Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987

by Bob Woodward

From Bob Woodward, legendary investigative reporter, Veil is the story of the covert wars that were waged by the CIA across Central America, Iran and Libya in a secretive atmosphere and became the centerpieces and eventual time bombs of American foreign policy in the 1980s.

With unprecedented access to the government’s highest-level operators, Woodward recounts one of the most clandestine operations in our nation’s history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Espionage, American History, War, The United States Of America

592 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Robert "Bob" Upshur Woodward is an assistant managing editor of The Washington Post. While an investigative reporter for that newspaper, Woodward, working with fellow reporter Carl Bernstein, helped uncover the Watergate scandal that led to U.S. President Richard Nixon's resignation. Woodward has written 12 best-selling non-fiction books and has twice contributed reporting to efforts that collectively earned the Post and its National Reporting staff a Pulitzer Prize.

Reviews

[KOMET · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read VEIL: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-87 when I was working overseas in 1989. Then I was approaching my mid-20s and what Woodward wrote about the CIA and its shenanigans during that era resonated deeply with me. Reagan had recently left office and the residue from his administration was very much with us. Reagan's first CIA Director, William Casey, always struck me as an old, sinister character with his bulging, froggy, bespectacled eyes. Woodward does a good job of fleshing him out.

The best selling point of VEIL is that it reads like a Cold War thriller with its share of twists and turns. Now that 34 years have passed since my first reading, I feel stirred to re-read VEIL, if only to see if the impressions I formed of it in 1989 hold true today.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

I will be blunt and honest on this: this book bored me to tears. I like Bob Woodward. I like the reading of espionage. But somehow the two didn't work together here. It also has something to do, I think, with how Woodward concentrated on the inside politics themselves and not international espionage itself. But that's just how Woodward writes. Nevertheless, I don't recommend it.

[Steven Meyers · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Casey looked more like a James Bond or Dick Tracy eccentric villain than the head of the CIA. The reader should keep in mind that the zeitgeist during the time period covered was one where the Cold War was in full swing, people were terrified of nuclear war, terrorism was booming, and the international hotspots were somewhat different. Mr. Woodward stressed in his introduction that ‘Veil’ was reporting and not a history book. I was in my twenties and had taken a keen interest in learning about politics and social issues beyond what had been served to us in high school and college. Reading ‘Veil’ in 2019 was more of a nostalgic exercise for me. I learned new stuff but also Mr. Woodward’s book reaffirmed what I remember about the Reagan years. I’ve read eleven of the author’s works and, with the exception of his book ‘Maestro: Greenspan's Fed and the American Boom,’ enjoyed them all.

While the title stresses that it covers the secret wars of the CIA between the years 1981 through 1987, its main focus is on the new director William Casey. His mindset was that “The intelligent person was not passive… Getting, sifting, distributing intelligence was only the start. Then you had to get him to act… There were verifiable evil in the world. There were sides, and a person had to choose.” The CIA is one of many intelligence-gathering agencies in our government. ‘Veil’ is about powerful people waging turf battles, managing internal politics, warring philosophies, bureaucratic problems, the importance of key personnel, and responding to external variables. It means we, just like other countries, not only spy on our enemies but also our allies. This was all done to support our nation’s security and “interests.” There are a lot of ethical grey areas in this career field and political shenanigans frequently come into play. In their world, people are more expendable chess pawns than human beings. It appears some of these guys (the people in the book are nearly all men) would sell out their own mother if properly motivated. Mr. Casey’s aggressive mindset is a fine example of zealous people believing the law and government were an annoyance they sometimes needed to circumvent. Mr. Woodward’s work chronicles the agency’s actions whenever they saw communism taking a foothold in a country. The Saudi Arabian Ambassador, Prince Badar, believed Americans were naïve about the world. He also thought Casey, who he worked with on some clandestine projects, had no inhibitions and was “the J. Edgar Hoover of the CIA.” I may have soiled myself when I read that line about Mr. Casey. The book includes 32-pages of black-and-white photos as well as a few editorial cartoons.

‘Veil’ is neither a puff piece nor a hatchet job about William Casey. It is solid reporting. It was somewhat unsettling to recall most of the people who inhabit the book are now worm food. The events seem just like yesterday to me. It was over thirty friggin’ years ago. Mercy, time sure does fly. While an author or reporter cannot produce completely unbiased material, I’ve found Mr. Woodward’s books to be very fair attempts. He presents many different viewpoints by the people in the middle of the events. Much of it is left up to the reader to judge. ‘Veil’ is a fine example of the machinations used by intelligence agencies and how numerous headstrong ideologues clash over policy. Power can be corrupting and Clandestine Casey, who always thought he was on the side of angels, could be a poster boy for its egomaniacal effects. People like Mr. Casey are why I have trust issues.

(It should be noted that William Casey’s spouse, Sophia, said in September of 1987 when the book ‘Veil’ was released that Mr. Woodward never did get to interview her husband while he was recovering in the hospital. Sophia Casey said that her husband had been barely able to speak. Casey lived for a few more weeks after being released from the hospital. The author stands by his reporting.)

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Long, detailed, yet fascinating account of the covert ops in Latin America and the Middle East in the 80s, including the politics, personnel, and media coverage.

[RYD · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book on the dirty covert wars of the Reagan era, this has the usual Bob Woodward saws: insider gossip, palace intrigue and a few scoops along the way. I have a lot of problems with Woodward's method, since so much of what he offers ends up being the self-serving perspectives of those whose access he must have to write his books.

One passage I underlined, which is classic Woodward and modern journalism, describing the relationship between CIA director William and deputy director Max Hugel, both Reagan campaign cronies:

"Casey and Hugel were an odd couple. At first, neither could figure out how to get their stove to work. Casey found a constance and devotion in Hugel that was touching, even sweet. Hugel learned that Casey loved bananas. When he shopped, he brought home bunches of them. Once when a gust of wind blew Casey's hat from his head, Hugel went chasing after it and a second gust caught Hugel's toupee and sent it flying -- providing some of Hugel's critics on the campaign a cherished memory."

I tend to agree with Theodore White's criticism in a similar situation: "Who gives a fuck if the guy had milk and Total for breakfast?"

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bob Woodward's "Veil" is a history of the CIA's involvement in secret wars, particularly in Central America, under the direction of William J. Casey. The revelations are startling, and coming after CIA admissions exposed during the Church inquiries of the late 70's, the book's account of potentially illegal activities on the part of the agency are entirely believable if not astonishingly brazen. Although many critics claim Woodward had to have invented or fabricated some of his interviews in the book, the most important interviewee is confirmed by the CIA's own documents. According to CIA memos, former DCI William Casey met with Woodward upwards of 43 times, including several times at Casey's private residence just before his death. Probably not as revealing as it could have been, and it doesn't completely prove that Bill Clinton, while governor, helped the CIA deal drugs for Republican administrations, but it does make a strong, solid case that the CIA learned nothing from the expose days of the Church hearings and that the institution itself remained, in the 80's, largely out of control. (Another investigative reporter, Gary Webb, has also claimed CIA involvement in drug trafficking, with help from Bill Clinton and an Arkansas airport, to help illegally fund the Contras for Reagan. The claim is substantiated by the CIA's own internal investigation at the hands of the Inspector General. This is not paranoid conspiracy stuff, but history.) Particularly interesting is Woodward's legitimate access to Casey, a man who supervised many of these actions. Casey was supposed to testify before Congress about illegal abuses of power by the CIA in the wake of the Iran-Contra hearings. Unfortunately (or fortunately, for Reagan administration officials) Casey died suddenly... the morning of the day he was supposed to testify. Such coincidences stretch credulity, and Veil only starts to reveal how much the CIA truly has to hide.

