Customer Reviews

Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Anyone interested in the Iran-Contra issue should have read this book. But the title, is a bit misleading. Woodward focuses too much on the Iran-Contra issue (and superficially at that) to the detriment of other CIA and DoD paramilitary/covert activities during the era of the 80s.
Furthermore, the way Woodward wove himself into the storyline would lead one to believe that he was a key character in the whole Casey-era saga. Fortunately, this is hardly the case.
Nevertheless, the book is a good review of the key players at the macro-level who were creating policy. Of note, the interaction between Goldwater and Casey is enlightening.
If you really want to get to the meat of CIA/DoD secret activities during this era, Steve Emerson's "Secret Warriors" will provide far more insight into the covert activities of the 80s.

I am a big fair of Woodward, so much so that I would even consider reading his shopping list. With that said I will give him a little slack on the Casey deathbed revelations. I think if the author would have know the level of scorn he has received concerning the "Casey confession" he may have used a tape recorder.

Overall this book gives the reader some very interesting stories about the Regan years and his use of the CIA. The reader of any book covering a review of a set of government policies that had a very firm stamp of approval or even the direction of the President will always fall on side or another on if the book is a truthful and "shocking" exposé or a "political bias hatchet job". I think that is one of the fun things about this book, no matter what side of the argument you are on; you will experience some emotion while reading this book. If you are also very interested in this subject it is interesting to go back into time and read his review and then compare it to some of the new facts on the subject.

Overall, this is another Woodward book, well written and constructed, very detailed and full of a lot of conversations that make you feel that you are involved, not just page after page of monotone lecturing. I wish he spent a little more time on footnotes so that the reader could be a better judge to the research he puts into the book and the sources used. If you like Woodward, you will love this book. If you have leanings to the left then you will have a lot of "you see" stories to tell, and if you are a strong Reaganite then you will be happy with the strong effort described in the book to defeat the USSR.

This is an excellent read where Bob Woodward with his astonishing access to sources deep inside the White House and CIA reveals the secret wars conducted by the CIA led by William Casey (1981-1987) during the Regan years. From Nicaragua to Afghanistan to the Iran-contra scandal Casey was involved in and controlled it all. The repercussions of his feverishly misguided policies and the secrets he kept from the U.S. Congress would have drastic effects on future generations of Americans and the world. One of Woodward's best!

This book presents the history of the CIA during William Casey's tenure, from 1981 to 1987. Woodward focused the book primarily on William Casey himself. The book details not only the various operations that the CIA was involved in during the 1980s, but also Casey's motivations for his leadership decisions. The CIA operations described in the book include everything from the mundane details of placing bugs in the offices of foreign leaders to the Iran-Contra affair.

Woodward gathered material from a variety of sources when writing this book. One of his primary sources was Casey himself. Woodward interviewed Casey on numerous occasions, and Casey was aware that Woodward was compiling material for a book about his leadership of the CIA. Casey was surprisingly forthcoming about his involvement in many covert operations. He must have felt confident that Woodward would not betray his trust and expose any material prematurely. What is odd is that Woodward discusses not only Casey's professional life, but also his personal life, and includes comments about such things as peanuts getting caught in Casey's dentures that seem mean-spirited rather than relevant for the story. Nevertheless, the historical documentation of Casey's leadership and CIA activities in the 1980s makes the book well worth reading.

When Woodward wrote this book in 1987, it was his first truly up-to-the-minute muckraking exercise since "All the President's Men" and "The Final Days" with Carl Bernstein back during the Watergate years. "Veil" covers the activities of the U.S. intelligence apparatus in the 1980s, leading up to the Iran-Contra scandal that was just breaking as Woodward finished up the book. At the time, Woodward was probably trying to unleash an in-depth investigation on a breaking story for the benefit of concerned and skeptical Americans, like he did most recently with his three books on Bush and the Iraq war. This may have been a crucial investigation at the time, but now it largely reflects esoteric historical details.

The book mostly follows William Casey, Reagan's intelligence chief from 1981 to 1987, in the form of a 500-page investigative report of Casey's decision-making processes, the unqualified cronyism of the intelligence establishment, and all the political causes and effects. The historical details are fairly interesting for intelligence buffs but are now a rather unexciting read, especially since Woodward's strictly chronological investigative style creates very little suspense. You get the feeling that the historical coverage is always leading up to something that never quite comes as the book slogs along, except maybe the Iran-Contra hearings, but those started just as Woodward's chronology comes to a close (he concluded with Casey's untimely death).

