Ernest May's review was published in the TLS of January 22-28, 1988
BOB WOODWARD Veil: The secret wars of the CIA 1981-1987 543pp. Simon and
Schuster. £14.95. 0671655434
PHILIP AGEE On the Run 400pp. Bloomsbury. £14.95. 0747501351
Veil: The secret wars of the CIA, 1981-1987 is reportage, not history. Its
author, Bob Woodward, is the defining specimen of the “investigative
reporter”. Famous for his Washington Post stories and subsequent books (with
Carl Bernstein) on Watergate, he has concentrated in recent years on the
CIA. In Veil, Woodward brings up to date his Post stories and adds others.
He builds no interpretations and develops no themes. At the final words,
“Casey died”, the reader still does not know whether Woodward liked or
disliked [William J.] Casey or approved or disapproved of what Casey did.
With the single exception of the former Director of Central Intelligence,
Stansfield Turner, portrayed occasionally as an unwitting clown, Veil has no
characters – just names and characteristics, as in spot news stories.
The alleged revelations in Veil concern every activity in Casey’s
jurisdiction: from signal interception to spying to covert operations.
Woodward describes how US Navy submarines sneaked into Soviet territorial
waters and periodically removed and replaced pods that picked up messages
from underwater cables. He tells how Adolf Tolkachev, an engineer in the
Moscow Aeronautical Institute, passed information about new Russian military
aircraft to a CIA case officer, and how Colonel Wladyslaw Kuklinski of the
Polish General Staff kept the Warsaw CIA station advised of debates within
General Jaruzelski’s government. Explaining how Washington was enabled to
capture the hijackers of the Achille Lauro, Woodward details the listening
devices planted in the offices of the President of Egypt. He recites names,
figures and dates concerning supposedly clandestine operations in aid of
Afghans, Ethiopians, Libyans, Nicaraguans and others. Most arrestingly, Veil
tells how Casey himself helped plan the assassination of Sheikh Fadlallah, a
supposed sponsor of terrorism in Lebanon. Worked out through third and
fourth parties, the plan miscarried. A car bomb killed eighty and wounded
two hundred in Beirut without touching the sheikh. According to Woodward,
Casey discovered later that Fadlallah was open to bribery and, for two
million dollars, could even be hired to help the Americans.
In the Watergate books, Woodward claimed to have had a single source for some
of his juiciest stories – an otherwise unidentified “deep throat”. Here,
Woodward purports to identify his chief informant. He says that the “deep
throat” for Veil was Casey himself.
Is Woodward to be believed? Regarding Casey, the answer is probably yes and
no. Though Woodward did apparently spend many hours with Casey, he quotes
him only occasionally. A few lines about an interview with Casey are often
followed by pages of un-attributed narrative, implying that the facts came
from Casey, although Woodward does not actually say so. In all probability,
many details came from others, whom Woodward wants to protect. More
generally, the answer probably is that Veil should be believed – as far as
it goes. For every important assertion, it is likely Woodward has testimony
from at least one well-placed witness. What he says regarding the
Iran–Contra affair, for example, is generally consistent with evidence
turned up by congressional investigators after Veil had gone to press. No
assertion is demonstrably false. This even includes Woodward’s claim to have
sneaked into the hospital room of the dying Casey and heard something
resembling a deathbed confession of early knowledge that sales of arms to
Iran would provide money for the Contras.
If one assumes that the details in Veil are more or less accurate, does that
make it a useful book? Many of those who support the Thatcher government’s
rulings on Spycatcher would surely say no. Many who criticize those rulings
would say yes. But there are, however, distinctive grounds for saying that
the publication of Veil is both in and not in some public interest.
To the extent that it summarizes what can now be learnt about covert
operations, Veil surely aids public debate both in the United States and
elsewhere. For the value of “covert” operations varies inversely with the
necessity for covertness. Such operations have had greatest utility when
benefiting principally either Congress or some foreign government. In 1948,
for example, “covert action” protected Congressmen from having to justify
publicly dollar aid to Tito. At present, it shields both Soviets and
Pakistanis from excessively open debate about arms shipments to Afghanistan.
Covert operations have least utility when resorted to by Presidents evading
hard choices among “overt” diplomatic or military options. In a small way,
Veil contributes to discouraging non-functional and possibly unlawful uses
of intelligence agencies. The positive case that can be made for Spycatcher
can also thus be made for Veil.
It is not so easy to formulate a brief for the half to two-thirds of Veil not
concerned with covert operations. Why should any citizen, anywhere, need to
know about those underwater cable taps or about Dr Tolkachev or Colonel
Kuklinski? And is the public – anywhere – enlightened by fragments of
information about differences among intelligence analysts? Woodward writes
at length about a National Intelligence Estimate concerning prospects for
internal troubles in Mexico. The implication is that Casey tried to bend the
Estimate so that it would support intervention in Nicaragua. But, on
Woodward’s own evidence, the author of the Estimate was an operator fresh
from the field, inexperienced in analysts’ debates. Older hands believed him
to have “mistaken legitimate intellectual pressure for political pressure”.
Does Woodward assist public understanding by giving publicity to half-baked
judgments rejected inside the government because they were half-baked?
Reasons for questioning the usefulness of this type of disclosure multiply if
one asks why Woodward got so many stories from officials who were not
appealing against the verdicts of superiors – as, for instance, from Casey
himself. The answer has to be that they wanted Woodward to publish at least
some of what they told him. Casey, one suspects, saw his relationship with
Woodward as that of case officer to agent. The aim was, through Woodward, to
influence opinion and debate. The potential usefulness of Veil has to be
gauged in light of the possibility that some of it is unwitting
“disinformation”.
About Philip Agee’s On the Run, it is easier to speak categorically. One
struggles to imagine the criterion by which it might be reckoned useful.
Between 1957 and 1968 Agee served the CIA, engaging mostly in minor covert
operations in Latin America. After a succession of affairs with admirers of
Che Guevara, he quit the Agency. He then financed himself with a
sensational reminiscence, Inside the Company: CIA diary (1975). Bringing to
light some questionable covert operations, the book was not entirely without
value. Afterwards, he produced a periodical purporting to identify CIA
operatives worldwide. Though Agee denies it, many feel that he thereby
contributed to a couple of assassinations. In 1976 the British government
and some others responded to petitions from Washington and denied Agee
residence permits, thus making him the focus of various civil liberties
demonstrations and petitions. On the Run is a whining chronicle of these
events, culminating with descriptions of his subsequent service to
“progressive” causes. He boasts, for instance, of having counselled the
Sandinista government of Nicaragua to shut down La Prensa and to silence
Bishop Obando y Bravo, on the grounds that “the hand of the CIA was all too
obvious” in the newspaper and that the Bishop had baptized the son of a CIA
station chief. Agee may indeed have been dealt with improperly by the
British government, but anyone wishing to retain sympathy for him had better
not read On the Run.