NC

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book, instead of being called The Secret Wars of the CIA should have been called, how DCI Casey Dealt with the Secret Wars of the CIA. Short on actual detail about the dealings, the repercussions, and the actual on the ground information, it was a political book. A book focused on the insiders of Washington trying to cover what they were doing and how they did it. I found that to be interesting, but not what I had expected or wanted from the book. The only "secret war" focused on in brief paragraphs here and there were the contras in Nicaragua fighting against the Sandinista's, being the biggest covert operation during the Reagan operation, that makes sense but there's no way that was the only thing the CIA and others were doing around the world in the name of "fighting communism." The most interesting part came at the end of the book, when the Iran-Contra affair was covered, which was only the last few chapters of the book. Overall, an interesting political book, but don't come into it thinking you're gonna learn much about "secret wars." And finally, to quote Killer Mike, "I leave you with four words, I'm glad Reagan dead."

[Thomas Ray]

Dewey 327.1

[Ryan Lian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing writing, incredible author - really gripping. Hard to really comprehend how explosive this would have been at the time! Love Bob Woodward

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is long and detailed (maybe a little bit too detailed) and gives insight into how the intelligence organizations in the United States really work.

Emboldened by a newly elected president Ronald Reagan and a newly appointed Director of Central Intelligence, the CIA used the cold war and fears of communism to gain support from the public for covert activities around the world.

Because of a somewhat rocky relationship with Congress, the CIA often couldn't find legal ways to accomplish what they wanted to do and many times came up short on money to fund their activities. Eventually, this led to a twisted network of Middle Eastern funding and secret relationships with countries like Iran that were considered enemies of the United States by the rest of the government. Many of the secret relationships also turned out to be highly illegal.

Woodward documents many of these secret dealings in great detail, often to the point of excess. The overall point seems to be that people don't always set out to do things in secret or to break the law. Instead, one little white lie leads to another until you have something like the Iran-Contra scandal (which is covered throughout the book). It's an interesting thing to think about as the Bush administration comes to an end.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book, unless you're really interested in knowing more about government bureaucracies go astray.

[Barbara · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a partisan textbook type documentation of the Reagan years, particularly focused on William Casey, the CIA director during 1981-87. It took me over 4 months to read it and sometimes I would only read 7 pages a week. It was so dry to read, and so similar to my college textbooks that I could only think that if they could hire better writers to write those textbooks, maybe a lot of us might have learned something and been more interested in the subject. It's a darn shame that this kind of academic writing is the standard for most textbooks. Another thought that I had while reading this was "why didn't he investigate the Clintons or the Obama administration this thoroughly and doggedly?" There was plenty of material that was not being reported, so that certainly wasn't it. The answer: partisanship. This man claims to be a legitimate journalist but show his colors as a partisan hack.

