‘Twenty years of loyal service down the drain’

The week was not without its drama, however. Even though I had been avoiding the press since the day after my article appeared in July, I had still been intently following the reporting about Novak’s article in the media. Too intently. I was waking up in the middle of the night and pacing the floor, as I had during that critical period in Baghdad during Desert Shield. Back then, my mind would be going a thousand miles a minute, trying to gain an edge on the thugs in the Iraqi regime; now I was trying to predict what the thugs in my own government would do, so I’d be ready to react effectively to their next move. I would get up at 3:00 a.m., after only a few hours of sleep, and review press reports from around the world. In Britain, meanwhile, Prime Minister Tony Blair was under the gun for possibly having “sexed up” the case he had made on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. In Australia, Prime Minister John Howard was subjected to similar hard questions as well; he would subsequently be censured for having deceived his parliament. Howard and British Foreign Minister Jack Straw were both obliged to tell their press that they did not know Joe Wilson.

Four days after Novak’s article appeared, Britain was convulsed by the suicide of a former weapons inspector named David Kelly, a longtime civil servant in the ministry of defense. Kelly had been a source for the BBC’s exposé of the charge that the government had exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam. He had been under increasing pressure from the investigation and had apparently killed himself. I received several calls from friends wondering, first, whether it had in fact been a suicide; and, if not, was I watching my own security? They also wanted to know how I was bearing up under the pressure. I, too, wondered about Kelly’s death and later told a BBC producer that I hoped the inquest into his death would be credible.

I was horrified that I could actually harbor suspicions — ones that were also being expressed by others — that a democratic government might actually do bodily harm to a political opponent. I laughed it off for my friends and pointed out that my golf handicap had gone down two strokes in the two and a half weeks of my enforced vacation. And I rationalized that in situations like the one in which I now found myself, it was important to be either so visible that your adversaries would be among the first to be blamed should anything out of the ordinary happen to you, or so invisible that nobody really knew who you were.

That same week, on Thursday, July 17, David Corn called to alert me that what Novak had done, or at least what the person who had leaked Valerie’s name to him had done, was possibly a crime, in that it might represent a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. Corn then published a detailed explanation of the law to ensure that other journalists, as well as regular readers of The Nation, understood all the legalities involved.

MORE FROM BOOKS

Books Section Front

‘Polar Obsession’ How eating right can make you happy 10 years later, ‘Nanny Returns’ to new problems Gifts for bookworms: Authors share top picks Is there a link between dogs and divorce? A kid’s guide to scoring gifts from Santa Al’s Book Club goes retro: ‘Nancy Drew,’ ‘Hardy Boys’ Paranormal romance plays in ‘The Seven Rays’ Brother West: ‘Being true to the funk of living’ ‘Viagra Diaries’ explores dating among 60+ set Books Section Front   Add Books headlines to your news reader: