Now that Judy Miller is out of jail and back in the news I want to point out something that occurred to me over the summer. (If others have noted this, my apologies – I missed it.)
We now know that beginning in 1999, “Who’s Who in America” was carrying a bio of Joseph Wilson — naming “Valerie Plame” as his wife.
That means that when Wilson sat down to write his now famous op-ed for The New York Times, both he and Mrs. Wilson had to recognize the consequences: From the moment it was published, anyone she dealt with in her undercover capacity would be able to easily discover that she was the wife of someone who undertakes assignments for the CIA.
Surely, that would severely limit her ability to work undercover. What is the chance that a foreign agent would agree to buy prohibited weaponry or computers from the wife of a CIA contractor? How open would a foreign spy be in speaking to the wife of a CIA informant?
In other words, as soon as the Times published Wilson’s piece – and before Bob Novak printed her name in his column and David Corn provided details about her CIA work and cover story in the Nation’s online edition — Plame’s career as a covert agent had, effectively, been terminated.
One has to expect that the prosecutor will take that into consideration in determining whether a crime has been committed by anyone.
Walter Pincus’ August 11, 2005 story noting that Plame could be identified “by reading her husband’s entry in ‘Who’s Who in America” is here.