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eh boy... get ready...
Outed CIA officer Valerie Plame agrees to 7-figure book deal
AP Photo NY125
By HILLEL ITALIE
AP National Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- Valerie Plame, the former CIA operative whose
unmasking led to a federal investigation and the indictment of a
top vice presidential aide, has agreed to a book deal with the
Crown Publishing Group.
Financial terms were not disclosed, but two sources close to the
negotiations said the deal was in the low seven figures. Several
publishers had competed for the memoir, scheduled to come out in
the fall of 2007 and tentatively titled "Fair Game."
In 2003, White House adviser Karl Rove reportedly said Plame was
"fair game" after her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph
Wilson, accused the Bush administration of distorting intelligence
about Iraq to justify going to war.
"She will tell her whole story, absolutely," Crown's publisher
and senior vice president, Steve Ross, said Friday. "This book
will be the first time the public will get to hear about her work
and the surprising role she had in intelligence gathering in the
lead-up to the war in Iraq."
Ross also said that Plame would tell of "being a high ranking
woman in the male-dominated intelligence community." He said Plame
would write the book herself and that "one of the most pleasant
surprises was the quality of her craftsmanship and the richness of
her storytelling" in the book proposal she submitted.
How much Plame, now retired from the agency, will reveal could
be complicated by two factors: The CIA, which reviews the
manuscripts of former agents and has reportedly become stricter
about what it will permit, and next year's scheduled trial of I.
Libby Lewis, the former chief aide to Vice President Dick Cheney.
Libby is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice for
lying to the FBI and a federal grand jury about how he learned
about Plame's identity and what he subsequently told reporters
about her. Rove remains under investigation.
Ross acknowledged that Plame could be subject to CIA censorship,
but said restrictions "would be a potential public relations land
mine if the CIA was seen as trying to block" too much of her book.
Commenting on Libby's trial and any possible future indictments,
Ross said that "Obviously, we would not want to publish anything
that would jeopardize any important legal cases."
The scandal emerged after Joseph Wilson took a trip at the CIA's
request in early 2002 to Niger. The CIA sought to determine whether
there was any truth to reports that Saddam Hussein's government had
tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger to make a nuclear
weapon. Wilson discounted the reports. Nevertheless, the allegation
wound up in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address.
Citing senior Bush officials, syndicated columnist Robert Novak
named Plame in a column on July 14, 2003, eight days after Wilson
alleged in an opinion piece in The New York Times that the Bush
administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq to justify
going to war.
Plame has made few public statements since her status was
revealed, although she appeared with her husband in a photograph
that ran in Vanity Fair in 2004. Plame and Wilson recently attended
the White House Correspondents' Association dinner.
Wilson himself wrote a book, "The Politics of Truth,"
published by Carroll & Graf in 2004.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
APTV 05-05-06 2142EDT
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