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For all the speculation about Rove's fate and despite a failed attempt by Senate Democrats to have Rove's security clearance revoked, within the White House there was little sign of panic. "They think Karl is bulletproof," says a former Administration official who is familiar with the issue and the players. "They think, 'We won a second term. We control Congress.' They don't think Karl is in any real jeopardy."
But even if Rove skates past any legal trouble, that still leaves the question of means and ends. Although Democrats deplored what they viewed as an Administration attempt to silence its critics, to the intelligence community what mattered was that in the course of political warfare, a spy had been sacrificed. Plame was one of the rare operatives to become an NOC, that is, a CIA employee who operates under nonofficial cover. Such officers, who may pose as businesspeople or students, have no diplomatic immunity and so are much more vulnerable if caught spying. They often work abroad for U.S. companies that have secret agreements with the CIA to take them in as employees or for front companies the agency sets up. A former CIA station chief tells TIME that it can cost the agency anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million to establish an NOC overseas, depending on how deep and extensive the cover must be.
CIA sources say Plame held highly sensitive jobs during the past two decades. In the late 1990s she was serving as an NOC, working as an analyst with Brewster-Jennings & Associates, a CIA front company that has been shut down. "She was pretty and had brains and ambition and loyalty," says a former clandestine officer who worked with her. "Everything was there." But in 1997 she moved back to Washington. The New York Times has reported that the CIA feared that her cover had been blown to the Russians by double agent Aldrich Ames. Her marriage to a high-profile former diplomat further limited her ability to fly under the radar. She began working at CIA headquarters in Langley, assigned to the directorate of operations, the CIA'S clandestine branch that manages its human spying overseas and is one of the agency's most secretive directorates. "NOCs aren't supposed to come into the building," said Fred Rustmann, a former senior CIA official and a Plame superior. "It doesn't serve cover well. It may serve the moment. They break the rules for expediency. In Valerie's case, she's a bright young woman. She has some experience in nuclear proliferation."
Thus Rove's defenders have claimed that he can hardly be guilty of outing a spy who was effectively outed already. "She was done," says a senior Republican Senate aide when asked whether Plame's career had been damaged by the disclosure of her covert identity. "She'd had her two kids. She'd come back to headquarters. And how do you maintain your cover when your husband is saying, I was sent on a mission by the CIA?"