CIA AGENTS EXPRESS OUTRAGE AT PLAME OUTING

Good for 60 Minutes for giving airtime to actual CIA agents to express their outrage at the outing of Valerie Plame. James Marcinkowski said Novak's blowing of her CIA front company, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, likely outed other agents who used the B-J front as well. Melissa Maylies stressed that Plame was working on terribly sensitive and important issues of WMD, which countries and groups have the potential to acquire biological weapons. Both emphasized how much danger she was in as a NOC and how covers change from time to time according to the demands and needs of their work.

Joe Wilson told Ed Bradley, who watched the Fitzgerald press conference with him, that it was the White House that decided to go after him through his wife. He insisted that Valerie's status as a CIA agent was unknown even to most of her family before Bob Novak published her name and front company, recounting how his sister-in-law turned to his brother the day the Novak column came out and asked, "Do you think Joe knew?" He said Valerie was completely taken by surprise by her exposure and immediately realized that her career was over, wondering, he said, for what? There have been specific threats, he said, and the Wilsons have discussed her safety with several governmental agencies.

Marcinkowski added that every ambassador's wife will now be under suspicion of being a spy.

Maylies commented, "We risk the lives of our agents to protect our country and when something like this happens, it's not the North Koreans or the Russians, we're being undermined by officials of our own country. That," she said, "I find galling."

Tags: Plame, CIA agents, Joe Wilson, Marcinkowski, Brewster-Jennings