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Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House
On July 6, 2003, four months after the United States invaded Iraq, former ambassador Joseph Wilson's now historic op-ed, "What I Didn't Find in Africa," appeared in The New York Times. A week later, conservative pundit Robert Novak revealed in his newspaper column that Ambassador Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, was a CIA operative. The public disclosure of that secret information spurred a federal investigation and led to the trial and conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, and the Wilsons' civil suit against top officials of the Bush administration. Much has been written about the "Valerie Plame" story, but Valerie herself has been silent, until now. Some of what has been reported about her has been frighteningly accurate, serving as a pungent reminder to the Wilsons that their lives are no longer private. And some has been completely false -- distorted characterizations of Valerie and her husband and their shared integrity.
Valerie Wilson retired from the CIA in January 2006, and now, not only as a citizen but as a wife and mother, the daughter of an Air Force colonel, and the sister of a U.S. marine, she sets the record straight, providing an extraordinary account of her training and experiences, and answers many questions that have been asked about her covert status, her responsibilities, and her life. As readers will see, the CIA still deems much of the detail of Valerie's story to be classified. As a service to readers, an afterword by national security reporter Laura Rozen provides a context for Valerie's own story.
Fair Game is the historic and unvarnished account of the personal and international consequences of speaking truth to power.
Valerie Wilson retired from the CIA in January 2006, and now, not only as a citizen but as a wife and mother, the daughter of an Air Force colonel, and the sister of a U.S. marine, she sets the record straight, providing an extraordinary account of her training and experiences, and answers many questions that have been asked about her covert status, her responsibilities, and her life. As readers will see, the CIA still deems much of the detail of Valerie's story to be classified. As a service to readers, an afterword by national security reporter Laura Rozen provides a context for Valerie's own story.
Fair Game is the historic and unvarnished account of the personal and international consequences of speaking truth to power.
411 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
179 people are currently reading
2739 people want to read
About the author
Valerie Plame Wilson
10 books45 followersValerie Elise Plame Wilson, known as Valerie Plame, Valerie E. Wilson, and Valerie Plame Wilson, is a former United States CIA Operations Officer and the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 426 reviews
February 11, 2011
This book should make every American angry. Angry that an American President, Vice President, and their staff would break the law, destroy the careers of patriotic civil servants, and send thousands of soldiers to die in an unnecessary war for no reason but to avoid an embarrassing headline in the newspaper. Angry that an agency whose sole reason for existing is to discover and present the truth to those in power should spend taxpayer's money keeping the truth from those who are paying for it. Angry that half the American voters would be so willfully ignorant that they would vote to keep such a despicable administration in power.
Valerie Plame Wilson is not a great writer but she has a story to tell and she tries to tell it as simply and as directly as she can. The CIA's Publication Review Board is a group of craven bureaucrats who they try to keep Ms. Plame Wilson's story from being told. The real story in this book is in the CIA's redactions - the blacked-out sections that have been left for the reader to see on almost every page. The reader does not have to be that perceptive to see that every reference to the duration of Ms. Plame Wilson's career in the CIA spanning more than 20 years; that she was assigned to Athens and worked with Greek nationals; that, as head of the Iraq desk in the Non-Proliferation Division, she investigated A. Q. Kahn's actions in assisting rogue nations in developing nuclear weapons has been blacked out. These simple facts can not only be found in the appendix of her book, they are available from a variety of external sources. That flunkies in the CIA PRB would kowtow to self-serving politicians and try to keep Ms. Plame Wilson from publishing her book by redacting such simple and harmless facts is shameful. They were not trying to preserve national security - they were trying to make this book as unpublishable as possible.
To govern effectively, our leaders need to know the truth. To vote effectively, American citizens need to know the truth. When both the government and the voters are told half-truths and outright lies, stupid wars will be fought, the economy will fall into recession, Americans will suffer and die for no reason.
The truth matters. Valerie Plame Wilson and Joe Wilson are American heroes for sacrificing so much to try to tell it to us.
Valerie Plame Wilson is not a great writer but she has a story to tell and she tries to tell it as simply and as directly as she can. The CIA's Publication Review Board is a group of craven bureaucrats who they try to keep Ms. Plame Wilson's story from being told. The real story in this book is in the CIA's redactions - the blacked-out sections that have been left for the reader to see on almost every page. The reader does not have to be that perceptive to see that every reference to the duration of Ms. Plame Wilson's career in the CIA spanning more than 20 years; that she was assigned to Athens and worked with Greek nationals; that, as head of the Iraq desk in the Non-Proliferation Division, she investigated A. Q. Kahn's actions in assisting rogue nations in developing nuclear weapons has been blacked out. These simple facts can not only be found in the appendix of her book, they are available from a variety of external sources. That flunkies in the CIA PRB would kowtow to self-serving politicians and try to keep Ms. Plame Wilson from publishing her book by redacting such simple and harmless facts is shameful. They were not trying to preserve national security - they were trying to make this book as unpublishable as possible.
To govern effectively, our leaders need to know the truth. To vote effectively, American citizens need to know the truth. When both the government and the voters are told half-truths and outright lies, stupid wars will be fought, the economy will fall into recession, Americans will suffer and die for no reason.
The truth matters. Valerie Plame Wilson and Joe Wilson are American heroes for sacrificing so much to try to tell it to us.
December 29, 2007
I followed this story for nearly four years, so I was delighted to finally be able to get the story from Valerie Plame Wilson's point of view.
When I first dug into the book, I thought, "Well, she's not a writer, but neither am I, so I can't hold that against her." But the further I went, the more I felt like something was missing (besides the blacked-out parts); it was curiously flat, with very little depth or dimension. Even the chapter where she dealt with post-partum depression failed to move me, and I was so disappointed that I almost gave up.
I'm glad I didn't, because in the second half of the book, Valerie finally comes alive. After her exposure in Novak's column and the uproar that followed, she frankly discusses how she and Joe dealt with the havoc wrought on their marriage, their careers, their finances, and their reputations. They experienced threats and some weird episodes at their home that made them fear for their children's safety while they bore the full force of the wrathful Republican noise machine. It was pretty scary.
When I first dug into the book, I thought, "Well, she's not a writer, but neither am I, so I can't hold that against her." But the further I went, the more I felt like something was missing (besides the blacked-out parts); it was curiously flat, with very little depth or dimension. Even the chapter where she dealt with post-partum depression failed to move me, and I was so disappointed that I almost gave up.
I'm glad I didn't, because in the second half of the book, Valerie finally comes alive. After her exposure in Novak's column and the uproar that followed, she frankly discusses how she and Joe dealt with the havoc wrought on their marriage, their careers, their finances, and their reputations. They experienced threats and some weird episodes at their home that made them fear for their children's safety while they bore the full force of the wrathful Republican noise machine. It was pretty scary.
July 2, 2019
SPOILERS:
I had been wanting to read this book. While I enjoyed parts of it (and was pretty angry on Plame's behalf), as others have said, it was tough..really tough..to follow because so much was blacked out. I have heard the word "redacted" so much on the news lately I hate to use it myself, but that aspect made it tough to get full enjoyment out of.
I still rated it a 4 because, were it not for the redactions, I am sure it would be a 4 or even a 5. Plame is a good writer and it isn't her fault they made it as hard for her as possible. Obviously I'd still recommend this book, particularly to political junkies.
I had been wanting to read this book. While I enjoyed parts of it (and was pretty angry on Plame's behalf), as others have said, it was tough..really tough..to follow because so much was blacked out. I have heard the word "redacted" so much on the news lately I hate to use it myself, but that aspect made it tough to get full enjoyment out of.
I still rated it a 4 because, were it not for the redactions, I am sure it would be a 4 or even a 5. Plame is a good writer and it isn't her fault they made it as hard for her as possible. Obviously I'd still recommend this book, particularly to political junkies.
September 3, 2015
Valerie Plame Wilson has a story to tell, and it's a compelling one. But the story isn't the problem. The execution in this book is almost unreadable and while Wilson has been through a lot, I don't think that absolves her of the blame for pushing this book to publication when it wasn't ready.
Wilson's story is probably interesting and exciting, but I'll never know because she and her publisher chose to move forward with a book after the CIA redacted almost all of its contents. And instead of starting over at square one and rewriting the narrative under those constraints, Wilson and co. decided to publish the book as is, with black lines covering all of the classified information. Her point about censorship is completely valid, but she makes it in the first few pages. An entire book of blacked out lines - sometimes entire pages with no words on them - is not an indictment of the CIA, it's a punishment for the reader who paid to muddle through this for some reason.
The book then contains an afterward that basically reveals most of the information that was classified and makes excuses for the piece of garbage book you just read. Because Wilson was being antagonized by the CIA and/or because she was now without a job and really needed the money from her book, readers are supposed to be happy with an unreadable mess. This should have been handled much differently. If nothing else, the publisher should have included a warning of some sort on the cover.
This is the first book I've read in years that I felt was almost a complete waste of time and money. The information I gleaned could easily have been printed in a magazine article. If you want to learn about Wilson, check out the Wikipedia page.
Wilson's story is probably interesting and exciting, but I'll never know because she and her publisher chose to move forward with a book after the CIA redacted almost all of its contents. And instead of starting over at square one and rewriting the narrative under those constraints, Wilson and co. decided to publish the book as is, with black lines covering all of the classified information. Her point about censorship is completely valid, but she makes it in the first few pages. An entire book of blacked out lines - sometimes entire pages with no words on them - is not an indictment of the CIA, it's a punishment for the reader who paid to muddle through this for some reason.
The book then contains an afterward that basically reveals most of the information that was classified and makes excuses for the piece of garbage book you just read. Because Wilson was being antagonized by the CIA and/or because she was now without a job and really needed the money from her book, readers are supposed to be happy with an unreadable mess. This should have been handled much differently. If nothing else, the publisher should have included a warning of some sort on the cover.
This is the first book I've read in years that I felt was almost a complete waste of time and money. The information I gleaned could easily have been printed in a magazine article. If you want to learn about Wilson, check out the Wikipedia page.
November 18, 2009
A Kafka-esque story that will send chills down your spine because it’s actually true; too bad it’s such a dry, flat read. It’s worth more 3.5 stars than just three because the author was able to make this mess into something that the average reader could understand.
This is the story of ex-CIA spy Valerie Plame-Wilson whose cover was blown by the government that employed her all out of pure spite because her husband, a diplomat, told the powers that be that there was no cause to go to war with Iraq.
Having read her story in the media I always found it extremely confusing and chaotic to make heads or tails of the whole thing. Granted this is her side of the story but there is so much evidence that she provides explaining how all she was doing was her job, something she did well, and people in the White House took it upon themselves to ruin her to get to her husband. The nightmare that these people went through really reminded me of Kafka’s novel The Trial where you’re wondering what kind of twilight zone you walked into.
The first half of the book chronicles her life in the CIA and how she moved up in ranks to become a spy tracking the proliferation of WMDs around the world. She felt she did her job as any true patriot would, she fell in love later in life and got married and had twins. A lot of the first half of the book is hard to appreciate because the government has redacted several paragraphs, individual lines or just the odd word in various chapters so there are holes. What makes no sense though is that the person she wrote the book with, Laura Rozen, was able to recount nearly all of the holes in the extensive Afterward. Many chapter written by the Plame-Wilson had an accompanying chapter by Rozen in the Afterward. According to Rozen, the government was fine with that because it was public knowledge but the main author could not say the same things herself. A very WTF moment. And the story continues like that. There are some parts where she gets more personal like how she tried to deal with post partum depression or she tries to describes family dinners etc but it felt like filler and didn’t match the tone of the rest of the book.
In the second half things get more interesting because it talks about how she was exposed, who did it, why, the ramifications etc, which still makes for some dry reading but you manage to keep turning the pages because you just can’t believe the number of roadblocks that were put in her way to try to silence her. It was as if the government wanted her killed (they denied her family security even though she received threats) or at least in harm’s way so that she would be frightened enough to stop her investigation into who leaked her cover. What’s even more frightening is that not only was her cover blown, but all the people overseas who may have spoken to her were now in danger (and these were foreigners who helped the US government) and the same went for the sudden danger for her family and friends who were now exposed as being related to her. They tried to ostracize her from everyone but she didn’t give up.
It was disgusting to read that President Bush had commuted Scooter Libby’s prison sentence when all the facts were there but that seems to be how the previous Administration worked with all these back alley dealings and hush hush meetings. Plame-Wilson's career was ruined and she had to move to another state and all for what? Just makes your hair stand on end.
It’s a disturbing story as well as a cautionary tale for anyone wanting to tell a truth that the powers that be aren’t prepared to hear.
This is the story of ex-CIA spy Valerie Plame-Wilson whose cover was blown by the government that employed her all out of pure spite because her husband, a diplomat, told the powers that be that there was no cause to go to war with Iraq.
Having read her story in the media I always found it extremely confusing and chaotic to make heads or tails of the whole thing. Granted this is her side of the story but there is so much evidence that she provides explaining how all she was doing was her job, something she did well, and people in the White House took it upon themselves to ruin her to get to her husband. The nightmare that these people went through really reminded me of Kafka’s novel The Trial where you’re wondering what kind of twilight zone you walked into.
The first half of the book chronicles her life in the CIA and how she moved up in ranks to become a spy tracking the proliferation of WMDs around the world. She felt she did her job as any true patriot would, she fell in love later in life and got married and had twins. A lot of the first half of the book is hard to appreciate because the government has redacted several paragraphs, individual lines or just the odd word in various chapters so there are holes. What makes no sense though is that the person she wrote the book with, Laura Rozen, was able to recount nearly all of the holes in the extensive Afterward. Many chapter written by the Plame-Wilson had an accompanying chapter by Rozen in the Afterward. According to Rozen, the government was fine with that because it was public knowledge but the main author could not say the same things herself. A very WTF moment. And the story continues like that. There are some parts where she gets more personal like how she tried to deal with post partum depression or she tries to describes family dinners etc but it felt like filler and didn’t match the tone of the rest of the book.
