Mid-July, 2004: CIA Officer Writes Memo Confirming He, Not Plame Wilson, Suggested Joseph Wilson Go to Niger

Several days after CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson’s conversation with the junior records officer who confirmed that he was the one to suggest that Plame Wilson’s husband go to Niger (see After July 12, 2004), the officer shows Plame Wilson a crumpled copy of a memo he has written, stating that his Senate testimony had been twisted, and that he, not her, had suggested Joseph Wilson for the Niger trip. Plame Wilson will write, “I was filled with gratitude.” The officer says he had asked his supervisor if he could testify to the Senate a second time and was flatly turned down. Plame Wilson will write: “With the clear wisdom of hindsight, I should have immediately approached the senior management of CPD [the CIA’s counterproliferation division] and asked for their support to correct the report’s omission of the junior CPD’s testimony. I should have aggressively pushed for an investigation into how the report distorted the issue of how and why Joe was selected for the mission to Niger. I should have asked to make a photocopy of my colleague’s memo, and put it into a safety deposit box for safekeeping. I should have asked my former supervisor to clarify his role in Joe’s selection.… But I did none of these things. I was much too passive, feeling boxed in, afraid of repercussions. If I spoke out I would lose my job. If I didn’t, it might doom my marriage. It was a miserable time for me and Joe—both of us existing in separate but connected rooms in hell.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 193-194]