Report from Santa Fe; Valerie Plame

music Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico. An organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. And by a grant from the Healey Foundation. Tell us New Mexico. Hello, I'm Larry Mills and welcome to report from Santa Fe. Our guest today is Valerie Plain Wilson. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. Well, people know your name because nine years ago, imagine it's been that long. This month. Your cover was blown as a CIA operator. The administration, the Bush administration, outed you. And they even said, what do they say about fair game? Well, it was Carl Rove who told the media that Wilson's wife is fair game early on in the, all everything that happened. So that's, I thought that was a very appropriate title for my book.

Absolutely. And I want to show you a book because it is amazing reading. It's fair, great game in the subtitle. My life is a spy. I'd be trail by the White House. Yes. And it was also made into a movie starring Naomi Watts and Sean Penn. Yes. And it's a really remarkable movie. And this is a remarkable book. We must mention that a lot of it is redacted. This had to be vetted by the CIA and they blacked out. Now, about less than 10%. It has to do with the fact that the agency made the determination that I am not permitted to acknowledge any agency affiliation prior to January 2002. So I did not exist thus making a memoir somewhat difficult. Yes. But the publisher of Simon and Schuster made the decision to retain the redactions. And I can assure all the readers that underneath that the redactions, you know, none of it in any way betrays or jeopardizes national security interests. The other thing they did was hire an investigative journalist, Laura Rosen, who wrote a 50 page afterward. And there was a complete firewall between us until I was published. I had no idea what you would say. And that helps the reader say, fill in some of those gaps.

But it does add to a certain mystery, you know, and reminds us that, you know, they're very huge, huge issues at stake. But you went from a life of absolute discretion and secrecy undercover to a life where the surreal amount of media attention, everything you did, everywhere you went. Making it to falling down Alice's rabbit hole. White is black and black is white. I loved my career. I was so proud to serve my country. I loved working on these issues of nuclear proliferation and terrorism. And then overnight, I was in a world where my name was, you know, on the face was on the television, on the radio and the newspapers. And they were talking about myself and my husband Joe Wilson in ways that we certainly didn't understand who those people were. It was really difficult transition to say the least.

Well, it has been now nine years. Phew. And so that happened in 2003, you were added. In 2007, Fair Game came out. And in 2010, the movie came out. And you went to the 2010 Cannes Film Festival in France, representing your, your memoir, Fair Game, but also this wonderful movie called Countdown to Zero. And that's something that is so important to me. And I brought you here to tell me more about this. You did say looking back in this, what you said, if none of this had happened, I would be somewhere in the world working on those issues very happily with my identity still to myself. But now, thank you with Global Zero. You are still working on these issues very happily. And it's one of the most important issues facing us. Indeed. I was given an opportunity that I didn't see one day a few years ago. I received a phone call from Lauren Spender, who is a well known Hollywood producer. He works very closely with Quentin Tarantino among others. But I didn't know that at the time. But he seems serious. And I was sort of Googling him as he was speaking to me. They were making this documentary Countdown to Zero.

Many of the same producing team that did an inconvenient truth. And I could tell they were as passionate about it as I was. And they asked if I would participate. Of course, I said, yes, I knew they were serious people. So they came to Santa Fe. And they not only interviewed me, but then they asked me to do some voiceover as well for the film. And I'm really proud of it. And what are the odds that I would be the end film festival the same year for Countdown to Zero as well as for a game? It was a really crazy year. So you at Global Zero is an international movement to eliminate the global nuclear threat. And this is in a way parlays on your anti-nuclear proliferation work that you did allegedly for the government. But what do you first, why, why, why, why anti-nuclear, why proliferation? Well, that I developed that expertise while working undercover at the CIA. And I thought that was the one thing that would keep me with the agency.

The thing I cared about most, terrorism and where it connects with nuclear proliferation. So I found a great deal of satisfaction in what I did. I loved it. We worked on covert action. I worked with people around the world trying to delay, deter, distract, do all sorts of things so that essentially bad guys don't get nuclear weapons. Whether that is a terrorist group, whether it's a rogue nation, suppliers, we're looking at, we looked at procurement networks, all of those things. So that's what I was doing for the CIA. And by, quite by chance, being asked to participate in Countdown to Zero and then the larger movement of Global Zero, which I continue to be deeply involved with, it has allowed me to continue to do this work, though obviously in a much more overt fashion.

Well, I was happy to see Countdown to Zero. And I was very interested in how all the contemporary techniques that are used to make it a really, you know, sort of racing pulse, gripping presentation of this. It's scary, but it's really scary. But I also noticed that it was aimed in several generations have not given this much thought. And it's very, very important. The producers behind it wanted to do for the whole issue of nuclear proliferation, what inconvenient truths did about global warming. The difference being with global warming, you can kind of feel like, oh, I'm driving in hybrid or I'm recycling or I'm turning off the lights and I'm doing my little part. It's harder to feel that way with something so vast and so intimidating as nuclear weapons. But what the director is Lucy Walker, she's an Academy winning director, whip smart. She spent two years chasing folks down everyone from Mikhail Gorbachev, to Musharif of Pakistan, to Tony Blair, to show that these, in those cases, those are former world leaders who literally had their finger on the trigger.

And they have had an opportunity to rethink, what is it that we did? What are we doing? There is no longer, these are obsolete weapons. These are relics of the Cold War. And the movie, although it came out in 2010, it is just as relevant today as ever, and you can find it on Netflix. Yes, yes. Well, they do interview so many world leaders, Jimmy Carter, even Obama. I mean, it was Baker. It's across the board. And that's one of the things I love about global zero. It is truly nonpartisan in its nature. It is international in its scope. I would say previously, it's fair to say that nuclear arsenal reduction was primarily a very elite small group. Of mostly men, who was like, no, no, no, this is way too important to let just anyone be involved in this. It's just going to be us.

Global zero turns that completely on its head. And they actively and have been extremely successful in bringing people into the movement and thinking about it from the very highest political levels, military leadership, diplomatic circles, and students worldwide. There's over a hundred student chapters at universities. And there is a conference at Yale this spring that I was fortunate enough to attend and spoke at. And these students, as you note, this is went out of vogue for a while, the whole idea where you used to, the largest rally in the world was Central Park 1985 at the height of the Cold War against nuclear weapons. And then it all seemed to go away because there was the end of the Cold War and this all seemed to be swept under the carpet. And what has happened actually in that intervening time is, in fact, more countries have nuclear capability. The technology has spread wider. And we know for a fact that terrorist groups, Al-Qaeda, and all its splinter groups are actively seeking a nuclear weapon.

I just wanted to take a moment and show your logo of Global Zero because it's a very compelling logo. And the other thing I, it's very important to mention is that it's nonpartisan this issue. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev worked at it together and it almost come to a conclusion in their famous meeting in Rekiavac. And so that there's no dem versus no. And not even on an international basis, but here in the United States, there is, there should not be a partisan divide on this because it doesn't make sense for a variety of issues. And I'll come back to that. But I did want to say, watching Count down to zero, the scene with Gorbachev, who nearly has tears in his eyes that they regret that the two leaders of the world at that time, how close they came, how much they truly wanted to reduce, you know, that was at the height where there were probably 80,000 nuclear weapons in the world.

I don't, I can't do the math to know how many times that would blow up the world over, but a lot. Yeah, yeah, no pun intended. And so I, I think that is very telling where you have these men and they are all men, in that case, had this unbelievable responsibility. And they have sincere regrets about that they could not have done more. Many of our weapons now remain in the United States and in Russia remain on launch alert. That is, if we have some indication that we are being attacked, someone comes in to tell the President of the United States, and the President of the United States has 13 minutes to make a determination of how he should respond. It's incomprehensible. It's unthinkable. And as John F. Kennedy said about that same scenario, he said, we call ourselves part of, you know, the human race.

It's uncivilized. And the movie, they have several instances shown over the, in the 80s and the 90s where there were false positives, if you will, whether balloon over Norway. There was a missile that was sent to study the Northern Lights. And it says very kindly that when Yeltsin got this news, he was neither drunk nor mad about something. And was able to realize that our government had notified their government to say we're going to be making these studies and didn't react by pressing the button. Isn't that, you know, we want to hear having this conversation if he had, if things had been otherwise. So global zero looks at the possibility of accidental use and accident. It can be through accident, through steel, you know, through if they seek to steal nuclear weapons and the material. There are so many ways, miscalculation that a terrible accident can happen that would end our lives as we know them.

So this was, global zero started in 2008 by, I think, visionaries who look, we have to address this issue somehow. Most of the world leaders, I mean, Bankymoon, Obama himself said I will stand with global zero. There's just world leaders from around the world. And they have a campaign, a three year plan. And I also love this about global zero. They say, well, we don't have the only plan, but we do have a plan. And we'll, you know, let's, let's work to this. Can you summarize in the, you know, just briefly what the three accepts might be? Well, they are not global zero has the distinct advantage, I believe, that they are not sort of let's just hold hands and hope for world peace. No, they have a plan. They are very clear-eyed about this. And we have a lot of people on the leadership of global zero that in fact are, would be considered hawks, but they realize we cannot continue the way we are. What it calls for is a significant reduction. As Obama and Medeviev have both pledged to Obama, pledged this in a broader sense in Prague last year, the conference, excuse me, 2010, I believe that was.

And Medeviev, as well, has been a good partner in this. And where we are now, we're getting down to Russia and the United States, which have, although we always hear about Iran and North Korea, between Russia and the United States, they have the vast majority, 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons. Each of them have about 21 to 2500 nuclear warheads. Recently, a retired Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Cartwright, just did a very well-received report, and they're going to be testifying before Congress next week on how do we get it down further? No, you know, this is not talking about doing it unilaterally. It all has to be done in concert, but you have significant intrusive inspections. You have an international regime. And this is not, actually, it has been done before. In chemical and biological weapons, there is a protocol now where it is simply outside of the realm of, you know, acceptability.

And there is complete buy-in on the international level that, you know, no, you can't use these sort of weapons, and you will no longer create them, develop them, deploy them, and all of that. And nuclear weapons, in addition to the horrific, what they would cause, if anyone were to use this, if you imagine, if any nuclear weapon were to go off in any city in the world, what, even if it were only, you know, just a hot device, it was just radiation, let's just say, the actual damage was limited. The fear that would be in people's hearts and minds of where what happened next would completely shut down democracies. It would endanger, of course, you know, our economy, and the Bill of Rights, I believe, as we understand them, would be swept aside until further notice.

In addition to all of that, what I want to say is that I was fortunate enough to do a public service announcement last fall with Naomi Watts, and in it we focused on the incredible cost of nuclear weapons. And with a world where economic austerity is very much a part of what everyone is talking about today, how can you continue to justify these multi-billion dollar line items in not only the budget of the United States, but any other country that has this? There was a recent article, I think, in foreign policy that said, will austerity prompt nuclear disarmament? And they looked at France wants to stay in the Big Boys Club of nuclear nations. And so they found out that they would save 16 billion euros a year if they just stepped back from this constantly ready to kill everyone, arsenal. And then other people have done cost per kilowatt hours of, you know, biogas, wind energy and nuclear energy. And it is the most expensive form of energy.

And you can't guarantee these plants. Governments have to underwrite them. And even in here in New Mexico, you know, we had the defense bill that had $6 billion for a plutonium pit factory. That's a whole other conversation here for New Mexico. The United States is on track to spend, I want to make sure your listeners hear this, $900 billion over the next decade on a nuclear weapons program. I just saw on the National News the other night that the Los Angeles Public School District just laid off 4,000 teachers, as well as the classroom sizes are to the point where there are about 35 students in a class. And, you know, most of them, many of them don't have deaths or proper books. Okay, just to guess how many, you know, where else could we possibly put that $900 billion in terms of, I don't know, things like education, infrastructure, job creation, energy, yeah, just for starters. Can we really continue on the path we are?

Well, so the global terrorism aspect is very important. The world economy aspect is very important. And there was even something called the Goldilocks Arsenal. How much is too much, too little, or just right, there was even a movement to aim them at the oceans and not have all the weapons aimed at each other. Let's just say they're kind of ready and we can change their course, but let's just let them sit around and somewhere safe in case in case of accident. Oh, better yet. Let's not just continue to pour mindlessly billions of dollars into this, into the whole what Eisenhower term, the military industrial complex. And in the way, these are weapons that are made not to be used. Yes, there's a whole mutually assured destruction, dogma, which I always thought was very well named the mad doctor. Yes, if you have enough that we'll deter the other, presumably your enemy from firing first because they know that they will be destroyed. But what has happened now is that countries such as Iran and newly into the club, of course, India and Pakistan, they want to be, this is seen as the ultimate prestigious club and they want to be part of it.

But the truth is those countries that have nuclear weapons, in fact, are undermining everyone's security in ways because the technology, as I know before, is much more widely spread. And terrorists are seeking it. And I've changed in my own thinking, I've evolved from where I was working for the agency, thinking that, okay, if we just sort of like deter and distract for a couple of years, surely the politicians will get their act together. And realize we, well, I've changed from that to where I believe now wholeheartedly and what Global Zero wants to do was ultimately the complete elimination of nuclear weapons, drain the swamp. You have to do that. Intrusive inspections, international protocols, and the Goldilocks regime slowly showing, slowly coming down and saying, what is the bare minimum that we really need? We really, really don't need 2100 nuclear weapons in the United States to keep us safe.