In the second half things get more interesting because it talks about how she was exposed, who did it, why, the ramifications etc, which still makes for some dry reading but you manage to keep turning the pages because you just can’t believe the number of roadblocks that were put in her way to try to silence her. It was as if the government wanted her killed (they denied her family security even though she received threats) or at least in harm’s way so that she would be frightened enough to stop her investigation into who leaked her cover. What’s even more frightening is that not only was her cover blown, but all the people overseas who may have spoken to her were now in danger (and these were foreigners who helped the US government) and the same went for the sudden danger for her family and friends who were now exposed as being related to her. They tried to ostracize her from everyone but she didn’t give up.
It was disgusting to read that President Bush had commuted Scooter Libby’s prison sentence when all the facts were there but that seems to be how the previous Administration worked with all these back alley dealings and hush hush meetings. Plame-Wilson's career was ruined and she had to move to another state and all for what? Just makes your hair stand on end.
It’s a disturbing story as well as a cautionary tale for anyone wanting to tell a truth that the powers that be aren’t prepared to hear.
April 3, 2011
Awesome biography! I'd like to thank her and her whole family for being strong enough and tough enough not to let our White House get away with it.
The Bush administration unfortunately has still gotten away with too much and in my opinion the result of Karl Rove and Scooter Libby was too tame. They should have been tried for treason...period.
I wish justice could have been done the right way with not only this but 9-11 itself. We'll never see it done. Not enough people are yelling for justice. We'll be lucky not to wind up with a dictatorship within 20 years.
This and more still to me is a side issue with the whole thing that has happened to her family, however. What I gained from this story is this....United we stand, Divided we fall.
When this whole thing hit her, it destroyed not only her career and the rest of her life and almost her marriage as well. But when she and her husband stood side by side and fought back, they gained at least a modicum of justice and held their family together which is the most important thing. They eventually regained some of what they lost and they did gain their reputations because they stood together and fought together. That was the really cool part and the lesson we should all learn. Adversity can break you if you're alone but with somoene to stand by your side and have your back, you can overcome anything. What they did gives me hope there is still time to get our country back and enforce our Constitutional rights which the Patriot Act has stolen. United we stand people.
Thanks to Valerie and her husband for doing the right thing for our country.
Clarrissa Lee Moon
author of Memoirs of The Nightwolves and The Celeste Nites series.
The Bush administration unfortunately has still gotten away with too much and in my opinion the result of Karl Rove and Scooter Libby was too tame. They should have been tried for treason...period.
I wish justice could have been done the right way with not only this but 9-11 itself. We'll never see it done. Not enough people are yelling for justice. We'll be lucky not to wind up with a dictatorship within 20 years.
This and more still to me is a side issue with the whole thing that has happened to her family, however. What I gained from this story is this....United we stand, Divided we fall.
When this whole thing hit her, it destroyed not only her career and the rest of her life and almost her marriage as well. But when she and her husband stood side by side and fought back, they gained at least a modicum of justice and held their family together which is the most important thing. They eventually regained some of what they lost and they did gain their reputations because they stood together and fought together. That was the really cool part and the lesson we should all learn. Adversity can break you if you're alone but with somoene to stand by your side and have your back, you can overcome anything. What they did gives me hope there is still time to get our country back and enforce our Constitutional rights which the Patriot Act has stolen. United we stand people.
Thanks to Valerie and her husband for doing the right thing for our country.
Clarrissa Lee Moon
author of Memoirs of The Nightwolves and The Celeste Nites series.
February 23, 2018
I'm going to do my best to review this without making any political statements and focus on the book more than its deeper implications, since I try to keep my goodreads reviews book-centered.
Fair Game is a true story, recounted by Valerie Plame Wilson - the center of a rather significant American political scandal.
Wilson (also referred to frequently by her maiden name, Plame, despite her own personal confusion over why the news latched onto it so often) worked for the CIA in a covert position. In the 2000s, her role was outed to the public, subsequently throwing her life into turmoil. To add an extra layer of complication, her husband, Joe, a former diplomat, was sent on a CIA-sanctioned trip, which threw both Wilsons under suspicion.
The blame game in this case was - and likely still is - incredibly wide-ranging and ridiculously tangled. At a time when the Bush administration was searching for proof of WMDs (according to more recent findings), Joe and the rest of the people who traveled with him came back with reports that directly contradicted what everyone started to assume were facts.
That didn't sit well. What better way to discredit or shame someone than to nudge at his family? While that's already an inappropriate response, it's made worse when that "nudge" equates to outing the covert status of his wife.
The opening pages of this book already lay out the end results for you, but I will let you read for yourself.
Perhaps the most fascinating part of this book is how much of it you can't read. It's not that Wilson failed to include parts of the story; chunks of the text - from words to entire pages - are redacted. As a former CIA employee, Wilson had to let their review board scan through every bit of her book in order to block out anything classified. This makes complete sense, of course, because leaking classified information in a personal book would have terrible implications.
However, as Wilson mentions from the beginning, some redacted items are already public knowledge. This leaves a much greater layer of complication and confusion. I will say that reading a book with giant chunks redacted occasionally felt like a joke, as if it was a silly stylistic choice. Other times it was frustrating: you just want to know what the rest of the sentence says! But at the same time, I do respect not forking over classified info for anyone to read.
Valerie Plame Wilson's story is a powerful one. It's thought-provoking, eye-opening, horrifying, and even juicy in its own way. One chapter title informs you it's Washington's only scandal without sex, and even if that may be an exaggeration, the proportions of this scandal make that feel true.
Fair Game is well written enough to read smoothly when you're not stumbling over giant black boxes blocking out the text, but it's the sheer drama of the story that sucks you in and keeps things going. At some points, I could hardly believe it was real. Yet it was. While there are definitely parts of the story we'll never know, it's interesting enough as it already is, even if it leaves you with frustrating questions.
This book was given to me by a friend after she finished reading it, having acquired it secondhand, and I think it works well in that capacity. It's riveting, but it also delves into something that feels sort of like a mythical time in the past for those not involved. It's an important story that's getting told and yet taking a backseat somehow.
If you have any interest, I do recommend reading it! After finishing, I now want to read more details of Wilson's life and the entire story, especially to see what public info exists that didn't make it into the book.
Most of all, it makes me wonder... what does it really mean for someone be considered fair game?
Fair Game is a true story, recounted by Valerie Plame Wilson - the center of a rather significant American political scandal.
Wilson (also referred to frequently by her maiden name, Plame, despite her own personal confusion over why the news latched onto it so often) worked for the CIA in a covert position. In the 2000s, her role was outed to the public, subsequently throwing her life into turmoil. To add an extra layer of complication, her husband, Joe, a former diplomat, was sent on a CIA-sanctioned trip, which threw both Wilsons under suspicion.
