returned to her with numerous redactions —cuts — that the CIA determined were necessary. Many of these cuts related to material that would disclose Ms. Wilson’s dates of service, information that has already been widely disseminated.

As has been reported, Simon & Schuster and Ms. Wilson brought a legal action against the CIA; we felt that the redactions required by the CIA went beyond any reasonable requirements of national security and impaired important First Amendment rights. A federal district court has disagreed, determining, essentially, that while Ms. Wilson’s dates of service may be in the public domain, they cannot be reported by Ms. Wilson. Accordingly, Ms. Wilson’s portion of this book contains only that information that the CIA has deemed unclassified and has allowed her to include.

The sections of Fair Game that have been blacked out indicate the places where the CIA has ordered cuts. Still, even with these substantial redactions, we believe the book conveys the power of Ms. Wilson’s story, if, alas, not all its details.

To enhance the reader’s experience Simon & Schuster has added an afterword by reporter Laura Rozen. Drawn from interviews and public sources, it provides historical background and recounts portions of Ms. Wilson’s life and career that she was unable to include herself. When the afterword is read together with Fair Game,a full and vivid picture of Valerie Plame Wilson emerges. Ms. Wilson has had no input or involvement in the creation of the afterword, which she has not seen before the publication of this book.

Simon & Schuster has also added an appendix of relevant documents.

We thank you for your understanding and look forward to your enjoyment of this important book.

CHAPTER 1

Joining the CIA

Our group of five — three men and two women — trekked through an empty tract of wooded land and swamp, known in CIA terms as the “Farm.” It was 4 a.m. and we had been on the move all night. Having practiced escape and evasion from an ostensible hostile force — our instructors — we were close to meeting up with our other classmates. Together we would attack the enemy, then board a helicopter to safety. This exercise, called the final assault, was the climax of our paramilitary training. Each of us carried eighty-pound backpacks, filled with essential survival gear: tents, freeze-dried food, tablets to purify drinking water, and 5.56 mm ammunition for our M-16s. The late fall weather was bitter, and slimy water sloshed in our combat boots. A blister on my heel radiated little jabs of stinging pain. My friend Pete, a former Army officer, usually ready with a wisecrack and a smirk, hadn’t spoken in hours, while John, our resident beer guzzler, carried not only his backpack but at least fifty extra pounds of body weight. His round face was covered with mud and sweat.

When our point man gave the hand signal, we gratefully stopped, shrugged off our backpacks, and slumped together for a moment against a small protected knoll. Then we fell into formation again and moved toward the landing zone. When we finally reached a clearing at dawn, I could barely make out the blades of an enormous helicopter rotating slowly, and the friendly faces of my other classmates, Sharon, David, and Tex. I heard Pete mutter, “Finally.” We all surged forward, energized by relief and hope. I began to imagine the hot shower I would enjoy when this was over. Then suddenly the sharp firecrackers of light from magnesium flares exploded over our heads and the repetitive sound of machine-gun fire sent adrenaline rushing through my veins.

I dropped to the ground and crawled over to Pete, thinking he would know what to do. Despite three months of hard training, my idyllic suburban upbringing had not prepared me for incoming fire and the overwhelming physical sensations that accompanied it. Dragging me a few yards away to a crest of land, Pete pointed at the helicopter. “Get your ass over there!”

Before I knew it, we brushed aside any pretense of military discipline and made a dead run at the helicopter. As we careened down the hill at full speed, M-16s blazing, I caught the eye of a classmate running alongside me. His expression suggested a hint of enjoyment, or at least his awareness of the absurdity of the situation. Soon enough, I threw myself into the open door of the helicopter and caught my breath beneath the noise of artillery and the deafening sounds of the rotors and engines. I shrugged off my pack, and as we were lifted to safety, I marveled at how I came to be at the Farm.

