So far as I know, Novak was the first to disclose Plame as CIA. In early May 2003 Nicholas Kristof wrote on an unnamed ambassador’s mission to Niger, in mid-June Walter Pincus wrote on an unnamed ambassador’s trip. There’s internal memos and talking with reporters but no public statements. It has been reported that Plame’s CIA connection was reveled to Russian and Cuban intelligence agents in the mid to late `90s, however if true the connection was still not public knowledge.

There were some reports that the Administration made some attempts in 2002/early 2003 to discredit parts of the CIA Counterproliferation Division, including Plame’s cover organization Brewster Jennings & Associates. These were the people actively working on preventing the spread of WMDs and would be the most likely to contradict the Administration’s claims about Saddam. If that did happen, Plame’s work for the CIA may have been mentioned. However I can’t find the #$%^7 links to that now (grrr)

Anyhow, it was Novak who blew her cover, after the invasion and after Wilson had written his “What I Didn’t Find in Africa” op-ed. That’s basically what the last paragraph you quoted was saying. The bit about their son was a weak attempt at humor.

Timelines (from a number of them)
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/footnotes/2004/07/the_joseph_wils.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame_scandal_timeline

Posted by Becker at December 30, 2005 11:12 AM