MR NOVAK’S SOURCES

So Robert Novak has finally written a column in which he IDs — kind of — his three sources for his column outing CIA agent Valerie Plame. Actually he refuses to ID the primary source while writing that two others — Karl Rove and then-CIA spox Bill Harlow — were his two confirming sources.

Novak writes that he has disdain for waivers releasing journalists to reveal their sources; "I did not believe blanket waivers in any way relieved me of my journalistic responsibility to protect a source," he writes.

Nonetheless three waivers apparently made him feel OK to acknowledge his sources — a contradiction no doubt he will explain in his exclusive FOX interviews tomorrow.

The waivers were from? "One was by my principal source in the Valerie Wilson column, a source whose name has not yet been revealed. The other was by presidential adviser Karl Rove, whom I interpret as confirming my primary source’s information. In other words, the special prosecutor knew the names of my sources.

"When (Special Prosecutor Patrick) Fitzgerald arrived, he had a third waiver in hand — from Bill Harlow, the CIA public information officer who was my CIA source for the column confirming Mrs. Wilson’s identity. I answered questions using the names of Rove, Harlow and my primary source."

A year ago Harlow told the Washington Post his version of his conversation with Novak. It would appear POSSIBLE that in trying to protect Plame’s CIA employment from being made public, Harlow confirmed it to Mr Novak.

Key section of the POST STORY (link www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/26/AR2005072602069_pf.html) : "Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published. He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson’s wife had not authorized the mission and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed.

"Harlow said that after Novak’s call, he checked Plame’s status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame’s name should not be used. But he did not tell Novak directly that she was undercover because that was classified.

"In a column published Oct. 1, 2003, Novak wrote that the CIA official he spoke to ‘asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson’s wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name.’ "

Oddness.

Jt