Publisher’s Message
Outed CIA Spy, Valerie Plame Wilson, to be Next Vermont Woman Speaker

Sue Gillis, Publisher

As a spy, Valerie Plame Wilson found herself in a terrible position.

In 2003 her covert identity - as an operative in weapons of mass destruction - was revealed by conservative Robert Novak in his syndicated column. Overnight she was catapulted from a secret agent onto every front page newspaper and TV screen in the world. Her career was over - that was clear. And by association, the missions of many agents around the globe were now in jeopardy, not to mention their very lives. At the CIA's request, the Justice Department began an investigation into the leaking of her name to several national journalists, and the alleged involvement of White House individuals.

The "outing of Valerie Plame" was in direct retaliation to the public accusation by her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, that the White House had "twisted" its intelligence to justify the Iraq invasion. Administration officials repeatedly claimed that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase uranium yellowcake from Niger (thereby implying that Iraq would soon be nuking the U.S.).

Earlier, the CIA had asked former ambassador Wilson to go to Niger and investigate the connection between Iraq, Niger and uranium. Wilson discovered there was no truth to the allegations and he publicly said so in his New York Times OpEd piece, published in July 2003.

It is not surprising that Cheney, Rumsfeld, and all the boys (and Condi) in the war room were livid that Wilson had shown a glaring light on their "misread" of intelligence. They surely would have liked the American public - who they had sufficiently scared comatose by their alarming warnings of "the mushroom cloud soon to be over our nation" - to forever be spared the "truth."

But their revenge to discredit Joe Wilson by destroying his wife's career met its match in Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

Some may believe that this was really a case about the lies we were told as the critical reason to go to war in Iraq. But the heart of the U.S. Justice Department's investigation was the illegal outing of a covert CIA agent: Valerie Plame.

Just some of the fallout from this investigation has been: Judy Miller, a New York Times journalist, jailed for three months for not revealing her source; Cheney's chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, convicted of perjury, sentenced to three years in prison (though his sentence was just recently commuted by Bush, and will probably soon be totally pardoned); and a dismissed civil law suit by the Wilsons, which is on appeal.

Valerie Plame Wilson will be the keynote speaker for the Fourth Annual Vermont Woman Newspaper Lecture Series, Sunday, October 28th, 2007, at 4 p.m. She will speak on the topic "Taking on the White House in an Abuse of Public Trust." She will share her views of this unprecedented effort to silence a critic and to squash the right of citizens to exercise free speech. She will speak about her personal resources for resilience while under international scrutiny, and what it is like to be a CIA mom as a mother of seven-year-old twins.

Her much anticipated book Fair Game (Simon and Schuster) was due to be published this past spring but was blocked by the CIA; it is now set for an October 15th publishing date if the CIA relents.

The story of Valerie Plame Wilson will forever be connected to this dreadful Iraq War and the quagmire the United States has created and cannot seem to resolve. On October 28th, she will be in Burlington for the afternoon, and members of the audience will have the opportunity to pose questions following her talk. This promises to be an extraordinary experience for Vermont Woman readers and the entire Vermont community - students, those from the academic, legal, and political professions - for everyone concerned about the future of our democracy.

Vermont Woman Newspaper is delighted to present Valerie Plame Wilson.

Tickets are limited so you are urged to buy them early: tickets are $28.00 and available online at www.vermontwoman.com or by calling 802-861-6200 from 9 a.m to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday.