The Exposure Of Valerie Plame

Husband Of Unmasked CIA Agent Says She's Been Threatened

(CBS) 
Bradley sat down with Wilson when Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald announced the results of his two-year investigation, not charging the vice president’s Chief of Staff Lewis Libby with leaking the name, but with lying and obstructing justice.

Joe Wilson says he believes someone in the White House was responsible for the leak. “It was the White House that decided they were going to go after me, and the tactic they decided to use was to go after my wife.”

“Do you think that the prosecutor has gotten to or is getting to the bottom of it?” Bradley asked.

“I don't know. It's hard for me to say. This was done to silence others. This was a shot across the bow to others. The message was if you do to us what Wilson did to us, we'll do to you what we just did to Wilson's family,” said Wilson.

And the damage to Valerie Plame Wilson was serious, as spelled out by the special prosecutor. “Valerie Wilson’s friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life,” Fitzgerald said.

When they first met, Wilson says Plame told him she was a risk analyst for an international firm.

“But, once you were married, you had to join this cover. I mean, you couldn't tell your family, your friends,” Bradley asked.

“No. The day that Mr. Novak's article appeared, my sister-in-law turned to my brother and said, ‘Do you think Joe knew?’ So, not even my brother or my sister-in-law or any of my immediate family knew,” Wilson recalled.

“So, no one said, ‘I sort of suspected this all the time?’” Bradley asked.

“No,” Wilson replied.

Wilson says that did not surprise him at all. “As Valerie points out, most people are interested in talking about themselves and, therefore, it was very easy for a professional to shift the conversation away from her and onto other people.”

When she saw Novak’s column, he says, it came as a complete shock. Eighteen years of a meticulously-crafted cover, exposed in an instant.

“She felt like she had been hit in the stomach. It took her breath away. She recovered quickly because, of course, you don't do what she did for a living without understanding stress. And she became very matter of fact right afterwards. And started making lists of what she had to do to ensure that her assets, her projects, her programs and her operations were protected,” Wilson said.

“Did she realize then that her career as an undercover agent for the CIA was over?” Bradley asked.

“Absolutely. Sure. There was no doubt about it in her mind. And she wondered for what,” Wilson said.

“Novak also published the name of the front company that your wife used for cover, Brewster-Jennings & Associates. How would you characterize that disclosure?” Bradley asked.

“I think it was abominable. But when he published her name, it was very easy to unravel everything about her, her entire cover. You live your cover. And so you live Brewster-Jennings. So, she would have had business cards that said Brewster-Jennings on them. So, that was just insult to injury. And it was just Mr. Novak taking a second bite of the apple,” says Wilson.