As the very tragic shooting in Caterroto at the, you know, there's some crazy person with a gun. And, you know, so I'd like to see more mental health, you know, more money spent on mental health. How about that? Yes, yes, yes. We're speaking today with Valerie Plain-Weston who wrote Fair Game and who also is a leader with Global Zero. I'd like your opinion too, since the tragedy at Fukushima, people have a new awareness of what not only nuclear weapons, but the danger of the nuclear plants. How do you see the Fukushima issue having changed your work? Global Zero doesn't really take a stance on nuclear energy plants. However, you're right. With Fukushima, everyone said, wait a minute here. At least in the United States, it was very clear and as we have the reports have come out of Japan as well, there is an extremely cozy relationship between the plant owners and the regulatory bodies, much too close to be safe. And when you have in California Diablo Canyon, which is so misfortune, you know, what an unfortunate name. As well as the plant, I believe it's offline right now. People are saying, wait a minute. I want to really know that you've told us this is really safe, and they certainly, the folks in Japan were told that, but it turned out not to be the case.

I think regulation in government oversight in many instances is as useful as those around, let's say, the Gulf, you know, two summers ago with the BP oil spill might also agree with that. Well, there's so much to talk about. I'm so grateful to you. I hope you'll come back soon, because we will talk next time about the work that you're doing now. You are falling into writing. You're working with a wonderful novelist, Sarah. Love it. Tell us a little about your writing project. Our book, we're writing together. She lives in Santa Fe. She's lovely. She's a very successful thriller writer, and we will have the first of a series come out around the holidays. It's going to be called Blowback, and it has a very strong and smart female protagonist, CIA operations officer. I always thought that there was room for that, because typically females in the CIA bond or any of the other popular culture portrayed very, you know, it's a cardboard cartoon character.

So I wanted a real character. Also, you mentioned that it's really intelligence. You really have to be smarter than your opponent. It's not how good it is. It's not the skin-tight outfit. It's not the sequin dress, surprisingly enough. That's not what actually helps gather intelligence. And so this will be the first in a series, and we're looking forward to it, and it's been wonderful working with her. I'm very much looking forward to reading that. In the few minutes we have left, could you tell us what do we really need to know our New Mexican audience out there? And then what can we do? What can the average citizen do? You know, as if it were global warming to recycling. This is that what is- Thank you. Why would urge all your viewers to go to globalzero.org? There's a place where you can sign up to say, I want to add my name to the hundreds of thousands of people around the world to say, wait a minute. We don't want to continue the way we are.

And it is a groundswell movement that the political leaders ultimately cannot ignore. So check out the website. It's well done. It is beautifully done. Yeah, all the press, everything that is there. And of course in New Mexico, because of our special history, and because so many jobs today are dependent on the labs, this is an issue that is always very difficult to navigate. Personally, I would love to see the incredible brains that are at our national laboratories in this state be redirected to, I don't know, something like energy uses. And still make sure that we don't lose one job, but in fact are redirecting that intellectual horsepower in a way that truly serves our national security. Well, the other thing is the movie countdown to zero. You can get it on Netflix. You can get it at the global zeros.

And I think particularly if you have young people in your family, it is very accessible to young people who hadn't quite thought about this before. You would do them a tremendous service in the world, a service by showing them the movie countdown to zero. I also recommend your movie Fair Game. I want to show the cover of your book that you wrote, Fair Game. And one last little hit of Global Zero, I do like the logo so much. And so global zero dot org dot org dot org. And so we give one less word for our people out there. Oh, just this. My thinking on this is that with all the problems in the world today, of which there are many, if we don't get this one right, none of the others matter. And I deeply believe that because the continuing on the path we are, it's just a question of when, not if. So we have a moment, an opportunity, a moment in time to change direction. And I hope your viewers will go, hmm, that's kind of interesting. I'm going to go check out global zero dot org.

I thank you very much. Our guest today is Valerie Plain Wilson. Thank you for taking the time to be with us today. And I'm Librean Mills. I'd like to thank your audience for being with us today on report from Santa Fe. We'll see you next week. Past archival programs of report from Santa Fe are available at the website report from Santa Fe dot com. If you have questions or comments, please email info at report from Santa Fe dot com. Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. And by a grant from the Healey Foundation, tells New Mexico. You

You You You

You