[Mb-civic] Valerie Plame, the Spy Who Got Shoved Out Into the Cold - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Valerie Plame, the Spy Who Got Shoved Out Into the Cold

By Richard Leiby
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 29, 2005; Page C01

What's ahead for Valerie Plame?

Lost in the din of the leak scandal that has consumed Washington is the 
very personal impact on the willowy blond CIA operative at its center. 
Plame, 42, wife of former U.S. ambassador Joseph Wilson, has become the 
most famous spy in the world, but her career has been derailed. It 
appears likely she will leave the CIA, some acquaintances say, but she 
hasn't publicly signaled her plans.

Plame, the mother of 5-year-old twins, recently told a friend, Jane 
Honikman, that she intends to retire from the agency where she has 
worked for 20 years. "She really wants to be with her kids -- that's her 
plan, to be that mom," said Honikman, founder of a postpartum depression 
support network in which Plame has been active.

Although Plame has been under "tremendous stress" as the subject of 
global publicity and political spin, Honikman added, "she has a good 
sense of humor still and a wonderful, charming ability to look on the 
bright side." Several friends say she was devastated by the disclosure 
of her name in July 2003, but she went on with her life: She and Wilson 
circulated socially, took weekend walks along the C&O Canal and went to 
church. At events where media were present, Plame unfailingly smiled and 
exchanged pleasantries.

She has never granted an interview, effectively gagged by the CIA, whose 
guidelines require employees to clear media contacts and publications. 
But she hasn't been totally averse to publicity. She once posed for a 
Vanity Fair photograph in her husband's Jaguar, ala Grace Kelly, wearing 
sunglasses and a headscarf. For many critics of her media-savvy husband, 
that offered proof enough that she was out to capitalize on her 
notoriety -- further fodder in an affair that has become as highly 
politicized as any other White House scandal.

Wilson, whose credibility and qualifications have come under withering 
Republican fire ever since he went public about his CIA-sponsored trip 
to Niger and criticisms of the Iraq war, said yesterday in a statement: 
"While I may engage in public discourse, my wife and my family are 
private people. They did not choose to be brought into the public 
square, and they do not wish to be under the glare of cameras. . . . 
This case is not about me or my family, no matter how others might try 
to make it so."

Plame, the daughter of an Air Force colonel and an elementary school 
teacher, was recruited by the CIA at 22, shortly after graduation from 
Pennsylvania State University. She was in the 1985-86 class of CIA 
officers trained at "The Farm" near Williamsburg, where the curriculum 
included learning to drive under fire, blowing up cars and handling an 
AK-47.

...continued at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/28/AR2005102801172.html?nav=hcmodule
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