Posted on 08/04/2005 9:17:13 PM PDT by Cautor
If Valerie Elise Plame Wilson was a top-notch covert spy, as the main stream media would have us believe, we’re all in real trouble. Spending even a couple of hours on the web demonstrates she was less than adept at hiding her deep cover as the following items—pieced together from searching the Internet—indicate.
So what do we know about Ms. Plame? She was born April 19, 1963 in a military hospital in Anchorage Alaska to Samuel D. Plame, an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, and Diane E. Plame her mother. She graduated from Lower Moreland High in Huntingdon Valley, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania in 1981 and headed off to Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania where she received a BA in journalism in 1984. She later studied abroad at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the College of Europe, an international relations school in Bruges Belgium. It is possible she studied in Europe after she was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
According to a friend who knew her when she worked on the staff of the college newspaper, The Daily Collegian, Valerie “visited State College [PA] a year or two after her graduation, and she spoke vaguely of her new occupation in Washington.” The friend thought her visit was probably for a football game or some such. This suggests she was may still have been in the U.S. in the 1985-1986 timeframe.
Not much if anything is publicly known of Plame’s career during the 8 year period from about 1986 until 1994. We do know that on February 22, 1994, Aldrich Ames, a CIA counter-intelligence officer and analyst, and his wife were charged by the US Department of Justice with spying for the Soviet Union. From many published accounts, including one by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times, it appears highly likely that Ames’ spying activities disclosed the covert identity of Plame along with that of many other CIA agents thus effectively ending her utility as a spy. So her undercover security was undermined at that time and she was brought back to Washington, DC for safety reasons.
Only 3 months after the Ames indictment, it appears the CIA set up a front company called Brewster-Jennings & Associates. According to the records, Brewster-Jennings was first entered into Dun and Bradstreet records on May 22, 1994. With an address at 101 Arch Street, Boston, Massachusetts, the company claimed to be a “legal services office.” According to its web site, the company billed itself as a “law firm concentrating in the energy field.” The site also claims they were founded in 1994 by company partner Victor Brewster. Also according to the site, the company “conducts business with leading energy firms such as Mobil and ARAMCO. With offices in both Boston and Washington, DC the firm has staff with a combined 70 years of legal experience, eager to serve you.”
But, according to a piece called "Apparent CIA front didn’t offer much cover," the company had no visible presence at the 21-story office tower in Boston. It didn’t even bother to file the state and local records required of most real businesses. Some from the real estate industry said they believed something was “amiss, if not illegal” about the company. Rob Griffin, regional president of a real estate firm that once oversaw the leased property remarked that “It’s almost like out of a spy novel—the tenant that wasn’t there.”
In fact, former intelligence officials mentioned in the story confirmed Plame’s cover was an invention “and that she used other false identities and affiliations when working overseas.” In fact one former intelligence official who did not want his name used in the story put it this way: “All it was was a telephone and a post office box…when she was abroad she had more viable cover.” According to intelligence observers mentioned in the story, “that’s a good thing, considering how little work seems to have gone in to establishing the company’s presence in Boston…At the least, a dummy company ought to create the appearance of activity, with an office and a valid mailing address…A cover that falls apart on first inspection isn’t very good. What you want is a cover that actually holds up… and this one certainly doesn’t.” David Armstrong, an Andover researcher for the Public Education Center, believed the Brewster-Jennings cover had not been done convincingly and that other covers would have been established for her by the CIA. In any case, the bottom line is that Plame’s non-official cover as an energy analyst with Brewster-Jennings was not apparently used until 1995 because the firm did not exist prior to that time. As a point of interest, Brewster Jennings the man was president of the old Vacuum Oil Company, a predecessor of Exxon Mobil. He is mentioned in the “Forrestal Diaries” edited by Walter Millis in connection with the importance of Middle Eastern oil.
While supposedly employed by Brewster-Jennings, Plame was apparently working in the Washington, DC area, as a history of addresses reported for her include one in Falls Church and one in Arlington, both in the Virginia suburbs of Washington DC and both in reasonable proximity to CIA headquarters.
In early 1997, about 3 years after the CIA established the Brewster-Jennings cover for Plame, she met her future husband, Joseph C. Wilson, IV, a career foreign service officer and diplomat, at a party in Washington, D.C. They married on April 3, 1998. Soon after, in 1999, they purchased a home on Charleston Terrace in Washington, DC in the exclusive Foxhall Road area close to Georgetown. They paid $735,000 for the home which records show had previously sold for a mere $44,000.
