Excerpt
Further Reflections on Joseph Wilson's Career Here's a fuller bio than I had in my earlier post, based on information mostly from PBS (I am not quoting them) 1988 to 1991: Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. During "Desert Shield" he was the acting Ambassador and was responsible for the freeing of several hundred American hostages. He was the last official American to meet with Saddam Hussein before "Desert Storm.
He was number two, in charge of administrative matters, to April Glaspie, the career diplomat who it seems in July 1990 made Saddam think the U.S. would not mind if he invaded Kuwait and has not held an ambassador-level job since. She left on vacation later that month, leaving Wilson in charge, and after Saddam invaded Kuwait a few weeks later she didn't return to Iraq. The Air Phase of the First Gulf War started in January 1991.
1992-1995: U.S. Ambassador to the Gabonese Republic and to the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe from 1992 to 1995 (one ambassador for those two countries is standard) 1995-1997: Political Advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of United States Armed Forces, Europe
June 1997 - July 1998: Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council
Just looking at this record, without Clifford May's anonymous sources, it isn't clear that he left the Foreign Service involuntarily. Maybe he just wanted to move into political appointments with the Clinton Administration, whose politics were more congenial to him than the administrations from 1980 to 1992.
The January 2001 Vanity Fair article contains lots of useful information, especially if you connect it to what else we know. There is mention of Wilson's Turkish connection:
He had met Plame in February 1997 at a reception at the Washington home of the Turkish ambassador.
We learn that he is rich and that he was having an affair with Valerie Plame in or before the year he divorced the second of his three wives. The article says "On the third or fourth date, he says, they were in the middle of a 'heavy make-out' session" and from the following excerpt we see that they were looking at houses and discussing marriage in 1998, the same year he was divorced:
The Wilsons live in the Palisades, an affluent neighborhood of Washington, D.C., on the fringe of Georgetown. In winter, when the trees have no leaves, the back of their house has a stunning view of the Washington Monument. They'd first seen the house in 1998, when it was still being built, and they had instantly fallen in love with it. Even so, Plame took some persuading before they made an offer. "She's very frugal," explains Wilson. "My brother who's in real estate had to fly in from the West Coast and explain that a mortgage could cost less than our rented apartment in the Watergate."
Plame also told Wilson that she'd be moving with him into the new house only as his wife. Records show that Wilson and his second wife, Jacqueline, to whom he was married for 12 years, were divorced in 1998. By the mid-90s, Wilson says, that relationship had pretty much disintegrated. "Separate bedrooms-and I was playing a lot of golf," he says.
Note, too, that exactly as I speculated in my earlier post, he was playing a lot of golf in the 1990's-- not the sign of a successful career.
(snip)
The Vanity Fair story tells us more about Wilson's background, including how his first wife got fed up with him:
Wilson is the son of freelance journalists who lived in California and then moved around Europe while he and his brother were growing up. He went to the University of California at Santa Barbara and characterized himself as a "surf dude" with some carpentry skills.
In person, he gives off a charismatic, relaxed air, and someone who was with him in Baghdad said it's easy to underestimate him. In 1974 he married his college sweetheart, Susan Otchis, and in 1976 went to work for the State Department. His postings included Niger, Togo-where his wife became pregnant with the first set of Wilson twins, Joseph and Sabrina, now 24-South Africa, and Burundi. It was in Burundi that Susan "decided she'd had about enough of me" and left him, he says. He remains on good terms with the family.
Also in Burundi, Wilson met his second wife, then the cultural counselor at the French Embassy there. They spent a year back in Washington on a congressional fellowship, during which time he worked for Al Gore, then a senator from Tennessee, and Tom Foley, then House majority whip.
"It was," Wilson says, "happenstance" that he worked for two Democrats. Then he returned to Africa as deputy chief of mission in the Congo Republic, where he helped Assistant Secretary of State Chester Crocker set up the process that led to negotiations for the withdrawal of the Cuban and South African troops from the Angolan Civil War.
Here’s a French language article regarding a 1998 trip by Gabon President Omar Bongo to the United States. Apparently, the Gabonese hired Wilson’s second wife Jacqueline as a lobbyist in support of the trip. Another who worked with her was the famous Pierre Salinger.
http://www.bdpgabon.org/ancien_site/bdp/revelationspol1.html
EXECUTIVE REPORTS OF COMMITTEE -- (Senate - July 02, 1992)
[Page: S9774]
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The following executive reports of committee were submitted:d
By Mr. PELL, from the Committee on Foreign Relations:
snip
Joseph Charles Wilson IV, of California, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Gabonese Republic, and to serve concurrently without additional compensation as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe.
Contributions are to be reported for the period beginning on the first day of the fourth calendar year preceding the calendar year of the nomination nad ending on the date of the nomination.
Nominee: Joseph Charles Wilson IV.
Post: Gabon and Sao Tome and Principe.
Contributions, amount, date, donee:
1. Self, Joseph C. Wilson IV, none.
2. Spouse, Jacqueline G. Wilson, none.
3. Children and Spouses, Joseph C. Wilson V., Sabrina C. Wilson, none.
4. Parents, Phyllis Finnell Wilson none, Joseph C. Wilson III (deceased).
5. Grandparents, Joseph C. Wilson Jr., Mary McKee Wilson (deceased). Phillip Finnell and wife (deceased).
6. Brothers and Spouses, William Ralph Wilson, none.