In the autumn of 2003 she was a household name: Valerie Plame, outed CIA agent, in care of Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, who was subsequently convicted of obstruction of justice.
Now living in New Mexico with husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson, and her two kids, she has kept up her work tracking black-market nuclear materials. Naomi Watts (pictured below with Plame at Cannes) will play her in the upcoming “Fair Game,” and Plame herself is featured in Lucy Walker's new documentary “Countdown to Zero,” which opens this weekend in L.A.
Nuclear safety is such a vital issue. Why hasn’t anyone in Washington made it their signature?
During the Cold War, the paradigm that worked was Mutually Assured Destruction. It kept us safe for decades; it was a strong deterrent. So with the close of the Cold War, people just sort of breathed a collective sigh of relief and moved on.
But what has happened, the world, no surprise, has continued, and it’s evolved, and we’re at the point now where the threat is from the proliferation. And ironically, the nations that are nuclear nations -- that have the weapons -- are in a much weaker position because of the possibility that terrorists could get them and detonate them.
And, as the film points out, it’s not just terrorists. We are under threat of nuclear detonation whether it’s from accidental use, madness or miscalculation.
Isn’t it hard for the U.S., the only nation that has ever deployed these weapons, to tell Iran it has no right to nuclear materials for peaceful purposes?
Absolutely. But that’s a conversation that’s going to go nowhere. The concept of going to zero is not a double standard. It’s for everyone. No one is suggesting that this is going to be unilateral or it’s going to be easy, but what the organization Global Zero has put together is a very well-orchestrated, delineated, step-by-step program to get to zero for everyone.
Do you view Pakistan as a threat to the stability of the region?
I think experts who follow this carefully find Pakistan to be one of the more worrisome points because it’s a tough neighborhood. Its a very volatile country that, at any given moment, appears to be on the verge of anarchy. We cannot be confident that their command and control structure has the integrity that we need for a nuclear arsenal.
Depending on the day, the tensions with India escalate. There are all kinds of things to worry about, but Pakistan is certainly in the top tier.
Were you instrumental in bringing down A.Q. Khan?
Well, the group where I worked, Counter Proliferation Division, they were the ones responsible for bringing down the A.Q. Khan network in December 2003, stopping Libya cold.
What Hollywood tends to do is show CIA operatives in very much the lone wolf way.