It’s clear both Wilson and his new wife Valerie Plame Wilson were staunch Democrats who supported Al Gore for President. In fact both contributed money to the Gore 2000, Inc. campaign committee. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) records disclose that Mr. Joseph C. Wilson IV of Charleston Terrace, Washington, DC, who named J.C. Wilson International Ventures as his employer, contributed $2,000 to Gore on March 26, 1999. On April 22, 1999, his wife, who billed herself in the FEC records as Ms. Valerie E. Wilson, contributed $1,000 to the Gore campaign. She listed her employer as Brewster-Jennings & Associates. Just so there’s no mistaking the fact that Valerie Wilson was and is a left-leaning Democrat, it should be noted that she more recently contributed $372 on October 11, 2004 to “America Coming Together” organization, a George Soros-backed liberal Democrat activist group. Interestingly, in the records documenting this contribution, she listed no employer and instead stated she was “retired,” a statement in clear contradiction of the facts. In short, she told a fib on her campaign disclosure.
About this same time (1999) or certainly not long thereafter, there is an interesting post on a web site for genealogists researching Polonnoye, Ukraine. The web page indicates the site was last updated on May 29, 2000, so posts on the page were made on or before that date. Among the queries listed on the page is one looking for information on the Plame surname by a researcher who called herself Valerie Wilson. The email address listed for replies is jvwilsoniv@cs.com. Clearly this was a post by Valerie Plame Wilson.
Moreover, about this same time the web site for the Saudi-linked Middle East Institute posted a biography on its web site for Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, IV. The web page has since been taken down, but a search of cashed versions of the page indicate it was copyrighted in the year 2000 so this biography was posted in that year or before. The Middle East Institute biography concludes as follows: “He [Wilson] is married to the former Valerie Plame and has two sons and two daughters.” Another biography for Wilson is posted on the web site for the CPS Corporate & Public Advisory Group, and it also includes the notation that Wilson is married to the former Valerie Plame. The date for this biography is uncertain, but blog sources put it no later than some time in 2003.
The Bob Novak column which the main stream media claims “outed” Valerie Plame appeared on July 14, 2003. But before this date, what can be said about her? For one thing, until 1994, she very probably did not use the Plame name. She certainly did not use the Brewster-Jennings cover because it did not exist until May of 1994. In April 1999, she associated herself with the company called Brewster-Jennings which any self-respecting spy would quickly have concluded was a phony company and quite possibly a cover for some kind of covert operation in the international energy field. The company claimed it had ties to the Saudi Arabian Oil Company ARAMCO. In 1999, she also exposed her preference for Al Gore over George W. Bush for President. Sometime in 2000 (possibly before) we know Wilson himself identified his wife as the former Valerie Plame. He too had some kind of connections with the Saudi-backed Middle East Institute. We also know that not later than May 29, 2000, Valerie Wilson connected herself with the Plame surname and with the name of her husband Joe Wilson. The inescapable conclusion seems to be that if anyone really outed Ms. Wilson, it was not Bob Novak in July of 2003, but Plame and her husband well before that date. Whatever else can be said, Plame and her husband showed little concern over connecting her maiden name with her married name, nor did she worry about connecting herself with her CIA front company.
And what of the terrible damage done to covert operations? Well, it seems that from the time she was hired by the CIA in the mid to late 1980s until May 1994, she was using names and cover that remain a secret to the US public but which were likely revealed to the Soviets by Aldrich Ames. From May 1994 forward, Plame was not under any real cover—unless the Brewster-Jennings farce is considered deep cover. This is doubtful as even former intelligence officials point out she used other identities when working overseas—away from her desk at Langley, Virginia, CIA headquarters.
The real question the main stream media continues to ignore is who in the CIA and/or Department of State went to bat to support Plame’s efforts to get her Bush-hating-Kerry-supporting husband an assignment in Niger which he would soon use to try and torpedo the Bush campaign. The signs increasingly indicate it was neither Rover nor Libby. A fact worth recalling is that Wilson was on the payroll of the Kerry campaign until he was thoroughly discredited by revelations proving he had lied about how he garnered the Niger trip. The Kerry camp pulled out all the stops to try and trash George W. Bush. Could they have had a hand in this phony outing setup? Judith Miller may hold the key.
Okie, thanks. I agree with everything you say. If you haven't already, you ought to read what Clifford May at National Review Online says about the Plame-Miller-Wilson triangle. I have no doubt Miller and Plame knew each other and that Plame herself--or her gabby hubby--may have sourced Miller, and also David Korn.
