Here we face a critique, ostensibly about methodology, but really about Woodward's credibility.

This brings us to the other ``Veil,'' that of media hype, television debate, attacks by the President and retired CIA officials, of excitement encouraged by the author and a publisher with a 600,000 first printing and a huge advance to recoup. Its impact depends, not on literary skill - there is none, neither tension nor cadence, nor selectivity - but on uneasiness among Americans regarding covert operations, as symbolized by the Iran-contra affair, which offers ``Veil'' a glamour and timeliness it could not attain on its own. Nevertheless, Casey remains distant, with few clues to his ideology and outlook, background and motivation: Only the present matters for Woodward. Woodward needed access to Casey, who needed to influence this book, particularly as his illness worsened and the likelihood of any memoirs decreased. There are hints of a quasi-filial relationship (Casey had no sons), in which shared values - patriotism and combativeness, ambition and hard work - played a part, as did mutual benefits.

He stands center stage, with any remarks critical of him being overlaid by Woodward's Boswell-like repetition of Casey's self-portrait as the CIA's savior, the gutsy activist who restored courage to Langley, making it a worldwide action organization, the true cutting edge of Reagan policy. The vagaries of personality interest Woodward but little.Įxcept for Casey. So are individuals, aside from some intelligence trivia about Anwar Sadat and especially Qaddafi, that Washington obsession.

True, the book is thick with facts on administration dealings with the contras, and the Iranians, and the reaction to Middle East terrorism, to Muammar Qaddafi, and to the Washington Post itself, which CIA director William Casey treated like a hostile power.Īfghanistan and Cambodia, Angola and Ethiopia, Europe and the Soviets, are marginal. Bob Woodward's ``Veil'' is methodical, narrative journalism, cautious to the point of timidity, and essentially no more than a spinoff of his Washington Post intelligence stories. Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987, by Bob Woodward.

Veil the secret wars of the cia