E-mail a friendValerie Plame Wilson
airdate November 5, 2007
For more than 20 years, Valerie Plame Wilson worked as a covert CIA operative. The public disclosure of her "other life"—in what was thought to be retaliation for criticism of the Bush administration by her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson—led to a grand jury investigation. She retired from the agency in '06 and, for the first time, shares her feelings about what happened in her memoir, Fair Game. The daughter of an Air Force colonel, Wilson holds two masters degrees and speaks four languages.
Former CIA operative explains why disclosing her identity was a breach of national security. (1:13)
Valerie Plame Wilson
Tavis: Valerie Plame Wilson served as a covert CIA operative for nearly 20 years, including a stint as the agency's chief of operations in the counter-proliferation division. But in 2003, as if you didn't know, her identity was famously quoted in a column by Robert Novak, leading to the scandal that would bear her name - Plamegate.
The new best seller about her ordeal is called "Fair Game: My Life as a Spy and Betrayal by the White House." Valerie Plame Wilson, nice to have you here.
Valerie Plame Wilson: Thank you for having me.
Tavis: What do you make of waking up and seeing the papers every day with this new terminology, Plamegate? How do you deal with that?
Wilson: Well, I think it's fair to say that I'm still dealing with it. I went literally from being a very private person to overnight, after the betrayal of my name, to being a very public persona. And it's very strange, very surreal.
Tavis: So speaking of surreal, then, and strange, how does it feel, then, to have lived most of your life in a clandestine sort of way, in secrecy, and now got this dense text that tells me more about you, including your postpartum depression, than I could ever want to know about Valerie Plame Wilson? It's a radical departure.
Wilson: Well, it's been a long road to get here. It's been four and a half years, and everyone else in the world has been allowed to talk about me and tell my story, and finally I get to talk about it. And it's an important story. It's the story of how important it is to speak truth to power, and the consequences that flow from it.
Tavis: What's the challenge, though - I've written a few books myself - what's the challenge, though, to being such a private person and sitting down and in defense of your good name, to have to tell all of, so much of your personal business?
Wilson: It's because it's a story that needs to be told. It's about holding our government to account for its words and deeds. I get to write about joining the agency, going down to the paramilitary course at what they call The Farm, my later work in counter-proliferation, and then waking up one day and being this - seeing my name in the papers.
Tavis: So what do you think of Robert Novak?
Wilson: (Laughs) I think that he has changed his story so many times, it's hard to keep them all straight. And he's really just a minor player in all of this.
Tavis: When you say "minor player," I suspect there's somebody watching right now who doesn't quite know what you mean by that, because he's the guy that started this ball rolling, publicly, at least. I would expect to see your hair start to blow up with steam coming out of your ears just at the mention of the name of Robert Novak, and yet you say he's a minor player in all of this.
Wilson: Joe and I have been through a lot in the last couple of years. We've gone through character assassination of our motives, why we did this. My husband's been called a liar, a traitor, and worse. And the important point in all of this is that we felt that we did what we had to do. It was important; we tried to do the right thing. The rest of the characters will have to figure out their own conscience.
Tavis: The Joe, of course, you're referring to, a guest on this show previously, Ambassador Joe Wilson, your husband.
Wilson: I don't have to call him ambassador.
Tavis: Yeah, okay, well, I do. (Laughter) Just in case he's watching, Ambassador Wilson, how are you, sir? You and the ambassador have a set of 7.5-year-old twins.
Wilson: That's right.
Tavis: In addition to that, you talk in the book - again, courageously, and very publicly, obviously - about the fact that it took its toll, this investigation and all of this took its toll at one point on your marriage, and the marriage, in fact, was on the rocks at one point.
Wilson: There were some very difficult, dark days. But as tough as it's been for us sometimes, personally, Joe and I have never lost sight of the fact that it was mere inconvenience compared to what families of service men and women who are serving in Iraq have gone through, and the sacrifices they have made. So we have that in perspective.
Plus as you point out, having a couple of 7.5-year-olds at home helps keep things normal.
Tavis: I'm seeing you for the first time in person now, and I think those eyes are blue. So we got a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman sitting in front of me who wanted to join the CIA for what reasons?
Wilson: I have come from a family with a tradition of public service. My father was an Air Force officer. He served in World War II in the South Pacific. My brother is a wounded Vietnam Marine Corps veteran. So there was this theme of public service in my family. And I thought it sounded like I what a wonderful opportunity to serve my country, live and work overseas in a career that was exciting. And I did, I loved it. I was proud to serve my country.
Tavis: So what happens, then, when you wake up one day and because of Mr. Novak, because of Mr. Rove and others inside the White House, as you suggest in the book's subtitle, betrayed you, all of that comes to an end. How do you navigate being a CIA officer one day who nobody knows and -
Wilson: If none of this had happened, I would be living and working overseas right now, focusing on -
Tavis: Still working for the CIA?
Wilson: Absolutely. Working on counter-proliferation issues, something that's critical to our national security. And it's been a very long, strange road.
Tavis: For those watching right now who are trying to make the connection between how - because those who have defended you, including Ambassador Wilson and those who defended you publicly in politics and beyond, have made the case, made the point consistently that it was a breach of national security, that our national security was at stake by outing when this CIA officer, Valerie Plame Wilson, was outed. Make the connection between your being outed and it breaching or putting in jeopardy national security.
Wilson: I use the word "treason," and I measure my words carefully, because that's exactly what happened. This is not a Republican or Democratic issue. This is an issue of national security. And it's so ironic, because in the CIA, we always anticipate that perhaps our foreign enemies will betray us. That's part of the deal. How horribly ironic that it was senior administration officials who betrayed me, to undermine and discredit my husband, Joe Wilson, because he was a critic of the primary rationale that this administration gave for going to war, which was the nuclear threat.
