Dealing with Secret People
Back when I was a young’un, working for the State Department, I knew some people working for the CIA. Not a secret – many of their employees, particularly in the Washington, DC, area, are not covert. Boiled down to the essentials, cover costs money, and not every position merits the added overhead.
In other cases, if in fact I knew any, I knew from Day One not to tell other people who they were, just remember their cover, or when in doubt, say nothing about their employer or work. Even if I couldn’t remember someone’s name, I certainly never, NEVER, would’ve said, oh look, its Joe’s wife, the spook.
Maybe that’s why I’m astounded that Karl Rove’s apparant defense to allegations that he outed a CIA officer is that he didn’t use her name. The legal implications are astounding. Is the official position of the White House now that I can’t say Jane was a covert employee of the Agency, but I can say Dick’s spouse is one? Sorry, but I wouldn’t have bet my unincarcerated future on it, and still wouldn’t.
The alternate defense that’s been hinted at in the reporting is simply that Rove didn’t realize the the woman was in a cover position. More plausible from my position, but impossible to comment on without knowing how Rove learned about her and her employment. Like I said above, I knew many people there who were quite open about their employment. Not all though, and it can be tricky keeping them all straight, so to speak.
But when in doubt, say nothing. Loose lips sink ships. Or more likely, shorten careers. The immediate result of mistakes like this is having successful intelligence and operations officers suddenly sentenced to a lives in cubes in the Washington suburbs, unable to serve their country in their best capacities because their names or faces became known. Years of costly training and experience wasted because of some slip.
But I’ve been away from Uncle for nine years and one week now. I know nothing.
In talking to friends about this news story over the last few days, and this might be stereotyping but I’ll do it anyway, I think gay people seem to better understand the personal nature of the trauma caused by this breach. The fact that a career can be shortened or forever limited because some self-serving official decided to leak an intimate detail of her life seems to resonate more closely to people who’ve spent a part of their life with a secret that when revealed will irrevocably change their own lives. Out or not, covert or not, public disclosure is a personal choice with serious consequences for the individuals involved and the people around them, whether they be closeted lovers or intelligence sources commiting treason against their home countries.
And for the non-recovering attorneys who occasionally stumble through here, what is the measure of damages for a career aborted? Not just the loss of financial wages, but being forced into a career track not of your choice? As a personal example that should make most of you tremble, what damages would compensate you if litigation or trials were eliminated from your career path, and your only remaining employment as an attorney would be document review projects until you retire or enter recovery?
In much of the reporting I’ve read, the focus has been whether or not some bureaucrat at the White House commited a technical felony. I’ve seen nothing yet that discusses in any detail the ways in which this woman was horribly wronged by that person. In addition to her personal harm, a valuable resource of the U.S. Government was greatly diminished in value. The missed opportunities resulting from the loss of her skills as a covert operative, and the resulting damage to any intelligence sources she may have worked with over the years may never be publicly known. Bush should stick with his original promise and fire the person or persons responsible [via Towleroad] and make a public commitment to fully support any criminal prosecutions that come about from both the leak and the cover up.
Amazing, isn’t it? I bet Rove is the last person Bush ever suspected that he’d have to fire (or more likely, find a way to save). The multiple holes this administration is digging itself into get deeper every day. I almost can’t wait to see what happens next.
Bush is gonna waste his ever-dwindling power and influence on keeping Rove employed even if it dooms the remainder of his term.
I’ll be surprised if he comes out above Nixon in the next ranking of Presidents.