The blame game in this case was - and likely still is - incredibly wide-ranging and ridiculously tangled. At a time when the Bush administration was searching for proof of WMDs (according to more recent findings), Joe and the rest of the people who traveled with him came back with reports that directly contradicted what everyone started to assume were facts.
That didn't sit well. What better way to discredit or shame someone than to nudge at his family? While that's already an inappropriate response, it's made worse when that "nudge" equates to outing the covert status of his wife.
The opening pages of this book already lay out the end results for you, but I will let you read for yourself.
Perhaps the most fascinating part of this book is how much of it you can't read. It's not that Wilson failed to include parts of the story; chunks of the text - from words to entire pages - are redacted. As a former CIA employee, Wilson had to let their review board scan through every bit of her book in order to block out anything classified. This makes complete sense, of course, because leaking classified information in a personal book would have terrible implications.
However, as Wilson mentions from the beginning, some redacted items are already public knowledge. This leaves a much greater layer of complication and confusion. I will say that reading a book with giant chunks redacted occasionally felt like a joke, as if it was a silly stylistic choice. Other times it was frustrating: you just want to know what the rest of the sentence says! But at the same time, I do respect not forking over classified info for anyone to read.
Valerie Plame Wilson's story is a powerful one. It's thought-provoking, eye-opening, horrifying, and even juicy in its own way. One chapter title informs you it's Washington's only scandal without sex, and even if that may be an exaggeration, the proportions of this scandal make that feel true.
Fair Game is well written enough to read smoothly when you're not stumbling over giant black boxes blocking out the text, but it's the sheer drama of the story that sucks you in and keeps things going. At some points, I could hardly believe it was real. Yet it was. While there are definitely parts of the story we'll never know, it's interesting enough as it already is, even if it leaves you with frustrating questions.
This book was given to me by a friend after she finished reading it, having acquired it secondhand, and I think it works well in that capacity. It's riveting, but it also delves into something that feels sort of like a mythical time in the past for those not involved. It's an important story that's getting told and yet taking a backseat somehow.
If you have any interest, I do recommend reading it! After finishing, I now want to read more details of Wilson's life and the entire story, especially to see what public info exists that didn't make it into the book.
Most of all, it makes me wonder... what does it really mean for someone be considered fair game?
December 31, 2013
Washington can indeed be a very nasty place. As the Bush administration gathered its evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, prior to invading that country, it encouraged the CIA to provide evidence that he WMD did, in fact, exist. Anything contrary to that assessment was looked upon with skeptisicm and virtually ignored. Enter former ambassador Joe Wilson with a report from Niger debunking a rumor that Iraq had procured "yellowcake" from that country for use in nuclear weapons. I know all this stuff is complicated, but please bear with me a bit longer. Vice President Dick Cheney's office responded to the unwelcome Wilson report by leaking to a Washington Post columnist that Wilson' wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA agent who had sent her husband to Niger on a boondoggle. Why was this significant? Because Valerie Plame was an undercover agent whose identity was a national secret. And because it happens to be illegal to "out" an undercover agent. The Wilson's lives were disrupted for years. Valerie Plame's career was ruined. And to add insult to injury, the CIA tried to prevent publication of her book. Page and pages are blanked out. Valerie's story only becomes clear because a reporter wrote an afterward section detailing some of the missing information. Politics is a dirty business. First amendment rights are fragile. If you don't believe it, read this book.
January 27, 2018
I followed her story at the time of its unfolding. This book tells the story again, though not much new or interesting was added. A good part of this book shows the CIA redactions. That’s part of the story too, but the black lines (pages of them) were distracting. The long afterword by Laura Rozen, I suppose, relates what Plame Wilson could not say because of her work with the CIA. But it was like adding a second book and it was just too much.
The Bush people were shameless when it came to payback for Joe Wilson’s report that he did not find yellowcake in Niger. Plame Wilson begins her book by describing her cultivation of relationships under false pretenses, so there's some irony in the book's subtitle, "My Betrayal by the White House."
The Bush people were shameless when it came to payback for Joe Wilson’s report that he did not find yellowcake in Niger. Plame Wilson begins her book by describing her cultivation of relationships under false pretenses, so there's some irony in the book's subtitle, "My Betrayal by the White House."
January 26, 2018
“Fair Game” is an odd book. Reading accounts of the Plame affair in the “New York Times” or “Washington Post” tells more about her career and issues with the CIA than she was allowed to in her book. Those who followed the machinations of the cabal that used bogus and cynical claims that Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi armed forces had so-called weapons of mass destruction were familiar with the scurrilous treatment of Valerie Plame, career CIA officer and her husband Joseph Wilson, retired State Department manager and ambassador.
Wilson’s crime was honest reporting of a trip he made to Niger, one of the four African nations that produced uranium ore and lightly processed yellowcake, a uranium concentrate powder that, with a lot of further refining can become weapons grade uranium with U-235 levels above 90 per cent. Yellowcake has the same relationship to nuclear weapons as a rubber plant in Malaysia does to Maserati Quattroporte, although about 100 times more complex. Still, shipping tons of it to Iraq where rumored banks of smelters and centrifuges lay waiting, would be a shocking development and one requiring further action.
Except that it didn’t happen. The tonnage of yellowcake claimed to have been sent to Iraq would have been over a year’s worth of production and used more railcars and trucks than existed in Niger and the nations around it. It couldn’t be covered up—would have been obvious through satellite surveillance or anyone who might have asked about it. Joe Wilson was sent to Niger to ask about it—actually he was sent to confirm that something that hadn’t happened did happen. A former ambassador of Gabon with long experience in Niger and other Francophone West African countries he had the expertise and gravitas for the mission. That he was married to a CIA officer working on nuclear non-proliferation was seen as a bonus.
When Wilson’s report was buried in the national security bureaucracy and references to Iraq refining yellowcake from Niger continued, he wrote an article for the New York Times, “What I Didn't Find in Africa” laying out the truth of his mission. It had the impact of rolling a grenade into a henhouse. Wilson’s fledgling business as a consultant on West Africa was trashed. More importantly from a legal and perhaps ethical standpoint, Valerie Plame was identified as a CIA officer.
She had been working undercover for years—not undercover like a DEA agent trying to bust Pablo Escobar but as an unacknowledged U.S. intelligence officer who met with people in Europe and the Middle East—nuclear chemists, technicians getting equipment ready for shipping, sales reps for aluminum tube producers, academics , essentially anyone who might have a bit of information that could point to a nation trying to acquire nuclear weapons secretly. Once the story hit that the attractive blonde reporter/hedge fund analyst/public relations hack who everyone thought was so nice was actually a covert operative for the dreaded CIA it ended her career and put many of her contacts at risk. It was a dastardly thing to do and seemed to be the result of a fit of pique by Vice-President Dick Cheney and his chief of staff.