I think you mean 10 years at the most. And I think the 10 year timeline you reference is for non-official cover. She may have traveled outside the US with some sort of other cover in the past ten years. But that wouldn't trigger the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.
You are absolutely right. I stand corrected. I certainly meant 10 years at the most as I certainly do not count anything beyond 1994 as covered by the IIPA. Thanks for clarifying my comment.
Cautor has added some new entries for Plame's biography...
Kudos...
Thanks Ken, and I agree with your tagline completely. We can't get enough of either smart women or beautiful women on our side. And Lord knows they're all on our side. If you don't believe me, just look at the nags of NARAL or the rest of that lot.
Great research, Cautor! Kudos!
I think the Vanity Fair piece and others indicate Plame was educated at the London School of Economics on the CIA's dime. I can't think of much else to add.
"They paid $735,000 for the home which records show had previously sold for a mere $44,000."
Man alive, does that ever jump out. It reminds me of so many Clintonite deals, like George Stephanolpolis's. Very fishy.
"A fact worth recalling is that Wilson was on the payroll of the Kerry campaign until he was thoroughly discredited by revelations proving he had lied about how he garnered the Niger trip."
Technically, I believe he was an "unpaid advisor," just like Sandy Burglar. But he was certainly expecting some kind of payment for his services, should Kerry be elected, in the form of a plum job.
Thank you sir. Looks like Wilson and Plame were not hurting in the income department. I doubt they made enough on civil service salaries (or CIA equivalent) to live the life of Riley in the Foxhall area of DC. If you know the area, and I lived there for a while, it's not cheap.
You are certainly right about how Wilson was described--unpaid advisor--a fact that slipped my mind. I agree with you that his service to JFK was not entirely to be pro bono.
You are absolutely correct and I have posted my thoughts serveral times on Free Republic. Fitzgerald needs to wrap this sucker up and indict Miller for criminal contempt and obstruction of justice and throw the book at the crooked Wilson's. That would be true justice in this case.
Superb. I would love to see some footnotes or endnotes, though.
I have suspected for some time that the Plame Game is some sort of a ruse. I suspect that a lot of us here in the FR community have our theories. Quite a number of pundits on the right do as well, apparently.
There are just too many oddities in the whole thing for the reality of what happened to be what has been presented to the public via MSM coverage.
First and foremost, we have the highly improbable situation where Judith Miller is sitting in jail to protect Karl Rove. Matt Cooper almost took the fall, too. I find it very hard to believe that either of the companies these folks respectively work for would retain employees that were willing to go this far to stick up for the Bush Administration, expecially when it might involve bagging Karl Rove.
I am also bothered by the fact that there is very little to show for this alleged Niger trip by Joe Wilson. To add further suspicion, we have the fact that both Wilsons apparently had a certain animosity toward Bush and the Iraq war. Lastly, we now have the report that memos suggesting that this was a nepotistic venture getting Wilson over there in the first place.
The other previous "leaks" of Plame were new to me. I missed the original work sone on FrontpageMagazine by Ben Johnson.
Frankly, I remain committed to my original theory that Wilson is the origin of his wife's own leak, staging it with the knowledge that it would keep him out of the hot seat for an obviously bungled mission, keep his wife employed, all the while damaging the Administration and the Iraq War.
Joseph Wilson's Amazing Left-Wing Dreamland
I am sure more is to follow. I wish we could pull more out of Novak. Novak and Miller must know more.
nice summary of the facts.
Well, when the MSM gets the 'synopsis' of Plame/Wilson right . . .or they feed that 'elephant in the livingroom'; I will more optimistic.
Cannot figure that either. . .surely Novak has pulled the magic thread by now. . . (Drudge carrying ap story (yesterday/today) of Novak's 'snapping' with James Carville on air. . .and earning himself a 'forced vacation'. . .as they moved into Plame/Wilson territory. . .
On the other hand, I still want to know how they had enough money to buy that house (as well as the other expensive components of their lifestyle) right after Wilson retired. His company was just getting started, Plame was still on the government payroll, and he had no other source of income other than his pension.
I'm sure Novak is jumping out of his skin to discuss the Plame/Saudi angle, but the legal agreements force him to keep silent and look like he's stonewalling. He's ethical and has built a decades long reputation as straight shooter. Must be tough to get baited by Carville and everyone else.
Hard to blame him for being upset about the situation.
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