Today's Washington Post "Free for All" section included a letter to the editor from one R.E. Pound, a CIA veteran who retired after 33 years of service in 2009, some 31 years after being outed in a book as an operative. Pound took to task former CIA operative Valerie Plame for her "ludicrous" claim "that the exposure [of her identity] forced an end to her career in intelligence."
After all, Pound conducted an investigation "charged with looking into possible damage in one location caused by Valerie Plame's outing."
"There was none," Pound noted, and complained that the claims of the new "Fair Game" film "devalue the resolve of the officers who have overcome truly dangerous exposure, and they cheapen the risk from laying bare their very real achievements."
Here's the letter in full as published in the November 12 paper:
In 1978, my CIA affiliation was exposed by Philip Agee in his book "Dirty Work II." I'm nothing special; more than a few colleagues have been exposed at one time or another. I went on to serve nearly 34 years.
As luck would have it, I was at one point charged with looking into possible damage in one location caused by Valerie Plame's outing. There was none.
So enough with the overwrought claims of injury that "Fair Game" suggests. Those claims devalue the resolve of the officers who have overcome truly dangerous exposure, and they cheapen the risk from laying bare their very real achievements.
It was wrong to expose Plame. It was ludicrous for her to claim that the exposure forced an end to her career in intelligence. In the words of my favorite poet, A.E. Housman: " 'Tis sure much finer fellows have fared much worse before."
R.E. Pound, Reston
The writer served in the CIA from 1976 to 2009.
