Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House

This would be a better book, perhaps, if the CIA-mandated cuts were restored, but the heart of the story is largely intact, that is, the Wilsons' account of what the outing of Mrs. Wilson did to her career and their lives and the documentation of the political smear campaign conducted against the couple after Amb. Joe Wilson dared to point out that the Bush Administration already knew Saddam Hussein had not tried to acquire yellowcake uranium from Niger when the President asserted that Saddam Hussein had done so in an attempt to justify attacking Iraq.

Why should you care? I care because one of the few unbreakable rules I learned as a diplomat was never, NEVER, connect anyone with the CIA under any circumstances. We never referred to the show more CIA by name, even, because of the risk to CIA officers and agents if exposed. And then our elected officials and their staff took it on themselves to out a covert CIA officer in an attempt to discredit her whistle-blowing husband. You should care if you care about good governance, our security, and the rule of law. show less

This is the true story of Valerie Plame Wilson, a CIA agent whose secret cover was made public by the U.S. Government. In this memoir, Ms. Wilson tells of her early career in the CIA, events leading up to her name being made public,and the aftermath for her and her family. As a former CIA employee, Ms. Wilson was required to submit her manuscript for approval prior to publication, which she did willingly. The text in the book includes several blacked-out lines which the CIA asked her to remove for security reasons.

This was a good read and shows how political interference can lead to bad policy decisions -- in this case, the Iraq war -- and be demoralizing, even devastating, for nonpolitical staff.

Fair Game: How a Top CIA Agent Was Betrayed by Her Own Government

This was a surprisingly quick and easy read, made even quicker by the large swaths of blacked-out writing representing the text the CIA would not let Plame put into print in her own name. The afterword by Laura Rozen contains all the information blacked-out of Plame’s account, and demonstrates that it was all in the public domain. Plame is just telling a (more personable) side of the story which everyone already knows.

It is rather disturbing to think the Office of the President would blame a faulty military strategy on the “failure” of the intelligence community in general. How is that supposed to reassure the American people? Or the international community, for that show more matter? Well, the President’s plan didn’t work, but that was nobody in the most powerful nation in the world knew what they were talking about. ? It’s disturbing that this is the plan they came up with, and it’s even more disturbing how they tried to silence their detractors by actively undermining agents in the field and therefore the intelligence community itself. What part of the system did they not understand? Or, more likely, what part of the system did they think they were so powerful that they didn’t even need anymore?

I wish I could say I was surprised much by the government fiasco in general, but, not really. Those in charge, those few with power, often twist and distort things until it matches up with their version of reality. Politics as usual. show less

I had been wanting to read this book. While I enjoyed parts of it (and was pretty angry on Plame's behalf), as others have said, it was tough..really tough..to follow because so much was blacked out. I have heard the word "redacted" so much on the news lately I hate to use it myself, but that aspect made it tough to get full enjoyment out of.

I still rated it a 4 because, were it not for the redactions, I am sure it would be a 4 or even a 5. Plame is a good writer and it isn't her fault they made it as hard for her as possible. Obviously I'd still recommend this book, particularly to political junkies.

A really interesting account of the story behind the lie that was used to justify the war in Iraq, the outing of an undercover CIA operative by senior government officials, the agent's betrayal by her agency, and her attempts to tell her story once her career was ruined by these events. At first the redacted (by the CIA) portions are distracting, but then those "blank" spaces begin to tell their own story which is every bit as revealing as the facts they hoped to hide. Well-written, and well-worth the read.

An interesting insight into the Iraq war, and the inaccurate reasons for starting it, from someone who ended up being betrayed by her own country. Although it is interesting, I also found it hard to read more than small sections at a time. It can be quite "dry" in places, and is, where permitted, very detailed. Many pieces of text were not allowed by the CIA to be published. Instead of rewriting around these redactions, the text has been left as was originally written, with [text redacted here] interspersed. In places this is highly distracting from the narrative, especially near the start, and in some cases only a small amount of rewriting could have pulled the allowed text together. It adds to authnticity I guess, but I found it very show more annoying. Then the afterword, written by a different author, went into far more detail about some of Valerie did, and when and where, than she seemed to have been allowed to do for herself.
An important story, some people probably wish had never been told, but not exactly a page-turner. show less

Heavily redacted due to CIA rules, the book is somewhat frustrating to read. The redaction seems especially petty and possibly vindictive by the CIA staff since much of what was removed is in the public domain, and was included by the publisher at the end of the book anyway. That being said, I felt the book came up short in detailing exactly what was the point of her being "outed" as a CIA spy by the Administration, which was my major interest in the first place. All-in-all, you'll learn a little about who Valerie Plame Wilson was, something of her CIA career, and something about what kind of Administration was running the Country during the Bush years.