[Robert Jeens · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has been misnamed. You might expect an in-depth look at CIA operational field activities over the years, but what you really get is a look at the world of Bob Casey, the CIA Director under Ronald Reagan from 1980 to 1987. It looks at the CIA from the perspective of people who were reporting to him, the White House and Cabinet, as they were the people Casey reported to, and how Casey managed his relationships with the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and the press. These are stories worth telling, but not what was happening on the ground, rather, how policy was being formulated at the highest levels. Meetings and who said what to whom.
This has all the big hits from the Reagan presidency: Iran-Contra, in which the CIA supported the Contra rebels against the Nicaraguan government and even had Nicaraguan harbors mined: Oliver North. Admiral Poindexter. There is much about operations and plans against Qaddafi in Libya, another foil to the Americans. There is Lebanon, including the bombing of the U.S. Embassy, the Marine barracks, and of course the kidnappings that led to the idea of bribing Iran with weapons so that they would lean on Hezbollah in Lebanon to release hostages and then the money from the sale could be diverted to the Contras in Nicaragua. The Saudis and Israelis appear. Also, I did not know that American submarines planted listening devices on underwater Soviet cables so that they could hear everything being transmitted over them.
This book was written in 1987, and so it is a kind of first draft of history, as Bob Woodward books usually are. He interviewed more than 250 people for this, including CIA Director Casey more than 50 times. I am sure that specialists would point out errors in the narrative, but as a layperson I found the story plausible and credible.
I suppose most people will like or hate Casey based upon their opinion of the events he was responsible for. I have a more tolerant view of at least some of went on now than I did at the time, I think, because I have realized since then that disorder is natural, order is a precious state that must be carefully nurtured, people are not necessarily good, and some political systems reward better behavior more than others. Communism was as evil a system as Nazism. On the other hand, many in the CIA were opposed to much of Casey’s plans for covert action as were important people in the White House. James Baker, George Schulz and Edwin Meese were all Cabinet moderates who both believed in the rule of law and American moral clarity, and who Casey had to stick handle around, often covertly. Casey escaped the bounds of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees that had been set up precisely to prevent the CIA from going rogue. Casey was an ideologue who did not like it when his subordinates brought him information he did not like. North and Poindexter went to jail, and probably Casey escaped that only because he died before he could be charged.
While the threat from the USSR was real, there had to be more of a moral compass than “If the Russians do it, it is bad. If we do it, it is good.” Gathering intelligence is one thing. But when it comes to covert action, Casey’s actions, I believe, did put the interests of the American government at serious risk. The involvement in Nicaragua began, I think, legitimately enough. The Nicaraguans were shipping arms to El Salvadorian rebels in an attempt to overthrow the El Salvadoran government. The Americans, as an ally of El Salvador, set up the Contras to thwart the arms shipments. That, however, morphed into an effort to overthrow the Nicaraguan government because the Americans were ideologically opposed to having a Russian and Cuban influenced government in South America. As of right now, the Russians are engaged in trying to overthrow the government of Ukraine because they do not want a Western influenced government on their border. What is the difference?
Further, bungled covert operations cost innocent lives. In response to Americans being kidnapped in Lebanon, the CIA and the Saudis concocted a plot to assassinate the leader of Hezbollah. That car bomb killed 80 people, not including the Hezbollah leader. In response to Russians being kidnapped in Lebanon, the KGB kidnapped a relative of the Hezbollah leader, castrated him, stuffed his genitals in his mouth, killed him, and sent the body to Hezbollah. Americans continued to be kidnapped but Russians were not. In response to the Libyan bombing of a German nightclub (plus many other suspected terrorist attacks), the Americans bombed the Libyan leader’s barracks, killing his 3-year-old daughter. In response to that, Qaddafi ordered the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. Tit-for-tat needs an off ramp sooner or later.
Four final observations. First, for those concerned about the craziness of 2024, this will show you that the 1980s were not a comparative paradise of stability. Second, President Reagan was far more involved in all of this than ever came out at the Iran-Contra hearings. Third, the problem of Casey going off the reservation is to a certain extent a function of the overly partisan American political system. He got the job as CIA Director because a) he had been in the OSS, the CIA’s predecessor, in World War Two, but more importantly because b) he had been in charge of Reagan’s election campaign. In the USA, important bureaucratic jobs are farmed out to party loyalists, while in, for example, Britain, Canada, or Australia, the head of the intelligence services are just bureaucrats who report to their relevant minister. It is almost impossible for them to accrue enough power in the system to do anything like Casey did. Fourth, you might find a more recent book with more up-to-date information, but this was a good read.

[Simon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I only made it 200 pages (less than halfway) into this one before I gave up.
Despite the "secret wars" title it's less about American foreign policy than it is about office politics, internal squabbles and back-stabbing. There's an endless parade of indistinguishable men with similar sounding job titles arguing with each other about methods and targets. I found it hard to follow the actual challenges they were facing in terms of projecting American power abroad. It's all very complex, which I'm sure is a reflection of the real-life complexity of the administration, but it doesn't make for an easy or pleasant read.