Plame does an excellent job describing the fears and frustrations after her exposure. Some are big deals—she was denounced on Fox News more than once for example—some mundane although still the type of thing that can cut to the quick. She was shunned by people she had trusted at the CIA; the Wilsons lost most of their income; they were denied security even after being informed of real threats against them.
As the weapons of mass destruction refused to appear in Iraq and the Wilsons plus a few allies fought back, they became symbols of what can happen to citizens that the government decides to harm in shadowy extra-legal ways. And it turned out that publicizing the name of a CIA officer was illegal, thanks to Phillip Agee and “Counterspy” magazine who had done just that in the 1980s. I think the real turning point in the entire debacle was when Patrick Fitzgerald, a tenacious workaholic career prosecutor and U.S. Attorney was named special counsel. Among his successful prosecutions were the Gambino mob family, the blind sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and a generation of Chicago politicians who had been beyond the law for decades.
The most intriguing parts of “Fair Game” are chopped to bits by CIA censors with words, line or entire pages obscured by black bars. However Laura Rozen, author of the Afterword, wasn’t bound by the same non-disclosure agreement and laws. It is a perfect and necessary complement to “Fair Game” and is worth reading in itself.
Wilson’s crime was honest reporting of a trip he made to Niger, one of the four African nations that produced uranium ore and lightly processed yellowcake, a uranium concentrate powder that, with a lot of further refining can become weapons grade uranium with U-235 levels above 90 per cent. Yellowcake has the same relationship to nuclear weapons as a rubber plant in Malaysia does to Maserati Quattroporte, although about 100 times more complex. Still, shipping tons of it to Iraq where rumored banks of smelters and centrifuges lay waiting, would be a shocking development and one requiring further action.
Except that it didn’t happen. The tonnage of yellowcake claimed to have been sent to Iraq would have been over a year’s worth of production and used more railcars and trucks than existed in Niger and the nations around it. It couldn’t be covered up—would have been obvious through satellite surveillance or anyone who might have asked about it. Joe Wilson was sent to Niger to ask about it—actually he was sent to confirm that something that hadn’t happened did happen. A former ambassador of Gabon with long experience in Niger and other Francophone West African countries he had the expertise and gravitas for the mission. That he was married to a CIA officer working on nuclear non-proliferation was seen as a bonus.
When Wilson’s report was buried in the national security bureaucracy and references to Iraq refining yellowcake from Niger continued, he wrote an article for the New York Times, “What I Didn't Find in Africa” laying out the truth of his mission. It had the impact of rolling a grenade into a henhouse. Wilson’s fledgling business as a consultant on West Africa was trashed. More importantly from a legal and perhaps ethical standpoint, Valerie Plame was identified as a CIA officer.
She had been working undercover for years—not undercover like a DEA agent trying to bust Pablo Escobar but as an unacknowledged U.S. intelligence officer who met with people in Europe and the Middle East—nuclear chemists, technicians getting equipment ready for shipping, sales reps for aluminum tube producers, academics , essentially anyone who might have a bit of information that could point to a nation trying to acquire nuclear weapons secretly. Once the story hit that the attractive blonde reporter/hedge fund analyst/public relations hack who everyone thought was so nice was actually a covert operative for the dreaded CIA it ended her career and put many of her contacts at risk. It was a dastardly thing to do and seemed to be the result of a fit of pique by Vice-President Dick Cheney and his chief of staff.
Plame does an excellent job describing the fears and frustrations after her exposure. Some are big deals—she was denounced on Fox News more than once for example—some mundane although still the type of thing that can cut to the quick. She was shunned by people she had trusted at the CIA; the Wilsons lost most of their income; they were denied security even after being informed of real threats against them.
As the weapons of mass destruction refused to appear in Iraq and the Wilsons plus a few allies fought back, they became symbols of what can happen to citizens that the government decides to harm in shadowy extra-legal ways. And it turned out that publicizing the name of a CIA officer was illegal, thanks to Phillip Agee and “Counterspy” magazine who had done just that in the 1980s. I think the real turning point in the entire debacle was when Patrick Fitzgerald, a tenacious workaholic career prosecutor and U.S. Attorney was named special counsel. Among his successful prosecutions were the Gambino mob family, the blind sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and a generation of Chicago politicians who had been beyond the law for decades.
The most intriguing parts of “Fair Game” are chopped to bits by CIA censors with words, line or entire pages obscured by black bars. However Laura Rozen, author of the Afterword, wasn’t bound by the same non-disclosure agreement and laws. It is a perfect and necessary complement to “Fair Game” and is worth reading in itself.
July 14, 2024
Fair Game was two books in one. The first 306 pages were autobiographical and the afterword by Laura Rozen(80 pages) retold and clarified some of the story of the government exposing Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA covert employee.
The book goes to show the reader how far some high ranking government officials will go to protect themselves.
The book is interesting but don’t expect to learn much inside about covert intelligence spy craft.
The book goes to show the reader how far some high ranking government officials will go to protect themselves.
The book is interesting but don’t expect to learn much inside about covert intelligence spy craft.
August 31, 2008
Valerie Plame Wilson explains her version of events before and during the scandal involving her husband and trial of Scooter Libby. She insists the intent for writing this book was a means of getting the truth out. Yet the information is blatantly slanted with her obscure, subjective details and professed hatred for the Right. You get toward the final chapters and there is a plug for donations to the Wilson Trust. This trust funds her lawsuit against Cheney, Libby, Rove, and others.
Overall I feel this book was poorly written; unnecessarily lengthily; and had little persuasive effect. Wilson honestly outlines her numerous mistakes and how she should have handled these situations in hindsight. Well, hindsight is a bitch. As an author her tangents lead her to be unreliable and she was unable to convince me of a conspiracy against her and her husband. If there is validity to a conspiracy I wish she had written a more objective book. I will be searching for books written by others who are involved. Looking forward to learning what they have to say, hopefully they stick to facts. Always three sides to every story. We all want our own to be understood as the truth. Wilson used hundreds of pages as an attempt to get you to like her so you will believe her’s.
Overall I feel this book was poorly written; unnecessarily lengthily; and had little persuasive effect. Wilson honestly outlines her numerous mistakes and how she should have handled these situations in hindsight. Well, hindsight is a bitch. As an author her tangents lead her to be unreliable and she was unable to convince me of a conspiracy against her and her husband. If there is validity to a conspiracy I wish she had written a more objective book. I will be searching for books written by others who are involved. Looking forward to learning what they have to say, hopefully they stick to facts. Always three sides to every story. We all want our own to be understood as the truth. Wilson used hundreds of pages as an attempt to get you to like her so you will believe her’s.
January 7, 2009
Okay, I was all excited to read this book after hearing Ms. Plame's interview on NPR. The CIA! Spy work! The scandal of her outing! How frustrating, then, to get this book and discover that all of the interesting parts have been blacked out by the CIA. Huge chunks of the book are reduced to fragments like "And then he said..................the gun....................got married." I have no idea what happened, to whom, or where. The only part of the story that was relatively intact was the section about her boring desk job, which sounded pretty much like any other government desk job anywhere.
