Plame recounts life as a spy — and after

February 25, 2015 at 10:11p.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

When Valerie Plame began her career at the CIA in the 1980s, women were just beginning to make pathways into its division known as the Directorate of Operations.

It was a months-long process to get hired, with interviews by psychologists, physical examinations and background checks.

For Plame though, the effort was well worth it. She came from a family with a strong background in civil service, and she saw it as an opportunity for interesting work and a chance to serve her country at the same time.

“It was an old boys’ network in the ‘60s and ‘70s,” she told a packed house Wednesday at Stambaugh Auditorium who came to hear her speak as part of Youngstown State University’s Skeggs Lecture series.

“Women had support roles,” she said, — such as secretaries.

In the 1980s though, women were being recruited as operatives.

“I learned to spot and develop foreign recruits,” she said. “I traveled the world and recruited spies for the United States.”

Plame went on to work for the agency for 20 years.

She married former U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson in 1998, and they are the parents of twins, a boy and a girl, born in 2000. They lived in an affluent Washington suburb.

Then, on July 14, 2003, life as she and her husband knew it ended.

A conservative columnist named Robert Novak of the Washington Post had written a column outing her as a CIA operative.