Tavis: The book's title, "Fair Game - " I'll let you explain where that comes from. What is ironic about it is that it comes from Karl Rove - I'm telling your story. It comes from Karl Rove. You tell the story about how and why it comes from Karl Rove. But the funny part of the story is that you and Rove went to the same church in D.C.
Wilson: It's a small world, indeed.
Tavis: So take the story, yeah. Take it.
Wilson: The title comes from the comment that Karl Rove made to Chris Matthews, saying, “Wilson's wife is fair game.” So when the time came to choose a title, I thought back to that and I thought it worked on a couple levels. But yes, we actually did attend the same church in Washington. We have since moved from there, but -
Tavis: Small world, yeah. We've mentioned now Robert Novak, we've mentioned Chris Matthews. Indeed, there are all kinds of other folk who were called to testify in hearings around this investigation. What's your sense now of the media? And I ask that because I'm looking at an irony here, certainly - I guess irony's a good word. The media, on the one hand, I suspect you were not big on not long ago because of what happened to you, and yet were it not for the media, this book wouldn't be selling in the way it is. So I'm curious - I'm not casting aspersion on you, I'm just saying what do you make of the media these days?
Wilson: Well, what I'll say is this. During Mr. Libby's trial, I think we had a really good glimpse into the symbiotic relationship between especially the Washington press corps and the White House. Now, that's not news in the sense that there is always that tight relationship there, but to the extent to which this particular administration has gone to intimidate and to restrict access if they don't like the way the reporting goes I think really came out in the trial.
And my particular issue aside, I think we've seen now a lot of - with a little bit of time and distance, the run-up to the war in Iraq, how the media, for the most part - I know it's a sweeping generalization - but many of them would say this themselves, I think, that they accepted what the administration was saying about the invasion, conquest, and occupation of Iraq without wearing out a whole lot of shoe leather to ask maybe mid-level managers at the Pentagon and other places around Washington, "What's your postwar planning? What is your thinking about a possible insurgency?
They simply took what the administration was spooning up and put it out there without really looking any more than one or two questions deep.
Tavis: Having had, then, for lack of a better word, the phrase this close encounter with the Washington media, the Washington press corps - I hear your critique now, which really is if they accept it and hear it, a suggestion to those of us in the media, even those of us here in L.A. and not in Washington - what, given your experience, do you say to the American people about how they ought to read what they are told every day given, again, your close encounter with the media?
Wilson: I would hope, particularly now as we see a lot of saber rattling vis-à-vis Iran and that whole situation, I would hope that our experience with Iraq and how we were led so quickly to a rush to war, that Americans would seek to find as much information as possible from a variety of sources, not just the ones that are comfortable to them and share their world view, but that - and there are so many places now beyond three network channels which to get that.
So it's really important to educate yourself, and that's how - I don't mind if someone shares a different political opinion, I don't care. But what is it important is that they have an opinion and it's educated and they understand the position that they're taking, not just because it feeds a certain world view of theirs.
Tavis: So you've left the CIA now.
Wilson: I have, I resigned.
Tavis: You resigned, and have left D.C. and moved to another part of the country with your 7.5-year-old twins and your husband, Joe, the ambassador. Speaking of the media, though, the media, Valerie, tells us that tomorrow, a matter of hours from now, that Mr. Mukasey is likely to be sent out of committee to the floor to be confirmed as the next attorney general.
And yet there are many of us, yours truly included, who are concerned about that because we cannot - my read on this - get an honest answer, a clear - not honest; honest is the wrong word - get a clear and concise answer out of him as the presumptive head of the attorney general's office. But we can't get a clear answer on what torture is. What do you make of that?
Wilson: What I would say is this. During my training for the CIA at what we call The Farm, I went through a very intense hostile interrogation exercise. I can't go into too much detail, but I write about it in the book. The whole point was to see if you would break. And they employed many tactics on us, but they did not employ waterboarding, because that is deemed to be torture.
And the fact that this nominee seems to have trouble saying whether it is or is not, I think an easy solution of that would maybe to have the CIA brief him on exactly what waterboarding is and how it's done, because his get-around has been saying, "Well, I don't really know exactly what it entails," and so forth.
There is no doubt in my mind that we have moved away from the international treaties which we have signed - the Geneva Convention among them - that absolutely outlaw torture. It is abhorrent, and it diminishes our international credibility, our moral authority, our political authority, and I can't imagine that it - the bottom line is, it's not effective, as well, given all the moral issues aside.
Tavis: I got just a minute here to go. All things considered, was it worth it to have been there, to have been outed, was it worth it? And have you been able to build the kind of life that you envisioned years ago when you joined the CIA, given that so much of your life is a secret, even, I suspect, from the people who are closest to you?
Wilson: I think, if I can turn around your question a little bit, was would you do it again? And Joe and I of course have spoken about this, because it's been a tough road. But yeah, we felt we had no choice. He had to write what he knew to be the truth, and the administration would not come clean on those now-infamous 16 words in the president's state of the union address.
We have tried to act throughout this with integrity, keep grace when we can, and we finally have little kids that we have to answer to when they grow up one day and they said, "You mean you knew this and you didn't say anything?" So we have tried to build a new life in New Mexico. It's a beautiful part of the world. But we don't want to be defined by this. We want to move on and contribute in another way. I don't know how yet.
Tavis: Well, I'm sure you'll figure it out.
Wilson: (Laughter) I hope so.
Tavis: After the book tour, of course. The book is called "Fair Game," by Valerie Plame Wilson. "My Life as a Spy and My Betrayal by the White House." Valerie, nice to have you here.
Wilson: Thank you for having me.
Tavis: It's my pleasure.
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