All of which is really sad, considering that this was probably a really interesting story with a lot to say that I would have liked to hear. If all of the redactions are removed someday, I will revisit it. Until then, I'm not going to play Mad Libs with my reading. There are plenty of other books that I can read without having to make up half the story.
I see from other peoples' reviews that there is an afterword that I apparently missed. That probably would have helped considerably. But I don't care enough about this book to get it from the library again and read the epilogue.
All of which is really sad, considering that this was probably a really interesting story with a lot to say that I would have liked to hear. If all of the redactions are removed someday, I will revisit it. Until then, I'm not going to play Mad Libs with my reading. There are plenty of other books that I can read without having to make up half the story.
I see from other peoples' reviews that there is an afterword that I apparently missed. That probably would have helped considerably. But I don't care enough about this book to get it from the library again and read the epilogue.
December 30, 2011
Where do I start? I was so disappointed in this book. I was really expecting more. Even though I can empathize with Valerie Plame and her story, I found the book and the way she wrote of a person that was trying way too hard to not want to play a victim, but yet wanted you to feel sorry constantly about her situation. From everything from the Vanity Fair spread, her postpartum depression, and not to mention the reasoning for keeping all of the blacked out material present to yet prove the point of how wrong done by she was, by the government and the CIA. I believe her story could have been told better. It was very slow, and very repetitive. There is no doubt she was given a very raw deal, but by reading this book I found instead of feeling for her, I ended up getting annoyed with her, Joe Wilson, and the story itself. So many times I wanted to put this book down, but kept on reading hoping it would thrive at one point, but it never did. If only it was better written, it would have stood a better chance with me.
February 22, 2010
This book did everything a good book is supposed to do. It engaged me, evoked emotional response, told a good story and left me wanting more. This woman's story (or as much as our government would lt her tell) was totally tragic. An effective and talented spy, outed by the country she loved for political retribution. They put her and her family at risk, they attacked her on so many levels. Yet, she remained positive, focussed and truly unique.
I watched Frost/Nixon again right after I listened to this book. Though hey won't and can't ever admit it, The Bush White House let me down, they turned me away from considerng public service becaus I believe it is corrupt. Nixon acknowledged that in the Frost interview. He acknowledged that because of his actions, many young people who could change things wouldn't. The difference today is. . . Karl Rove, Cheney and Bush. . . they just don't care.
I watched Frost/Nixon again right after I listened to this book. Though hey won't and can't ever admit it, The Bush White House let me down, they turned me away from considerng public service becaus I believe it is corrupt. Nixon acknowledged that in the Frost interview. He acknowledged that because of his actions, many young people who could change things wouldn't. The difference today is. . . Karl Rove, Cheney and Bush. . . they just don't care.
February 14, 2018
The book itself is well done and a worthy read. However, I gave the book five stars due to its importance both when it was published (2007) and now (2018). The behavior of the George W. Bush administration with regard to Iraq was shameful at many levels, clearly illegal, and undoubtedly immoral. Among other things this book helps the reader to realize, the total lie about the WMD that Iraq was alleged to have. Further, the same administration would cause the knowledge of one of its own covert officers to become known as such. If you want to have a deeper understanding about how we as a country came to the level of political dysfunction we are at now, this book may help give you some background.
October 22, 2007
Apparently, the CIA redacted approximately 10% of her book, but she and her publisher decided to leave the blacked-out portions in. So according to a review in The New York Times, the part about where she met her husband jumps from a mention of "a woman in a Chanel suit who wheeled two Burberry-wearing pug dogs in a baby carriage" to Joe becoming a part of her life, with 7-and-a-quarter pages of blacked out lines in between!
I read Joe Wilson's book several years ago when her cover was first blown, and I've been following the case as best as I can over the internets. I'm looking forward to reading her side of the story.
I read Joe Wilson's book several years ago when her cover was first blown, and I've been following the case as best as I can over the internets. I'm looking forward to reading her side of the story.
April 20, 2012
This highly personal memoir, recounts how and why Valerie came to work for the CIA and describes the trauma endured by she and her family due to the betrayal by the administration. Valerie, daughter of an Air Force colonel and sister of a marine, gave over twenty years of loyal service to the defense of the United States. In return, she saw her career come to an end and her reputation smeared for political ends.
Laura Rozen's afterwards (in the last two CDs) reviews the public record and gives the details that are available to the public, but which the CIA insisted Valerie not include in her own account.
Laura Rozen's afterwards (in the last two CDs) reviews the public record and gives the details that are available to the public, but which the CIA insisted Valerie not include in her own account.
November 11, 2015
This book, not surprisingly, seemed very one-sided to me. I thought that it was going to be a biography but it seemed to be more about bashing George W. Bush and his administration. Character assassinations galore! Mrs. Wilson's story was very choppy because of all of the redacted sections. I hoped that the afterword would help to fill in the gaps but it was more of a history lesson than a gap-filler. Definitely not my favorite book.
June 25, 2010
I remember being shocked and fascinated when Valerie Plame was outed as a covert CIA operative by her own government and I kept thinking that there had to be some kind of explaination. Surely the US government wouldn't do this to someone who served their country. I was wrong and the subsequent legal proceedings revealed a cover up at the highest level. Palme's husband, Joe Wilson had been sent by the CIA to Niger to investigate claims of Iraq obtaining yellowcake uranium from Africa prior to the war in Iraq. He found no evidence to support this claim and the US government ignored his findings and used their unfounded claims about the uranium as a basis for going to war. Months after the Iraq war began, Wilson wrote an article 'What I didn't find in Africa.'Consequently, his wife's name and position as a covert CIA operatuve were leaked by the white house to the media in an attempt to discredit Wilson's (non)findings in Niger as being rooted in nepotism.
I was thrilled to get my hands on this book because finally, Valerie Plame gets to tell her story years after the fact. At the time she was still a CIA employee and prohibited from speaking out and defending herself. While it was annoying having parts of the book (sometimes pages at a time) censored by the CIA (even more annoying when most of the information had been declassified anyway) it still made for a great read. We hear about her time as a CIA trainee, her time spent abroad, her relocation back to Washington and work in the CIA's counterprolifiration division. We learn about her trying to juggle motherhood and a marriage with a demanding job and her frustration at not being able to locate the WMD's in Iraq that the US government maintained existed. Plame reveals just how devastating and dangerous the situation was for her family and her overseas contacts once her cover was blown and the world knew her identity. Rather than disappear into the shadows when she and Joe had done nothing wrong, Plame fought for justice and recognition that her own government had betrayed her, ended her career and wrongly accused her of nepotism.
The afterward by Laura Rozen was extremely helpful in setting a timeline as all details of when certain events occured were censored in Plame's text. I certainly recommend reading the afterward as it puts many things into context and reveals details that Plame, as a former employee of the CIA, was not allowed to reveal herself.
