For Plame, life is now a desk job at the CIA

In the two years since Plame’s dual identity was revealed, the criminal investigation into who leaked her name has overtaken official Washington and led to the indictment of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, on charges of obstruction of justice, perjury and false statements.

No one has been charged with a crime for disclosing Plame’s identity, which her husband says was an act of retribution after he spoke out against the administration.

Wilson says he and his wife have no regrets, although he would love to give back his wife her career as a covert operative.

“I just talked to my wife this morning and we would do it again in a New York minute,” he said just days before Libby was indicted. After the indictment was released, he issued a public plea for his family’s privacy, adding, “They did not choose to be brought into the public square and they do not wish to be under the glare of the cameras.”

In all of the hubbub, just about everyone but Plame herself has taken a shot at defining her.

Plame, 42, has been vilified by the right as part of an anti-Bush cabal and lionized by the left as the patriotic victim of a smear. When her identity first was revealed, one Republican congressman demanded, “We need to know if she was a spy or if she was a glorified secretary.” Those were fighting words to Johnson and other former colleagues who trained with Plame and jumped to her defense.

But Johnson says many at the CIA, where she now holds a desk job, treat her as a leper, afraid that association with her could damage their own career. “She’s radioactive,” he said.

‘She’s legitimately angry’
“She’s keeping her sense of humor but she’s legitimately angry,” said Johnson. “It has completely destroyed her ability to ever work as a case officer, which is what she was trained to do.”

Plame’s lawyer, next-door neighbor Wolf, says she has been barred by the CIA from making public comments. The CIA confirms only that she was denied permission to publish an op-ed piece she wrote to set the record straight.

Neighbors and friends, although floored by her dual identity, say Plame remains the same caring friend and conscientious mother she was before her cover was blown.

She drives a hybrid car, helps her little boy and girl adjust to kindergarten, takes care of the Tillotsons’ cat when they are away, and keeps some pumpkins and Indian corn on the front porch of their red brick house.

The twins, says Plame’s mother, Diane, “are her first priorities and she’s tried to maintain as normal an atmosphere as she possibly can.”

Plame has consented to one photo, her blonde hair and good looks glamorously shrouded by a scarf and sunglasses as she posed for Vanity Fair alongside her husband in his Jaguar.

It is has been a long, wild ride for the girl who was born in Alaska and moved around in an Air Force family before settling as a teenager in suburban Philadelphia. After Penn State and joining the CIA, she picked up degrees from the London School of Economics and the College of Europe in Belgium.

“You’d love them as friends,” says Jane Honikman, a Californian who founded a postpartum support network and became friends with the Wilsons after their twins were born and Plame sought help for depression. “They’re just such normal people.”

Honikman remembers sitting on the Wilsons’ deck after dinner one night, enjoying the view of the Washington Monument.

“We were sitting at the seat of all this power, and they were part of that and now they’re not,” she said. “I know that they really are hurt.”

It’s unlikely Plame will remain at the CIA for long.

“She wants to be a mom and also be respected for her work and acknowledged for her hard work, but how much more she can stay there and tolerate the stress, I have no idea,” Honikman said.

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