Valerie Plame was obviously an undercover operative - not a mere technical analyst. If that's not obvious from the opening of the Justice Department investigation (which would not exist if no potential crime had been perpetrated), then it's directly acknowledged in the following Sept 30
memo from White House counsel Alberto Gonzales:
We were informed last evening by the Department of Justice that it has opened an investigation into possible unauthorized disclosures concerning the identity of an undercover CIA employee.
Actually, it has not been made clear yet whether or not Plame was undercover.
If no investigation is opened, there will be an appearance of a cover up.
As to the memo, note the word "possible." Gonzales' second memo refers to the "purported" undercover operative.
She may very well have been undercover, but no definitive confirmation of her status has yet been made.
Yes, Valerie Wilson was definitely under cover. It has been confirmed by half a dozen sources. Amongst others, a former CIA analyst who worked with her;
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/july-dec03/leaks_09-30.html LARRY JOHNSON: Let's be very clear about what happened. This is not an alleged abuse. This is a confirmed abuse. I worked with this woman. She started training with me. She has been undercover for three decades, she is not as Bob Novak suggested a CIA analyst. But given that, I was a CIA analyst for four years. I was undercover. I could not divulge to my family outside of my wife that I worked for the Central Intelligence Agency until I left the agency on September 30, 1989. At that point I could admit it.
So the fact that she's been undercover for three decades and that has been divulged is outrageous because she was put undercover for certain reasons. One, she works in an area where people she meets with overseas could be compromised. When you start tracing back who she met with, even people who innocently met with her, who are not involved in CIA operations, could be compromised. For these journalists to argue that this is no big deal and if I hear another Republican operative suggesting that well, this was just an analyst fine, let them go undercover. Let's put them overseas and let's out them and then see how they like it. They won't be able to stand the heat.
I say this as a registered Republican. I'm on record giving contributions to the George Bush campaign. This is not about partisan politics. This is about a betrayal, a political smear of an individual with no relevance to the story. Publishing her name in that story added nothing to it.
What is clear in this case is that there were other reporters who had the integrity and good judgment to recognize that this was a political hatchet job that this was not about real news. I like Bob Novak and I have been on his other show but in this case he got it wrong. And to hide behind the parsing of words that she was an analyst so therefore it's okay. No, it's not okay.
The principle's established: do not divulge the names of these people. In my own career trainee class I did not know Joe's wife last name; we went by our first initials.
I was in the same class with her. I was Larry J. In fact, when I first saw her last name I didn't recognize her until one of other my classmates who's out now called me up and said, hey. To realize this is a terrific woman, she's a woman of great integrity and other people that don't know her were trying to suggest that she is the one that initiated that. That is such nonsense. This is a woman who is very solid, very low key and not about show boating.
Bob Novak says otherwise-that she was not an undercover agent. If she was, why would the CIA even have admitted to him over the phone that she worked for them? Novak also points out that the CIA refers an average of one case like this per week to the Justice Department; thus, it's highly "routine."