I was thrilled to get my hands on this book because finally, Valerie Plame gets to tell her story years after the fact. At the time she was still a CIA employee and prohibited from speaking out and defending herself. While it was annoying having parts of the book (sometimes pages at a time) censored by the CIA (even more annoying when most of the information had been declassified anyway) it still made for a great read. We hear about her time as a CIA trainee, her time spent abroad, her relocation back to Washington and work in the CIA's counterprolifiration division. We learn about her trying to juggle motherhood and a marriage with a demanding job and her frustration at not being able to locate the WMD's in Iraq that the US government maintained existed. Plame reveals just how devastating and dangerous the situation was for her family and her overseas contacts once her cover was blown and the world knew her identity. Rather than disappear into the shadows when she and Joe had done nothing wrong, Plame fought for justice and recognition that her own government had betrayed her, ended her career and wrongly accused her of nepotism.
The afterward by Laura Rozen was extremely helpful in setting a timeline as all details of when certain events occured were censored in Plame's text. I certainly recommend reading the afterward as it puts many things into context and reveals details that Plame, as a former employee of the CIA, was not allowed to reveal herself.
May 22, 2011
Valerie Plame Wilson, an undercover operative for the CIA, was "outed" by the Bush White House (a federal crime) in retaliation for her husband's opposition to the President's statement that Iraq had tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger--her husband, Joseph Wilson, was a former ambassador sent to investigate the Niger story and had reported to the CIA and the White House that the rumor was false. Nevertheless, the President included the story in his State of the Union address. This was during the time when the Bush administration was trying to make the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction as a reason for the United States to invade the country.
The revelation of Wilson's status put an end to her career, undermined some of the intelligence she had worked on and placed other CIA personnel and helpers in jeopardy, and resulted in the waste of thousands of dollars that the CIA had invested in this experienced, talented covert operative. She tells her story with the parts the CIA "redacted"--wouldn't allow her to reveal, including how many years she had worked there--"blacked out," but the story is still a fascinating read. An "afterword" by a journalist tells the full story, all of which was part of the public record anyway, so the CIA had questionable motives for disallowing its publication.
I enjoyed learning about the workings of the CIA and was impressed with the hard work and patriotism of our country's intelligence agents. I was shocked by the illegal revelation of Wilson's status for political and retaliatory motives. Our national security depends on the intelligence services being able to operate free of any political agenda, and that didn't happen in this case. Recommended for those interested in real-life spy stories and in the integrity of government.
The revelation of Wilson's status put an end to her career, undermined some of the intelligence she had worked on and placed other CIA personnel and helpers in jeopardy, and resulted in the waste of thousands of dollars that the CIA had invested in this experienced, talented covert operative. She tells her story with the parts the CIA "redacted"--wouldn't allow her to reveal, including how many years she had worked there--"blacked out," but the story is still a fascinating read. An "afterword" by a journalist tells the full story, all of which was part of the public record anyway, so the CIA had questionable motives for disallowing its publication.
I enjoyed learning about the workings of the CIA and was impressed with the hard work and patriotism of our country's intelligence agents. I was shocked by the illegal revelation of Wilson's status for political and retaliatory motives. Our national security depends on the intelligence services being able to operate free of any political agenda, and that didn't happen in this case. Recommended for those interested in real-life spy stories and in the integrity of government.
January 19, 2011
11/2010 Mike and I went to see the movie Fair Game during the Thanksgiving weekend. I was so fascinated with the story that I wanted to at least look through Plame's and Wilson's books. Sometimes I get 'caught' by memoir, especially political memoir, and sometimes I don't find it particularly interesting.
12/3/2010 I'm intrigued with the structure of the book. About 3/4 is the memoir by Plame; however, many chapters have had portions redacted by the CIA. To compensate, Simon & Schuster hired a journalist to write a parallel book that provides context and details that are necessarily lacking in Plame's section. The journalist's work comprises about 1/4 of the full volume. I've been flipping back and forth and just finished both chapter 3s.
1/12/2011 ** Well, it took a while, but I finished it. I found the book interesting & disturbing, but not so exciting that I had to finish it before I started something new. I found that I read this book interspersed with fiction reading. RE interesting: how a covert agent is trained, the ways in which the person seems to essentially work two jobs -the cover job and the CIA job. RE disturbing: how some of our politicians can get so wrapped up in their own agendas and personal areas of influence that they forget the impact of their actions on the lives of the 'behind the scenes' government employees who spend their entire career working for the American people.
If you like political memoir, you may want to dip into this one.
12/3/2010 I'm intrigued with the structure of the book. About 3/4 is the memoir by Plame; however, many chapters have had portions redacted by the CIA. To compensate, Simon & Schuster hired a journalist to write a parallel book that provides context and details that are necessarily lacking in Plame's section. The journalist's work comprises about 1/4 of the full volume. I've been flipping back and forth and just finished both chapter 3s.
1/12/2011 ** Well, it took a while, but I finished it. I found the book interesting & disturbing, but not so exciting that I had to finish it before I started something new. I found that I read this book interspersed with fiction reading. RE interesting: how a covert agent is trained, the ways in which the person seems to essentially work two jobs -the cover job and the CIA job. RE disturbing: how some of our politicians can get so wrapped up in their own agendas and personal areas of influence that they forget the impact of their actions on the lives of the 'behind the scenes' government employees who spend their entire career working for the American people.
If you like political memoir, you may want to dip into this one.
July 31, 2012
Film Fair Game, yang dibintangi oleh Naomi Watts dan Sean Penn, menarik. Tapi bukunya, yang berjudul sama, jauh lebih menarik. Ini adalah kisah hidup Veleri Plame, agen rahasia CIA yang menangani isu senjata pemusnah massal. Sebagaimana layaknya agen rahasia, identitasnya tak boleh dibocorkan. Jika itu dilakukan, pembocornya akan dijerat pidana.
Ini cerita tentang Washington, di mana intrik dan persaingan seperti sebuah cerita yang biasa-biasa saja. Identitasnya sebagai agen rahasia ternyata bocor ke publik setelah Robert Novak menulis kolom yang menyebut namanya. Usut punya usut, namanya ternyata sengaja dibocorkan oleh petinggi penting di pemerintahan Bush: Kepala Staf Wakil PResiden Dick Cheney, I Scooter Libby.
Pembocoran ini terkait dengan 'balas dendam' Gedung Putih terhadap Valerie, karena ulah suaminya, Joseph C. Wilson. Bekas duta besar AS di Gabon itu mengkritik Pemerintahan Bush secara terbuka melalui kolom di New York Times. Dalam kolom itu, Wilson menyatakan bahwa ia tak menemukan bukti bahwa Irak mengimpor uranium dari Nigeria. Padahal, soal dugaan impor itulah yang dijadikan bukti penting bahwa Irak sedang mengembangkan senjata pemusnah massal. Dasar itulah yang dipakai AS untuk menyerang Irak dan menjatuhkan Saddam.
Di AS, membocorkan nama identitas agen rahasia adalah pelanggaran federal. Valeri akhirnya keluar dari CIA, dan dia menuntut agar pembocor namanya diadili. Libby akhirnya diseret ke meja hijau.