But on the good side, if one takes a longer historical view there are some interesting lessons to be learned here. Woodward finds that the American intelligence apparatus (especially the CIA) has always been devoted not to the security of the American homeland, but to pushing ideology into other nations and building short-term alliances for quick political gain, no matter which political party is in charge back home. During the Casey/Reagan years, the agency was stacked with political cronies whose black-and-white ideological obsessions resulted in a parade of questionable actions leading to the shameful (and possibly treasonous) Iran-Contra scandal. At a higher level, through this example Woodward really brought some crucial focus to what American intelligence really stands for. But in terms of the specific events of this book, Woodward would have created a more lasting historical study if he had waited until after the Iran-Contra hearings had run their course. [~doomsdayer520~]

This is another of Bob Woodward's insider stories on the White House, the Presidency of the United States and the surrounding players, in this case the CIA and it's Director William Casey.

Woodward chose one of the most turbulent times in US political history to write about and he wrote extremely well, it is almost as if the reader is in the room while these events took place. The ability of Woodward to draw out the biggest secrets and stories from some of the most powerful people in the world is something to be seen to be believed.

Excellent book.

...Okay, so it's Operation "Ivy Bells"...I just wanted to relay an abbreviated connotation into the title, in a nutshell.

Specifically covering past espionage operations, this book relates excellent past internal working and policy decision making between various intelligence agencies, political players and other intelligence sources, not just the CIA. It covers specific, proven events...in great detail.

You can get an in-depth idea of how "shadow systems" work around, and with, existing civilian and government markets, as well as DC politics that are often involved in big business and major political entities world-wide.


I find it a very informative book, especially with its "hindsight" into deeper inner workings of not just what policy IS, but HOW policy is CARRIED OUT in the real world, and the not so visible world.

An eye opener...well written, as to simultaneously inform and entertain.

This book delves into the various covert operations sponsored by the CIA during the Reagan administration. The primary focus is on combating communist parties in Central America and dealing with Middle East dictators and terrorism. The story is told chronologically and allocates about the same number of chapters to each year stated in the book's title. Woodward writes the book like a TV crime drama; with some conversations taking up whole paragraphs and some weeks covered in a sentence. The book contains many references, but all are in the back, with no correlation between specific facts and their sources. Woodward takes a fairly objective view of events, and there are many instances where central characters like CIA DCI Casey, Reagan, and various cabinet members can comment on their words and actions. The book gives a lot of facts such as dates, names of operations, names of characters, and other details that make this a good reference, along with a good piece of investigative journalism. All in all, a good book.

I'm a fan of Bob Woodward. And I've long been fascinated by Bill Casey's leadership of the CIA. I've read a number of other books on this era as well as Joseph Persico's biography of Casey. So I expected this book to be the perfect culmination of a good topic and good writer. But it was a bit disappointing. Rating this book is difficult, because I feel that I might be more forgiving than other readers, given my affinity for and background knowledge of the topic. But the book seems to be a bit confused or unfocused.

First of all, this is really more of a biography of William Casey during his time at the CIA. The subtitle that claims "The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987" might just as well have read "The Secret Wars of William J. Casey, 1981-1987."

Secondly, the book tends to read like a collection of newspaper articles, or as if it were based heavily on Casey's weekly calendar. Nothing seems to have been left out and so many things seem to be unrelated, especially during the first two-thirds of the book. The book reads like "this happened, then this happened, then this happened" instead of having more overarching themes and ideas.

Thirdly, Woodward includes far more stories and details than are relevant. Don't get me wrong, many of them are very, very interesting. But much of the second-to-last chapter chronicles the back-and-forth of Woodward and the Washington Post trying to publish a story on the tapping of Soviet communication cables by the National Security Agency. Casey is hardly even involved, except for a few abrupt exchanges to discourage it's publication. Interesting it may be, but it is unrelated to anything else in the book.

If you are a fan of Woodward's other books, especially his more recent ones, you will not necessarily enjoy this one. It is has less of a narrative flow, is quite long, and more complex. But if you are interested in the topic, in the role of Casey and the CIA during the Reagan era, you will probably like the book. My personal feeling is the book deserves 4 stars, but I'm giving it 3 because I think it does little to appeal to a wider audience.

Woodward does a good job of giving you a fly's eye view of the old CIA