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my favorite of Woodward's instant insider history books. Very little of it was new, but much of what it reveals was little reported by the mainstream press before its publication. Little was new, exepting Woodward's citations of the man himself, Casey, as regards the criminal deeds of his--and Ronald Reagan's--administration. Casey himself, of course, saw nothing wrong with extralegal murder, contravention of domestic law or international treaty.

[Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still-Relevant Character Study of a Controversial CIA Director, and Detailed Explanation of the Reagan Administration's Iran-Contra Scandal

I read this book because I wanted to learn more about the Iran-Contra scandal and the Reagan Administration in general, and I was thrilled to find this one because I'm a Bob Woodward fan!

*Brief Synopsis: Woodward wrote this book to profile Bill Casey, the Director of the CIA in both Reagan Administrations, and his efforts to reinvigorate the agency after its "demoralization" in the 1970s and step up its/the United States' involvement in covert action overseas. Woodward details Casey's run-ins with Congress (especially the Senate Intelligence Committee), his monumental efforts to staff the CIA with "the right people", and a whole slew of activist covert operations, most notably including in Nicaragua, Libya, the Soviet Union, and Lebanon. Woodward ends with Casey's shocking death from a brain tumor on the eve of the Congressional hearings into the Iran Contra affair.

*Key Takeaways:
-Though I initially went in wanting to learn more about the contra operation in Nicaragua itself and/or about Reagan himself, I found this book primarily focused on the Washington-based jockeying that directed both. I learned a lot more about the CIA and White House politics than anything else, though it did offer important contextual insights into the Reagan Administration's foreign policy objective in Central America that, for example, led it to support the right-wing government of El Salvador during the country's decade-long civil war and build up a base of support in Honduras.
-I really did like reading the years-long buildup that led to the Iran-Contra Affair, from Casey's run-ins with Congress to the apparently escalating Soviet activity in overseas adventurism/terrorism. Casey (and Reagan, by extension) was convinced that if the Sandinistas were permitted to flourish in Nicaragua unchecked they would successfully tip El Salvador into the Soviet sphere, and they lived in fear that Mexico would follow in classic domino-theory calculus. So Casey was fully and resolutely convinced of the importance of the contra operation, and when Congress cut the purse strings he and the Administration turned to private donors (including Saudi Arabia and Israel) and secretly siphoning marked-up arms sales to would-be Iranian counterrevolutionaries into the contra coffers. It was fascinating to see all that fall into place and finally understand it.
-The book tangentially raises some interesting practical questions about the role of journalism in the realm of government secrets. Woodward and his bosses/publishers had to constantly weigh the importance of reporting the truth with not jeopardizing sensitive government operations with lives on the line. I can see how both sides assiduously felt they were being pushed to bend too far in the other direction.

*A Few Notable Excerpts:
-From Woodward's introduction, especially as it relates to the "sanctity" of classification: “A word is in order about secrets. It is easy on one hand to adopt a stance of reverence about classification and assume that because someone has stamped a document SECRET or TOP SECRET that actually means it was so sensitive that it had to be kept classified. On the other hand, it is easy to become skeptical and assume that classification has no meaning, that it is a ritual designed to conceal bad policy and embarrassment.”

-From an after-action assessment on why the CIA failed to predict the Iranian Revolution that so devastated the Carter Administration:
-“The senior Iran analyst at the CIA, Ernest Oney, said he got four or five kind notes from people up the line who liked the reports, but he was never really questioned; there was no effort to sit down and puzzle it out; there was no indication that there was even a problem to puzzle out. Intelligence had been reduced to unintelligence-getting a lot of facts and throwing them at people; if intelligence was going to answer the "tomorrow" question, it would be necessary to make assumptions, but assumptions were speculation, and that was bad.”
-“The CIA station in Tehran was split over what was going on in Iran, but the disagreements among the members did not show up in the cables and reports.”

-I loved this bit on why Casey, an OSS veteran, wasn’t too rattled by bad press: “For people who served in war, Simmons thought, that was the primary experience, real danger. Everything else paled by comparison. They had sent people to certain death. So to hustle some bucks was nothing. It was easy. To be criticized was nothing. So some judge or senator or reporter or cartoonist was beating on you. So what? You have served in war and survived.”

