records on a form filled out in 1999 by Valerie Plame, the case officer at the center of the controversy, when she contributed $1,000 to Al Gore's presidential primary campaign. After the name of the company was broadcast on October 3, 2003, administration officials confirmed that it was a CIA front. They said the obscure and possibly defunct firm was listed as Plame's employer on her W-2 tax forms in 1999 when she was working undercover for the CIA. Reiterating that the company was listed on the Dun & Bradstreet database of company names, Ross Kerber and Bryan Bender, in an article published on October 10, 2003, in The Boston Globe, observe that "Plame's exposure as an intelligence operative has become a major controversy in Washington," stating: "Former intelligence officials confirmed Plame's cover was an invention and that she used other false identities and affiliations when working overseas. 'All it was was a telephone and a post office box,' said one former intelligence official who asked not to be identified. 'When she was abroad she had a more viable cover.'" Furthermore, reporting for the news service Knight Ridder, Warren Stroebel writes: Compounding the damage, the front company, Brewster Jennings & Associates, the name of which has been reported previously, apparently also was used by other CIA officers whose work now could be at risk, according to Vince Cannistraro, former CIA chief of counterterrorism operations and analysis. Now, Plame's career as a covert operations officer in the CIA's Directorate of Operations is over. Those she dealt with – on business or not – may be in danger. The directorate is conducting an extensive damage assessment. And Plame's exposure may make it harder for American spies to persuade foreigners to share important secrets with them, U.S. intelligence officials said. D&B statements A spokeswoman for Dun & Bradstreet, a New Jersey operator of commercial databases, said Brewster Jennings was first entered into its records on May 22, 1994, but wouldn't discuss the source of the filing. Its records list the company, at 101 Arch Street, Boston, Massachusetts, as a "legal services office," which could mean a law firm, with annual sales of $60,000, one employee, and a chief executive identified as "Victor Brewster, Partner." Origin of the company name The front company appears to have based its name on the late Benjamin Brewster Jennings, a president and founder of the Socony-Vacuum oil company,