In new book, Novak distorts events to support assertion that Armitage leak was not "planned"

In his recently released memoir, The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington (Crown Forum, July 2007), conservative columnist Robert D. Novak issues his most thorough recounting yet of a June 2003 meeting he had with then-deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, in which Armitage revealed the identity of former CIA operative Valerie Plame. While Novak writes that Armitage "expected" the revelation to be "published in my column," he nonetheless concludes: "I am sure it was not a planned leak but came out as an offhand observation" (Page 4). Yet the two principal pieces of purported evidence Novak provides in the book to bolster his conclusion that the leak by Armitage was not "planned" are undermined by the account of events outlined by Novak and others in the trial of former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

First, Novak claims in The Prince of Darkness that he had "initiated" the meeting with Armitage, suggesting that Armitage did not purposefully seek out Novak to leak Plame's identity. However, during the Libby trial, Novak acknowledged that when Armitage agreed to an interview in June 2003 (shortly after Armitage learned of Plame), "a couple of years" had passed since Novak last "pressed the case" for a meeting with Armitage in 2001. Second, Novak suggests that at the time Armitage arranged the meeting, he would have had no reason to want to discredit Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, because Armitage had scheduled the meeting "before" Wilson went "public" with a New York Times op-ed criticizing the Bush White House for ignoring intelligence about Iraq that Wilson had gathered during a fact-finding mission to Niger. In fact, contrary to Novak's suggestion, the op-ed was not the first time that Wilson had publicly revealed his Niger findings, and Armitage was well aware of Wilson's trip and its potential ramifications at the time he contacted Novak. Beyond resting his case that the leak was not deliberate on these two assertions, in The Prince of Darkness, Novak also distorts other evidence that undermines his claim that the Armitage leak was "inadvertent," as he described it in a July 12, 2006, column.

Wilson was sent to Niger in 2002 by the CIA to investigate whether Iraq had purchased yellowcake uranium from that African country. Wilson's investigation, which was prompted by questions from Vice President Dick Cheney, turned up no evidence that any sale had taken place and found that "it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq." After President Bush cited a British intelligence finding that Iraq had attempted to obtain uranium from Africa in his 2003 State of the Union address as justification for invading Iraq (the notorious "16 words"), Wilson was quoted anonymously in a May 6, 2003, New York Times column by New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof and two subsequent media reports (one of which was another column by Kristof). Finally, Wilson detailed the findings of his trip in a July 6, 2003, Times op-ed and in an appearance the same day on NBC's Meet the Press. Eight days later, in his July 14, 2003, column, Novak identified Wilson's wife as "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction" and wrote: "Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger." Following this public disclosure of Plame's identity, the CIA referred the matter to the Justice Department, resulting in an investigation by special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald that ultimately led to Libby's conviction on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements. Libby's 30-month prison sentence was commuted by Bush on July 2.

Armitage was revealed to be Novak's initial source in Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War (Crown, September 2006) by Newsweek investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Washington editor of The Nation. Following this disclosure, Plame and Wilson amended their civil lawsuit against Cheney, Libby, and White House senior adviser Karl Rove to include Armitage.

While explaining in The Prince of Darkness the background behind his meeting with Armitage, Novak offers several noteworthy details. For example, Novak observes that since he and Armitage "had no personal relationship and never before had had a conversation, I was surprised that no press aide sat in on our meeting." But perhaps more telling are the circumstances under which the meeting between Novak and Armitage was arranged. Novak writes that he had "asked to see Armitage early in their administration and repeated my request after the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001," but that he had been "rebuffed" by Armitage -- "not with the customary evasion of claiming an overly full schedule but by his secretary making clear that he simply did not want to see me." Yet despite Armitage's blunt refusal to meet with Novak for several years, Novak writes that Armitage's office suddenly contacted him "in the last week of June 2003" to schedule a meeting with no explanation "given then or subsequently for this change of heart":

I asked to see Armitage early in their administration and repeated my request after the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. [Secretary of State Colin] Powell and Armitage were widely perceived as being out of step with the rest of the administration about military intervention in Iraq. I had ready access to Powell, in person and over the telephone, but he was circumspect in what he said to me, while Armitage had a reputation for being less guarded in conversations with journalists. Armitage rebuffed me, not with the customary evasion of claiming an overly full schedule but by his secretary making clear that he simply did not want to see me. I assumed that Armitage bracketed me, a notoriously conservative columnist, with the Iraqi war hawks who were unsympathetic toward his views. If so, he had somehow missed my written and spoken criticism of the Iraqi intervention.

Then, in the last week of June 2003, Armitage's office called to agree unexpectedly to my request and set up the appointment for July 8. No reason was given then or subsequently for this change of heart. However, he apparently was following the recommendation of his political adviser, Washington lobbyist Ken Duberstein, a longtime source of mine. (Page 4)

In his testimony at Libby's trial, Novak more explicitly stated what the above passage suggests -- that he had not requested to meet with Armitage at any point in time close to when Armitage's office contacted him in June 2003. According to a transcript of the trial included in journalist Murray Waas' book The United States v. I. Lewis Libby (Union Square, June 2007), Novak said on the stand: "[A]t the end of June -- the last week of June of 2003 -- his office contacted my office and said he would see me. I had not pressed the case in a couple of years" (Page 416).

