After graduating from college, moving to Washington, D.C., and marrying Sesler, Plame worked at a clothing store while awaiting results of her application to the CIA.[5] She was accepted into the 1985–86 CIA officer training class and began her training for what would become a twenty-year career with the Agency.[14] Although the CIA will not publicly release the specific dates of Plame's employment from 1985 to 2002 due to security concerns,[14][16] Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald affirmed that Plame "was a CIA officer from January 1, 2002, forward" and that "her association with the CIA was classified at that time through July 2003.[17] Due to the nature of her clandestine work for the CIA, many details about Plame's professional career are still classified, but it is documented that she worked for the CIA in a clandestine capacity relating to counter-proliferation.[14][18][19][20]
Plame served the CIA at times as a non-official cover (or NOC), operating undercover in (at least) two positions in Athens and Brussels.[21] While using her own name, "Valerie Plame", her assignments required posing in various professional roles in order to gather intelligence more effectively.[22][23][24] Two of her covers include serving as a junior consular officer in the early 1990s in Athens and then later an energy analyst for the private company (founded in 1994) "Brewster Jennings & Associates," which the CIA later acknowledged was a front company for certain investigations.[25]
A former senior diplomat in Athens remembered Plame in her dual role and also recalled that she served as one of the "control officers" coordinating the visit of President George H. W. Bush to Greece and Turkey in July 1991.[26] After the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the CIA sent her first to the London School of Economics and then the College of Europe, in Bruges, for Master's degrees. After earning the second degree, she stayed on in Brussels, where she began her next assignment under cover as an "energy consultant" for Brewster-Jennings.[5] Beginning in 1997, Plame's primary assignment was shifted to the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The CIA confirmed her status as a NOC or “deep cover officer” and remarked that she was talented and highly intelligent, but decried the fact that her career featured largely US-based Headquarters service, typical of most CIA officers.[27]
Valerie Plame - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