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********* ********************************************** ************************************************* ************************************************* * * * * * * * * * As a teenager, I read William Stevenson’s A Man Called Intrepid, about the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) days during World War II. The OSS was the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency. I loved the book and I found the history intriguing. I began to seriously consider what working for the CIA meant. If I joined, what would I be asked to do? Was it dangerous? Did I believe in what the CIA did? My family had always valued public service and kept a quiet patriotism. On Memorial Day and the Fourth of July we always put out the flag in a big flowerpot. My father, Samuel Plame, was a retired Air Force colonel. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he was studying at the University of Illinois in Champaign. He remembers that the next day the campus was a ghost town; all the eligible male students had left to sign up for military service. He was soon on his own way to enlist in the Army Air Corps — the Air Force predecessor — in San Diego. He served in the South Pacific during World War II and has a seemingly inexhaustible supply of corny jokes, stories, and songs from his time there. My brother, Robert Plame, older than me by sixteen years, joined the Marines in 1966 and was promptly sent to Vietnam. One day in 1967, as my parents and I returned home from some errands, the neighbors told us that two uniformed Marines had been knocking at our door. We learned that Bob was MIA. My stricken parents assumed the worst and, for a few days, we did not know if Bob was dead or alive. He was finally located on a hospital ship. During a reconnaissance mission behind enemy lines, he had been badly wounded in his right arm. He endured years of multiple, painful operations to restore some sensation in his limb. Incredibly, with just one working arm and hand, he went on to learn how to fly, ski, write, and tie shoelaces. He has been happily married to Christie, a nurse, for nearly thirty years and is the proud father of two bright and beautiful girls. I thought that if I served in the CIA it would extend a family tradition. Still, I had my nagging doubts. Hadn’t the CIA tried to kill Castro with an exploding cigar?

“Imagine you are meeting an agent in a foreign hotel room and there is suddenly a loud banging at the door. You hear ‘Police, let us in!’ What do you do?” This question was being put to me by a kindly looking older woman wearing pearls and a surprisingly bright yellow blouse during my initial CIA interview in Washington. I * * * * * * * ********* * * * * * * * had checked into a modest — well, seedy — hotel in Arlington, Virginia. I had no idea what to expect but the interview the next day, in a beige building in the suburbs of Washington, followed along the traditional lines of “What are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, why do you want to work for the CIA” — until now. This question veered off the conventional path and was more interesting. My immediate thought was that excluding espionage, there is only one good reason for an unrelated man and woman to be in a hotel room together. “I would take off my blouse, tell the agent to do the same, and jump into bed before telling the police to come in.” Her barely perceptible smile told me I had hit on the right answer. I thought, This could be fun. I was ready for the next question.

*********************************************** ****************************** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * but I thought if it didn’t pan out, I could find something on Capitol Hill or in the Peace Corps. In the meantime, I found a job as a management trainee with a * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Washington department store * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . Despite the 20 percent employee discount, I hated working in retail, but it was a way to pay the rent as I continued through months of CIA psychological tests, a battery of interviews, and an exacting, comprehensive physical exam. One question out of at least four hundred in one psychological test still stands out in my memory: “Do you like tall women?” I still have no idea if I got the right answer on that one. Later that summer, I was asked to take a polygraph exam. It was a weird, but relatively brief experience. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** *********** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * At the same time, the Agency was conducting a security background check on me. Several neighbors reported to my parents that “someone * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * had interviewed them to ask if I had any known drinking, drug, or other problems. ***************** * * * * * * * * * * * * * ************************************************* ************************************************ ************************************************* ************************************************* ************************************************* ************************************************* ************************************************* ************************************************* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * ******* * * * * * I nervously settled into my chair in a nondescript government classroom in a bland office building in a congested Virginia suburb. I took in my * classmates in our CIA introduction course. Many of the young men were clearly ex-military types, some still sporting regulation buzz cuts. Just less than half were women, but as I later learned, only a fraction of those were destined, like me, to work in the Directorate of Operations (DO). The rest were pegged to become analysts in the Directorate of Intelligence (DI) or administrative/logistical officers and the like in the Directorate of Administration (DA). A few were engineers who would ultimately work in the Directorate of Science and Technology (DST), the Agency’s research arm. It looked like I was the * * * * * ** * * by far and this suspicion was confirmed when a tiny woman, nearly as wide as she was tall, took me and three other (male) classmates into her office during a break. She was the DO liaison to the Career Trainees (CTs) — in other words, she would be our den mother as we worked through the initial training. It was hard to believe that this matronly woman had actually been an operator in “the field,” but she certainly knew a lot more about the CIA than any of us did. “* * * * * * * * * * * * * * ******************************** ************************************************* * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * PCS meant “permanent change of Station,” in other words, assignment abroad. As the acronyms flew around us, it was clear that a paramilitary culture reigned at the CIA.

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