Yet despite acknowledging that his request to meet with Armitage had gone unfulfilled for "a couple of years" before Armitage contacted him in June 2003, Novak asserts later in the book that he had "initiated" the meeting with Armitage, in addition to his subsequent meeting with Rove in which Rove confirmed Plame's identity. Novak offers this assertion to rebut reports that senior administration officials were "cold-calling" reporters and disclosing Plame's CIA employment:

I have no interest in critiquing the work product of colleagues except as it affected me personally. But the Sunday and Monday accounts in the [Washington] Post gave the impression that two White House aides were "cold-calling" reporters without success until they came to me. The truth, as related in chapter one, is that I initiated contact with my two sources. (Page 601)

Moreover, while Novak attributes Armitage's refusal to meet with him to a mistaken perception that Novak was a proponent of the Iraq war and attributes Armitage's eventual willingness to meet with him to the "recommendation of his political adviser, Washington lobbyist Ken Duberstein," Novak simply dismisses the possibility that Armitage's "change of heart" might mean that Armitage had purposefully fed him Plame's identity. Indeed, Novak flatly asserts that he is "sure" the leak was not "planned." Yet in addition to acknowledging that Armitage did not explain his sudden willingness to meet with him, Novak does not mention any topic that Armitage indicated he wanted to discuss, and the only specific topic Novak says that they did discuss was "the Niger uranium issue." Indeed, what Novak writes of the discussion itself, besides recounting how Armitage leaked Plame's identity, is that "our hour together was more conversation than interview"; that Armitage gave Novak "high-level insider gossip"; and that "[a]bout halfway through our session, I brought up Bush's sixteen words" (Pages 4-5).

Moreover, other than noting that "Armitage offered no interpretation of Wilson's conduct and said nothing negative about him or his wife," Novak writes only the following in support of his claim that the leak was not intentional: "It is important to note that Armitage reached out to me before [emphasis in original] Joe Wilson went public on the New York Times op-ed page and on Meet the Press" (Page 4). In pointing to this chronology, Novak suggests that at the time Armitage decided to schedule their meeting, he could not have intended to leak the information that Wilson's wife was a CIA operative in order to discredit Wilson because Wilson had not yet criticized the administration in print, and therefore had not yet posed a threat to the administration's credibility.

But contrary to Novak's suggestion that Wilson had not yet gone "public" about his mission to Niger, Wilson had already revealed details of his trip and findings to two journalists, as evidenced by a pair of columns and a news report that quoted him anonymously in May and mid-June of 2003. Moreover, Libby's investigation into the first of these media accounts resulted in Armitage's learning of Wilson and Plame before he scheduled his meeting with Novak, according to testimony from Armitage's immediate subordinate.

Wilson's mission was first reported in a May 6, 2003, column by Kristof that mentioned a "former U.S. ambassador to Africa" who had discovered during a trip to Niger no evidence that Iraq had attempted to obtain uranium. Subsequently, a June 12 Washington Post report by staff writer Walter Pincus and a June 13 Kristof column also described Wilson's trip (Wilson remained anonymous in those reports as well). According to testimony from the Libby trial by former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman, the third-ranking official in the State Department at the time Plame was outed, Armitage learned of Wilson's trip and Plame's identity as a result of an inquiry by Libby into the May 6 Kristof column. According to Grossman, Libby asked him on May 29 to look into the anonymous official and his alleged trip. Grossman soon identified the official as Wilson and discussed that information with Armitage before relaying it to Libby in "early June." Grossman further testified that he told Armitage on June 11 -- well before he scheduled his meeting with Novak in "the last week of June," according to Novak -- that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA, as documented in a June 10 memorandum compiled by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) at Grossman's request. Grossman also stated that at the time of their June 11 discussion, Armitage had a copy of the INR memo, which also asserted that Plame, identified as "the wife of Joe Wilson," had "convened" a February 19, 2002, CIA meeting. The notes of an INR analyst who attended that meeting were attached to the memo, and they stated that Plame "apparently convened" the meeting "with the idea that the [CIA] and the larger [U.S. government] could dispatch Joe to Niger to use his contacts there to sort out the Niger/Iraq uranium sale question." (While the contents of the memo are not in dispute, the accuracy of its description of Plame's role, of course, is.*)

Novak's assertion that Armitage's mention of Plame in their July 8 meeting was an "offhand observation" is further undermined by the fact that Armitage also revealed Plame's identity to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward several weeks earlier, during a June 13, 2003, interview (two days after Armitage learned of Plame's identity). Further, while Armitage's motivations are not definitively known, public statements by the State Department about Iraq's purported attempts to procure uranium suggest Armitage may have had a vested interest in discrediting Wilson. For example, in a January 26, 2003, remark at the World Economic Forum, Powell -- Armitage's immediate superior and close friend -- stated that Iraq is "trying to procure uranium and the special equipment needed to transform it into material for nuclear weapons." Similarly, an official December 19, 2002, State Department "Fact Sheet" asserted that "the Iraqi regime [is] hiding their uranium procurement."

*In Hubris, Isikoff and Corn write that the INR analyst who attended the meeting and wrote the notes later told them that he had arrived late to the meeting and that Plame was not there when he arrived. From Page 94 of Hubris:

Douglas Rohn, an INR Africa analyst who attended the meeting, afterward wrote what would become a fateful memo that noted that the session was "apparently convened" by Valerie Wilson. His one-page report made it seem as if she indeed had been responsible for the meeting -- and for the mission that would follow. But years later, Rohn said that he had arrived after it had started and "really didn't understand who had done the organization work for the meeting." He explained that he had used the word "apparently" in his memo because he hadn't been sure who had actually initiated the gathering. Valerie Wilson was not there when he entered. "I have never met her," he said. Rohn, who wrote the only known account of the meeting, acknowledged that his memo may have created a misimpression about Valerie Wilson's involvement.