-On faulty Kremlinology and Washingtonology: “It was possible to get more information and still not have answers to the big questions, such as the true Soviet intentions. The answer was not just a collection problem. Gates, who now headed the analytic side of the CIA, and some of the others convinced Casey that it was also hard for the Soviets to understand the intentions of the United States. There was probably a KGB analyst in Siberia now because he had failed to predict that a peanut farmer would oust an incumbent President in 1976, and another for failing to predict that the farmer would be ousted by a Hollywood actor and that this would lead to the biggest peacetime military buildup in United States history.”

-Casey’s “rules” of espionage: “The United States was vulnerable, he said. There were no standards, no rules, no laws, on spying abroad. Only one rule, he added: ‘Don't get caught. If you do, don't admit it.’”

-On the policymaker’s temptation to, as Sherlock would put it, “use facts to support theories rather than theories to support facts”: “Casey wanted an assessment of the opposition to Castro inside Cuba. Horton wasn't able to come up with much hard intelligence, because it didn't exist. CIA sources in Cuba were meager, it was true, but Horton concluded that it was also possible that Castro didn't have much internal opposition. That didn't sit well with Casey and he responded suspiciously, as if his contempt for Communists was universal and of course Castro must have opponents. But Casey's hardheaded, self-confident intuitions were no substitute for real information.”

-On Casey’s rare success in leading his organization to focus on the future: “Attention was being focused on some long-range problems. The CIA was the only agency looking systematically at potential problems that might arise in five or ten years, or more. It was studying the trends in the Third World to the year 2000—food resources, water, economic development. Questions such as what happens when the population of Mexico City hits 40 million; the impact of the drug supply in Latin America into the distant future. With automobiles made more and more out of plastic and less out of aluminum, what was going to happen to countries that produced bauxite?”

-A very thought-provoking bit about Casey’s contempt for career government bureaucrats and subject-matter experts: “The Director was also irritated at Horton's claim that he worked for the "government" and not some particular administration. It was as if Horton thought there was an additional branch of government, a permanent corps of keepers. In Casey's opinion, this was just the bureaucracy. And it was the trouble with government, not the solution.”

All in all, I found the book well-written, informative, thought-provoking, and still relevant! I'm glad I read it.

[Michael Thimsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the the many things I love about reading history; in fact maybe the thing I cherish this most is the way you can reincarnate characters from the past. In the case of "Veil" by Bob Woodward I felt like Bill Casey, Caspar Weinberger and Ronald Reagan were completely alive again, if only for the period of time I spent reading this book.
I also was transported back to my cold war days where I remembered cheering the overt moves made by the Reagan administration without understanding or even knowing the covert actions going on behind the scenes. As a military brat, I was enthralled by our successes in Grenada and the Gulf of Sidra while mourning those brave lives lost in the bombings in Beirut and West Berlin among other places.
In fact, when I gaze back through the gauzy curtains of time past, I take comfort in the fact that conflicts were so distinctly black and white during the cold war. It was instructive to get a look behind the curtain and to understand that my memory has blocked out the gray areas. Woodward reminds us that even the cold war had a myriad of gray areas in many parts of the world including Central America, North Africa and as always, the Middle East. It wasn't easy to know how to best protect our nation's interests and where the true danger spots were. Then when presented with intel on the true hot spots, were resources available to project force in those areas. All tough questions.
That is where I'm sympathetic to Casey and his role as DCI of the CIA, as intelligence work by its very nature is often educated guesswork at best. It's also done by regular people. Smart people to be sure, but people with different life experiences and motivations. People that will inevitably make mistakes. That's why collaboration, transparency and accountability are essential for leaders in all professions. These appeared to be challenges for Bill Casey and when covert actions are executed poorly, its tough to avoid the inevitable blowback. It was fascinating to learn how the Iran-Contra scandal truly unfolded as a cascade of small mistakes grossly inflated by attempts to hide and cover up.
Finally, I'm still dumfounded at how open people are with Bob Woodward. He's a tenacious and meticulous reporter and if a mistake is made, he will expose it to the world. And rightly so I think. Its important to learn from history so we can emulate the admirable lessons from history and avoid the past's ills.

