March 14, 2006: Former Post Editor: State Department Official Leaked Plame Wilson’s Identity to Reporter

Former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee tells Vanity Fair that he thinks it is likely that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is the person who revealed CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity to Post reporter Bob Woodward (see November 14, 2005). The magazine quotes Bradlee, now the Post’s vice president at large, as saying, “That Armitage is the likely source is a fair assumption.” Bradlee denies making the statement in a Post article, saying: “I don’t think I said it.… I know who his source is, and I don’t want to get into it.… I have not told a soul who it is.” Bradlee says he did not learn the name of the source from Woodward, and Woodward says he never informed Bradlee of his source’s identity: “He is not in the management loop on this. Maybe he was alerted from somebody else, if he in fact did learn” the source’s name. Vanity Fair says the reporter who wrote the article featuring the Bradlee quote, Marie Brenner, is traveling in India and is unavailable for comment. [Washington Post, 3/14/2006; Washington Post, 7/3/2007] Bradlee tells a New York Times reporter that Armitage’s identification as Woodward’s source is “an inference that could be drawn.” He tells the Times reporter, “Woodward is not my source for any knowledge I have about the case.” [New York Times, 3/14/2006]