To: combjelly who wrote (283507 ) 4/8/2006 3:37:09 PM From: longnshort Read Replies (1) | Respond to A Washington Times article by Bill Gertz has asserted that "Mrs. Plame's identity as an undercover CIA officer was first disclosed to Russia in the mid-1990s by a Moscow spy, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity." [13] The article goes on to say that the Cuban government learned of Plame's CIA status "in confidential documents sent by the CIA to the U.S. Interests Section of the Swiss Embassy in Havana. The documents were supposed to be sealed from the Cuban government, but intelligence officials said the Cubans read the classified material and learned the secrets contained in them, the officials said." This information was used in a court briefing filed on behalf of several news agencies seeking to prevent Judith Miller and Matt Cooper from going to jail for not disclosing their sources to Patrick Fitzgerald and the federal grand jury investigating her exposure by Robert Novak. [14]. Washington Post reporter Dana Priest notes that these possible compromises of her identity did not change her undercover status: "Plame's case is different in that she was burned -- not once, but twice. The first time was by Aldrich H. Ames, the CIA turncoat who is believed to have given the Russians the name of every covert operative in the Soviet/East European Division over 10 years beginning around 1985. Not knowing exactly whom he had outed, the CIA recalled hundreds of operatives, including Plame, for their safety. Still, her undercover status remained intact until July, when syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak identified her by name as a CIA 'operative' in a column about her husband, former ambassador
