Captain's Quarters Blog


« Nothing On Roberts? Go For The Wife | Main | Dafydd: A Pro-Christian Jewish Agnostic Speaks Out »

July 21, 2005
The Secret S

Today's Washington Post article on the State Department memo detailing Valerie Plame's involvement in sending her husband to Niger lacks a great deal of context. Bloggers appear to assume that the (S) described in the article denotes the status of Plame's identity, but a more careful read of a poorly-written article shows that it doesn't mean that at all:

A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked "(S)" for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials.

Plame -- who is referred to by her married name, Valerie Wilson, in the memo -- is mentioned in the second paragraph of the three-page document, which was written on June 10, 2003, by an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), according to a source who described the memo to The Washington Post. ...

Anyone reading that paragraph should have been aware that it contained secret information, though that designation was not specifically attached to Plame's name and did not describe her status as covert, the sources said. It is a federal crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for a federal official to knowingly disclose the identity of a covert CIA official if the person knows the government is trying to keep it secret.

That sounds pretty damning -- and it might still be, but this description and the rest of the article doesn't establish this as dispositive at all. In any classified document, each paragraph has to carry a label indicating the level of classification for the information contained within. Later in the article by Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei, we find out that the paragraph contains seven sentences, and that Plame only gets mentioned in two of them. That doesn't establish that her identity was classified, although it could. It could just as easily mean that other information in the same paragraph carried that classification.

Another important piece to consider is the level of classification given. Most people don't understand that "secret" is the second-lowest classification grade possible. I would hope that NOC lists have much higher classification than that, and surely they do. Most likely, that information gets kept under codeword classification, a form of top-secret that Sandy Berger made famous when he stuffed some material of that classification into his pants and stole them from the National Archive.

Note also that the memo referred to Valerie Plame by her married name, Valerie Wilson. She wasn't "outed" under that name, and unless her maiden name also gets mentioned in this memo, it doesn't sound like the memo was the original source of the information that got leaked to Novak and others.

Like so much about this case, hearing little pieces outside of their context lends plenty of confusion to an already chaotic muddle. As Alexander Pope once warned, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Either drink deeply of the facts, or not at all.

UPDATE: Tom Maguire has some good analysis on this, which should shock no one.

Sphere It good analysis on this, which should shock no one.&topic=politics"> Digg! View blog reactions
Posted by Ed Morrissey at July 21, 2005 12:48 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry is

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference The Secret S:

» Valerie's Ex-CIA agents co-horts speak out from Macmind - Conservative Commentary and Common Sense
Yes I'm aware of the State Department Memo that has supposedly has Valerie's name on it in a paragraph marked with a "S" for what "experts" say means "Secret". If that is true, in nearly two decades of service I had never seen such a memo. It just is... [Read More]

Tracked on July 21, 2005 1:53 PM

» "S" is for "SECRET" from Mark A. Kilmer
This morning, I poked a little fund, a real little, at a WashPost piece asserting that Colin Powell's memo-on-the-plane was marked "S" for secret and everyone should have known that. Captain Ed hits it head-on, skewers it, and leaves it gently wo... [Read More]

Tracked on July 21, 2005 2:42 PM

» WILSON COVER-UP: TIP OF THE ICEBERG? from Right Wing Nut House
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation into the Plame leak has now gone off on so many different tangents that if you’re trying to follow his line of inquiry, you probably need a scorecard to keep track of the players. Does ... [Read More]

Tracked on July 21, 2005 5:35 PM

» Depends on what the meaning of ‘S’ is from The Politburo Diktat
Regarding the State Department memo on the Plame/Wilson/Niger trip, the Washington Post noted: A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph mark... [Read More]

Tracked on July 22, 2005 8:22 AM

» Captain Queeg tackles — no, fumbles — Webster's, English language from Martini Republic
Digby hits a slow, hanging curveball by the celebrated wingnut-dimbulb-bloviator Captain Queeg, who apparently doesn't understand what "Secret" means in plain English, at least where the appellatio... [Read More]

Tracked on July 22, 2005 5:17 PM

» Captain Queeg tackles -- no, fumbles -- Webster's, English language from Martini Republic
Digby hits a slow, hanging curveball by the celebrated wingnut-dimbulb-bloviator Captain Queeg, who apparently doesn't understand what "Secret" means in plain English, at least where the appellatio... [Read More]

Tracked on July 22, 2005 5:18 PM

» Odds, Ends (updated) from protein wisdom

1. The latest news in Nadagate involves a State Department memo, Ari Fleischer, the Washington Post, the New York Times, a gaggle of (un)subpoenaed reporters and subpoenaed White House records, Bloomberg News, the scarlet letter "S" -&...

[Read More]

Tracked on July 23, 2005 1:52 PM



Design & Skinning by:
m2 web studios





blog advertising



button1.jpg

Proud Ex-Pat Member of the Bear Flag League!