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WATERGATE spawned its own subgenre of suspense films featuring various arms of the United States government as the hidden masterminds of evil schemes. The first of these post-Watergate films was 1975's Three Days of the Condor, starring Robert Redford as a CIA researcher (Joe Turner, codename "Condor") caught up in a dangerous plot. Turner works in a Manhattan CIA-front operation scanning books, newspapers, and magazines for the traces of agency operations. One day he sneaks out to lunch and returns to the office, only to find his colleagues have been assassinated. Turner realizes he is in danger, phones his Agency...

November 7, 2005 -- ANYONE who knew the late Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan has to wonder what he'd make of the CIA leak case. The agency was one of his pet targets. Moynihan, a true Washington wise man, would get livid when he fumed about the CIA's "unbroken record of missing what's happening." In a 1979 Newsweek essay, he accurately predicted that the Soviet Union would collapse in the '80s. The CIA, dead wrong, had no clue of the coming collapse. At his monthly "tutorials" for New York reporters, Moynihan would recount with outrage that in 1987, just two years...

Joseph C. Wilson IV: The French Connection November 7th, 2005 There are an amazing number of French fingerprints all over the Plame-Wilson affair. While it is not easy to penetrate the dark fog of lies, there is a highly consistent pattern pointing to French government involvement with a Watergate-style assault on the American Presidency, fronted by Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. In 2002 French intelligence forged the notorious document claiming that Saddam tried to obtain Niger uranium. The Italian middle man,Rocco Martino, later confessed to French involvement in open court. Rocco Martino might sound like a small-time mafia hood from...

An "outing" was the result of either incompetence or an effort to undermine the White House. In a surprise, closed-door debate, Senate Democrats last week demanded an investigation of pre-Iraq War intelligence. Here's an issue for them: Assess the validity of the claim that Valerie Plame's status was "covert," or even properly classified, given the wretched tradecraft by the Central Intelligence Agency throughout the entire episode. It was, after all, the CIA that requested the "leak" investigation, alleging that one of its agents had been outed in Bob Novak's July 14, 2003, column. Yet it was the CIA's bizarre conduct...

Well, Joseph C Wilson IV's 15 minutes is now in its third year, and judging from the pass given to him by the major newspapers and TV networks there's no end in sight. Why would the media collude in this fraudulent buffoon's self-aggrandization? After all, the first folks he lied to were them. But they seem to have decided their investment in him is now so deep, they're stuck with him. This is what I wrote a year and a half ago, in the fond belief that the chapter-and-verse exposure of his falsehoods would finally drive Wilson from public life....

In a surprise, closed-door debate, Senate Democrats demanded an investigation of pre-Iraq War intelligence. Here's an issue for them: Assess the validity of the claim that Valerie Plame's status was "covert," or even properly classified, given the wretched tradecraft by the Central Intelligence Agency throughout the entire episode. It was, after all, the CIA that requested the "leak" investigation, alleging that one of its agents had been outed in Bob Novak's July 14, 2003, column. Yet it was the CIA's bizarre conduct that led inexorably to Ms. Plame's unveiling.

It's like a spy thriller. Institutional rivalries and political loyalties have fostered an intelligence officer's resentment against the government. Suddenly, an opportunity appears for the agent to undercut the national leadership. A vital question of intelligence forms the core justification for controversial military actions by the current leaders. If this agent can get in the middle of that question, distort that information and make it public, the agent might foster regime change in the upcoming election. But the rules on agents are clear. They can't purposely distort gathered intelligence, go public with secret information or use their position or information...

FROM: JULY 18, 2005 Hold on to your hat. The plot is about to thicken. Behind the scenes, the single most important reason for the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson farce is that CIA Director Porter Goss has finally started to clean house at Langley. Goss’s long-overdue shake-up is clearly backed by the White House, the top levels of the Pentagon and State Department, and the new National Director of Intelligence, John Negroponte. Judging by Director Goss’s remarks at his Senate confirmation hearings, those whose jobs are most in danger include the CIA “experts” in WMD proliferation – Valerie Plame’s outfit –...