| In his July 14, 2003 column, Novak wrote that the choice to use Wilson "was made routinely at a low level without [CIA] Director George Tenet's knowledge." Novak went on to identify Plame as Wilson's wife: "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report." (link)
Novak indicated that he had used the term "operative" loosely, and had not intended it to identify Plame as an undercover agent. Novak's initial column identified Plame as "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." He has since claimed that he believed Plame was merely an analyst at the CIA, not a covert operative — the difference being that analysts are not undercover, so identifying them is not necessarily a crime. Novak said the term "operative" is "a word I have lavished on hack politicians for more than 40 years." (link)
Critics of Novak's defense argue that after decades as a Washington reporter, Novak was well aware of the difference and would be unlikely to make such a mistake. A search of the LexisNexis database for the terms "CIA operative" and "agency operative" showed Novak had accurately used the terms to describe covert CIA employees, every time they appear in his articles. (link) |
