Richard Armitage's Role in Plame Case - Newsweek National News - MSNBC.com

How did Cheney find out about Plame?

Richard Armitage�s Role in Plame Case - Newsweek National News - MSNBC.com:

Sept. 4, 2006 issue - In the early morning of Oct. 1, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell received an urgent phone call from his No. 2 at the State Department. Richard Armitage was clearly agitated. As recounted in a new book, 'Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War,' Armitage had been at home reading the newspaper and had come across a column by journalist Robert Novak. Months earlier, Novak had caused a huge stir when he revealed that Valerie Plame, wife of Iraq-war critic Joseph Wilson, was a CIA officer. Ever since, Washington had been trying to find out who leaked the information to Novak. The columnist himself had kept quiet. But now, in a second column, Novak provided a tantalizing clue: his primary source, he wrote, was a 'senior administration official' who was 'not a partisan gunslinger.' Armitage was shaken. After reading the column, he knew immediately who the leaker was. On the phone with Powell that morning, Armitage was 'in deep distress,' says a source directly familiar with the conversation who asked not to be identified because of legal sensitivities. 'I'm sure he's talking about me.'