[Z · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is long and detailed (maybe a little bit too detailed) and gives insight into how the intelligence organizations in the United States really work.

Emboldened by a newly elected president Ronald Reagan and a newly appointed Director of Central Intelligence, the ClA used the cold war and fears of communism to gain support from the public for covert activities around the world.

Because of a somewhat rocky relationship with Congress, the CIA often couldn't find legal ways to accomplish what they wanted to do and many times came up short on money to fund their activities. Eventually, this led to a twisted network of Middle Eastern funding and secret relationships with countries like Iran that were considered enemies of the United States by the rest of the government. Many of the secret relationships also turned out to be highly illegal.

Woodward documents many of these secret dealings in great detail, often to the point of excess. The overall point seems to be that people don't always set out to do things in secret or to break the law. Instead, one little white lie leads to another until you have something like the Iran-Contra scandal (which is covered throughout the book). Interesting to think about in the heightened geopolitical climate as we begin 2024.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book, unless you're really interested in knowing more about government bureaucracies going astray.

[Edward Champion · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume on the CIA's activity during the 1980s under William Casey reveals the strengths and the limitations of Woodward's approach. Woodward inserts himself the story, portraying himself as a crusading journalist talking tough to Casey, but this is really to disguise the fact that Woodward has very little on the Reagan-Casey relationship, much less the CIA's drive to intervene in Libya, Nicaragua, and Iran. And, rather oddly, the Iran-Contra scandal makes a lurching last-minute appearance that feels perfunctory. On the other hand, Woodward does a good job of portraying Casey as a wildly arrogant man who wanted to make a difference as leader of the world police because his hubris was unquenchable (that is, if Woodward's "on background" sourcing can be believed). Woodward IS good at depicting the Senators who caviled with Casey's dubious finances and motivations. But a lot of that is already on the public record. The job of a reporter is to show us how organizations and systems work. And, on that front, Woodward falls significantly short. (And Woodward IS capable of this: THE BRETHREN, his volume on the Supreme Court, illustrates this.) Even so, this is a lively and somewhat decent overview for those looking for a refresher on 1980s foreign policy.

[Daniel Osores · Rating 3 out of 5]

Este libro cubre los entretelones en los que se vio envuelta la CIA en el periodo 1981-1987, en el cual fue dirigida por William Casey, en quien se centra el texto.
La cantidad de información y detalle colocado por Woodward, así como el arduo trabajo de procesamiento de documentos y entrevistas, le dan a esta publicación un gran valor y la vuelven vital para comprender el enfoque internacional del gobierno de Ronald Reagan. Se aprende mucho de política exterior y contexto internacional.
Algo que destaco es cómo, en vez de centrar la narración siempre en los conflictos armados, el libro da mucho énfasis en cómo funciona el sistema de inteligencia en Estados Unidos, y la relación que tiene con otras instituciones como el Congreso y la Presidencia.
Sin embargo, debido a la cantidad de información, por momentos abruma y es aburrido. Eso no le quita su inconmensurable valor para comprender la década de los 80's. Muy recomendado.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

President Reagan wanted an opposition front in Nicaragua and he wanted to rescue all hostages held by Iranian-backed groups in Lebanon. He also didn't get too much into details or resolve disagreements between and among his cabinet and staff members. So why are we surprised we ended up with official policies and shadow policies, overt covert operations, and multiple violations of law mixing the two together? This book profiles Bill Casey, Reagan's 1980 campaign manager and a WWII OSS veteran, as he assumed leadership of the CIA and set out to implement what he believed Reagan wanted, bureaucracy be damned. The book demonstrates Casey's belief (born in the OSS) that intelligence and covert action were purviews only of the president and congressional oversight was meddling--laws were meant to be skirted and the CIA should be a direct instrument of presidential policy.