Ini cerita tentang Washington, di mana intrik dan persaingan seperti sebuah cerita yang biasa-biasa saja. Identitasnya sebagai agen rahasia ternyata bocor ke publik setelah Robert Novak menulis kolom yang menyebut namanya. Usut punya usut, namanya ternyata sengaja dibocorkan oleh petinggi penting di pemerintahan Bush: Kepala Staf Wakil PResiden Dick Cheney, I Scooter Libby.
Pembocoran ini terkait dengan 'balas dendam' Gedung Putih terhadap Valerie, karena ulah suaminya, Joseph C. Wilson. Bekas duta besar AS di Gabon itu mengkritik Pemerintahan Bush secara terbuka melalui kolom di New York Times. Dalam kolom itu, Wilson menyatakan bahwa ia tak menemukan bukti bahwa Irak mengimpor uranium dari Nigeria. Padahal, soal dugaan impor itulah yang dijadikan bukti penting bahwa Irak sedang mengembangkan senjata pemusnah massal. Dasar itulah yang dipakai AS untuk menyerang Irak dan menjatuhkan Saddam.
Di AS, membocorkan nama identitas agen rahasia adalah pelanggaran federal. Valeri akhirnya keluar dari CIA, dan dia menuntut agar pembocor namanya diadili. Libby akhirnya diseret ke meja hijau.
April 14, 2011
i read this the day after watching the film w/ my parents. very impressive source material (and great movie).
i should have read this backwards, though - there's a note from S&S at the top about how she submitted the book (per regs) to the CIA for approval and clearance of any sensitive material. it came back substantially redacted, and various negotiations and a lawsuit later, most of them were left standing -- even the areas that were not classified and had been otherwise reported on in the press.
the publishers commissioned a journalist to essentially fill in the blanks in a profile piece that they ran at the end of the book -- but had i read it first, i think the whole thing would have read a bit more smoothly. (the redactions are, at times, borderline hysterically funny in how totally fucked up they are. see, for example.)
even heavily censored, plame wilson's story is incredibly compelling - not just for the international intrigue angle but the horrifying witch-hunt that followed her husband's criticism of the war in iraq.
i should have read this backwards, though - there's a note from S&S at the top about how she submitted the book (per regs) to the CIA for approval and clearance of any sensitive material. it came back substantially redacted, and various negotiations and a lawsuit later, most of them were left standing -- even the areas that were not classified and had been otherwise reported on in the press.
the publishers commissioned a journalist to essentially fill in the blanks in a profile piece that they ran at the end of the book -- but had i read it first, i think the whole thing would have read a bit more smoothly. (the redactions are, at times, borderline hysterically funny in how totally fucked up they are. see, for example.)
even heavily censored, plame wilson's story is incredibly compelling - not just for the international intrigue angle but the horrifying witch-hunt that followed her husband's criticism of the war in iraq.
January 26, 2018
Pretty boring. Covers her time in the CIA (most of the details of which were redacted, which made for a pretty uninformative read, even with the explanatory afterword), then Novak's outing of her and the aftereffects. Most of her publicity stuff she tries to excuse saying her decisions were made because of all the stress she was under, but it comes off as pretty tough to buy, and not a very good excuse. No Valerie, you think, you pretty much just liked the idea of being on the cover of Vanity Fair. Her outing was a breach of national security that was inexcusable, and the details of the war between the CIA analysts and the White House Administration in the lead up to Iraq and the subsequent failed search for WMD were interesting... but that can't be said for any other part of the book. I don't know why I was expecting more than a "write a book and get rich quick while I'm famous" memoir, but that's all I got. Skip it.
May 6, 2016
I'd always been interested in this case as it took place through the US courts and the media. I followed it with a passing, if not obsessive interest.
Reading the story, from Valerie Plame's side, especially as the book has been published with the CIA's redactions in place (they create a marvellous, if somewhat dissonant effect as you read), gives a tremendous insight into how twisted and bitter the Bush government's need to perpetuate the Iraq War was (and remains afterwards, even now).
Plame was betrayed by the very government she had served for many years, her husband no less so, as the Bush administration sought to stitch both of them up for things said the administration didn't like.
One of my best reads of 2010. Highly recommended. I will be moving on now to read Plame's husband's book, Joe Wilson's "The Politics of Truth".
Reading the story, from Valerie Plame's side, especially as the book has been published with the CIA's redactions in place (they create a marvellous, if somewhat dissonant effect as you read), gives a tremendous insight into how twisted and bitter the Bush government's need to perpetuate the Iraq War was (and remains afterwards, even now).
Plame was betrayed by the very government she had served for many years, her husband no less so, as the Bush administration sought to stitch both of them up for things said the administration didn't like.
One of my best reads of 2010. Highly recommended. I will be moving on now to read Plame's husband's book, Joe Wilson's "The Politics of Truth".
February 10, 2013
I would have rated the book higher for its content, but I found it a little irritating to know every place the CIA had censored it. I would have preferred a statement about the kinds of material that had been expurgated. That said, it's an informative and troubling book. It compellingly makes the case that there was no intelligence failure that led us into the war in Iraq. Instead, there were a few bad actors (in the White House, unfortunately) who did not want intelligence that did not support their rush to war. The masterful manipulation of the media and, thus, American opinion is the scary part. I recall believing some of the character assassination that I now know was designed to silence and discredit patriotic Americans who wanted their government to have the most complete information available.
February 17, 2008
despite my excitement over this book, i was SOOO disappointed. it starts in the preface where she discloses that she had to turn the book manuscript over to the CIA for their approval prior to publishing. the result is huge parts of the book, sometimes three pages at once, literally lined through. its distracting, difficult to follow and completely takes the interesting spy element out of it. i gave this two stars only because of the afterword portion, which helps to fill in the blanks. i wouldn't recommend this to anyone but if you feel compelled, skip the first part, go straight to the afterword, and ask barnes and noble for 1/3 of your money back for all the lined out pages
March 12, 2009
I need to be able to select "tried to read" from the drop down menu on this site. I've tried to read this book three times, as I've seen Valerie Plame interviewed on TV and find her fascinating.
However, I am unable to get past the fact that many paragraphs, and in some cases, pages, have been blacked out by government censors. Hmmmmm, seems a bit too "market-y" to me. Can't enjoy the story if so much is missing.
thumbs down, sorry Valerie.
However, I am unable to get past the fact that many paragraphs, and in some cases, pages, have been blacked out by government censors. Hmmmmm, seems a bit too "market-y" to me. Can't enjoy the story if so much is missing.
thumbs down, sorry Valerie.
January 12, 2011
A disappointment. With all the CIA editing aka taking whole paragraphs and pages and crossing them out, it was hard to follow and after the fourth chapter I didn't know what was going on. There is an afterword that gave some insight, but not enough for me to keep up. I was looking forward to reading a memoir about a recent spy, but reading the afterword by a different author would suffice. I didn't finish this book.
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