New York ? Documents in the CIA leak investigation indicate the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney first heard of the covert CIA officer from Cheney himself, The New York Times reported in today’s editions.

The newspaper said notes of a previously undisclosed June 12, 2003, conversation between I. Lewis Libby and Cheney appear to differ from Libby’s grand jury testimony that he first heard of Valerie Plame from journalists. The newspaper identified its sources as lawyers who are involved in the case.

Libby has emerged at the center of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s criminal investigation in recent weeks because of the Cheney aide’s conversations about Plame with Times reporter Judith Miller.

Miller said Libby spoke to her about Plame and her husband, Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, on three occasions.

Libby’s notes show that Cheney knew of Plame’s CIA work more than a month before her identity was publicly exposed by columnist Robert Novak.

At the time of the Cheney-Libby conversation, Wilson had been referred to – but not by name – in the Times and on the morning of June 12, 2003, on the front page of The Washington Post.

The Times reported that Libby’s notes indicate Cheney got his information about Wilson from then-CIA Director George Tenet.

The notes, the newspaper said, contain no suggestion that Cheney or Libby knew at the time of their conversation of Plame’s undercover status or that her identity was classified.