Calendar shows Woodward, Armitage met

WASHINGTON -- Richard Armitage, who was then deputy secretary of state, met with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in mid-June 2003, the same time the reporter has testified an administration official talked to him about CIA employee Valerie Plame.

Armitage's official State Department calendars, provided to The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act, show a one-hour meeting marked "private appointment" with Woodward on June 13, 2003.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has investigated whether Bush administration officials intentionally revealed Plame's identity as a one-time CIA covert operative to punish her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for criticizing the administration's march to war with Iraq.

When contacted at home Monday night, Woodward declined to discuss his meeting with Armitage or the identity of his source in the CIA leak case. Instead, he referred to his statement last year that he had a "casual and offhand" discussion about Plame with an unidentified administration official in mid-June 2003.

The calendar released to the AP is the first confirmation that Woodward and Armitage met during the key time in the CIA leak case that was the focus of Fitzgerald's probe.

The identity of Woodward's source remains one of the big mysteries in the case because the Post reporter is the first member of the news media known to have discussed Plame's CIA employment with an administration official.

Woodward's former Post editor, Ben Bradlee, has speculated publicly that Armitage was the reporter's "likely source."

And defense attorneys for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby also have suggested Armitage could have been Woodward's source.

Fitzgerald's office declined to comment Monday. Reached at his home, Armitage said he could not discuss his cooperation with Fitzgerald's office, the meeting with Woodward or details of the case.

Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, faces trial in January on charges he lied to authorities about conversations he had with reporters about Plame.