[Matt DiBari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Your opinion on this probably depends on your opinion of Woodward and his writing style.

I'm a big fan of both, so I really enjoyed it. But it does tend to get very deep in the weeds of 1980s Washington politics and the intricacies of the various intelligence agencies at the time. It helps somewhat reading it in 2023 that many of the names that keep popping up would wind up becoming much more famous in the 35 years after the book was written (Joe Biden, Bob Gates) or became famous because of the events described in the book (Oliver North) but a lot the book is the bickering of men forgotten to history who seemed to share responsibilities but not job titles.

Still, its Bob Woodward reporting for 500-something pages on one of the bigger stories of he decade, so it almost has to be great.

[Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting story, especially the bit about Libya (I had no idea they were so belligerent in the 80s). On that front, I did wonder whether the Lockheed bombing was connected to CIA actions, as it seemed most Libyan terrorism was a response.

The only reason I’m not giving this 5 stars is that there was very little about Mexico and using the cartels to run guns down to the contras. Perhaps that was not out in the open when this book was written, but I was looking forward to reading about that! In fact that was the reason I got this book. But I was pleasantly surprised by what I did read.

[Patricia Hilliard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book during the Trump campaign with all its duplicity, gave me the realization that the U.S. has been through crazy dealings before. Veil is about the Ronald Reagan administration which had the Iran-contra sandal: A scheme to sell weapons to Iran, through Israel, to gain funds to provide weapons to the Contras of Nicaragua in their fight against the Sandinistas. It's a true story about how the CIA became a separate entity and acted without congressional approve. A similar story to how the CIA operated in Vietnam where a conflict went on and on, without congressional approval. The book is very detailed with 520 pages.

[Joy]

Covers the period in which the CIA was headed by William Casey. Casey wanted the Central Intelligence Agency to do more than collect intelligence – he wanted to set and carry out international policy. Often he managed to do that, with the help of President Reagan and against the opposition of Congress and other factions in the White House. In spite of the way the government leaked like a sieve, he hid ongoing programs for months, sometimes even years.

With this goal and policy, it is astounding how much Casey and other high-up officials told Woodward. Even more astoundingly indiscreet is the way Woodward’s book broadcasted classified government methods to the world.

[Marti Martinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything I was taught NOT TO DO by my parents, the Webelos, the US Navy, and in 24 years with a TS/SCI clearance, these pieces of human filth did. Good riddance, but we still pay the price for them. Reagan began the obliteration of the middle class here in the USA, and the world now has even greater wealth, health, and education inequality.

That stain of an officer LTC North made me question WTF my naval service really meant. Iran-Contra was exposed while I was in the Navy.

But Woodward did meander sometimes.....

[Jeni Enjaian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would not recommend this book to a wide audience. However, that does not mean that I do not recommend the book. Woodward fills this book with thick, dense writing that I enjoyed more than other people might. Although I do not remember a lot of the minute details of the stories and events described in the book, it helped me gain a better understanding of the times from someone writing at the time.

[Gerges Frangieh]

Bachir Gemayel a CIA agent. ... By Bob Woodward also published that in an article...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archiv...

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his typical fashion investigative journalist, Bob Woodward, goes deep inside the workings of the Reagan administration and his CIA to reveal an Intelligence director with a dangerous agenda and a disengaged president. As fascinating as it is disturbing it reads like an unputdownable spy story.

[Molly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring. No clear plot line 125 pages in. Well written but mostly hum-drum and foul-mouthed accounts of the power struggles between CIA directors, their staff, the White House, and Congress. I already knew that kind of thing happened. 😄 I gave up even after flipping ahead several times.

[Leon Atterberry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book was ok. Not a bad book but nothing really stood out. I’m a fan of Bob Woodward but this wasn’t one of his standout books.

I’ve been reading a great deal about the CIA lately.

I didn’t learn anything new.