Valerie Plame was not ‘covert’

Rather than comment on all of Gary Gerst’s diatribe, “Political double standards remain,” in Letters to the Editor, I would like to address his untrue statement: that “Cheney, Rove and Libby outed Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA operative.” Having worked for the agency for 39 years, let me add this perspective.

In 1982 Victoria Toensing, who was then chief counsel to the Senate intelligence committee, negotiated the terms of the legislation between media and intelligence community, which among other things define “covert status.” She later testified that under that definition, Valerie Plame was not considered a covert employee, so no law was violated.

Valerie Plame was not a front-line soldier or undercover CIA operative in the war on terror; she was merely a mid-level analyst working an account like the rest of us at CIA. When she went overseas on a rotational assignment yes, she was undercover as most agency employees are; but the covert status was for those who were spies gathering intelligence and running covert operations.

Rove, Libby and Cheney were not the ones responsible for leaking information on Plame’s place of employment. If the public really wanted to prosecute someone for a “breach of security” and “outing” this poor lady, then they should have gone after then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who was the first person to identify Plame’s identity to reporters. A fact known to Fitzgerald shortly after he was appointed to investigate this “leak.”

This story was originally published August 30, 2016 at 1:47 PM with the headline "Valerie Plame was not ‘covert’."