Valerie Plame

Valerie Plame joined the CIA when she was just 21. She worked undercover and went on to manage other agency operatives attempting to contain nuclear proliferation in rogue states around the world. But she was tested when top George W. Bush Administration officials outed her, effectively ending her career and putting her life and the lives of her husband and two small children at risk.

The incident forced Plame to rethink her life’s course. She was able to move forward with strong presence that she attributes to a solid family background, mentors, nature walks, a wide network of good friends, and parenthood with the power it brings to fiercely protect innocent young. 

In 2002, Plame’s husband, U.S. diplomat Joe Wilson, was sent by the CIA to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq was preparing to buy enhanced uranium from the country. He found nothing and reported as much. But in his 2003 State of the Union Address Pres. George W. Bush said that Saddam Hussein “recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”  Wilson rebutted the President’s statement with an opinion article in The New York Times, titled What I Didn’t Find in Africa.

One week later, Robert Novak, a conservative columnist at The Washington Post, with information supplied by Bush officials, fired back and outed Plame as a CIA operative.  Plame’s career was over. Worse, her family was now in jeopardy.  “How do you navigate that?” asked Plame. “Sometimes all you can do is put one foot in front of the other and having little kids makes you do that. You have to check your impulses and be selfless sometimes which is what parenthood is all about.”

She asked the agency for additional security but was denied. “I was a little bit in shock at trying to navigate this, but I wish I had been more assertive and less of a good girl. That just comes with time and maturity. I just wish I had been more assertive than let the chips fall as they may. I didn’t want to in any way jeopardize the people I worked with. I was really concerned about them,”  said Plame.

She officially resigned from the CIA in 2005, and Plame and Wilson moved their family from Washington, D.C. to Santa Fe, New Mexico. She had a strong network of friends from college and soon fell in with a supportive and empowering group of women that she said is essential to her well-being. “The list of strong smart women in Santa Fe is just unbelievable.  Maybe, I didn’t know that moving here, but I found it out right away. It is crucial,” she said. 

Plame also said she has a need for quiet privacy, as well.  “For me now, it’s very important that I am in nature and that could just mean walking my dog on a leafy street. You don’t have to be camping in the wilderness, but just being outside and being alone—I’m a very gregarious person, but I also have deep needs for solitude to collect myself.”

Plame was tested again in the past year, with the death of her mother and separation from Wilson. “This time I learned the importance of taking care of yourself physically and spiritually. I didn’t know that the first go-round and I tried to gut it out. It’s really crucial,” she said. “When kids or other people are depending on you, you have to take care of yourself. It’s easier said than done. For myself, I felt very responsible and that can be really self-defeating.”

Plame is now an author and has become engaged in the community, serving on the board of the United Way of Santa Fe County and volunteering with her children at shelters. She said public service was important in her family when she was growing up. Giving to others, she said, is good for her.   “How many times are you walking on the sidewalk feeling sorry for yourself and you see some person in a wheelchair or something and you go, ‘Right, I’m not in a wheel-chair.’ It’s more valuable for you than whatever service you give, whether you’re working in the soup kitchen or in a board meeting. I get way more out of it than what I ever give. It helps anyone feel connected and that of course, is a critical component of one of the things you have to do in living in this world.”

Service, she said, can be spiritual. “The fact is, you feel connected to something larger than yourself. That is what religion and community do for you. All of a sudden, you’re not at the center of the universe for at least a few moments.” She said a rabbi recently described an exercise that resonated with Plame. “’Write your own eulogy,’” Plame said he told her. “’Write one as if you died today and write one as if you died in thirty years. What do you want that to say about you in your short time here?”