WALLOP CALLS BOOK A 'NOVEL'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807540016-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: October 14, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807540016-4
FILL WILY
UPI
14 October 1987
WALLOP CALLS CIA BOOK A 'NOVEL'
CHEYENNE, WY
Washington Post editor Bob Woodward's book on the CIA and deceased CIA
Director William Casey is a ''novel'' that nonetheless is a serious breach of
U.S. security interests, Sen. Malcolm Wallop said today.
Wallop, a former member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is quoted about
a half-dozen times in Woodward's book, ''Veil: The Secret Wars of CIA
1981-1987."
In a telephone interview with Wyoming reporters, Wallop said he knew Casey
''very, very well,'' and knows from first-hand information that at least one
episode in the book is wrong.
In the book, Wallop said he is accurately portrayed as being anxious to dump
Casey's former deputy, John McMahon, but Wallop said Casey is inaccurately
portrayed as offering only mild support for McMahon.
Wallop said that Casey was intensely loyal to McMahon and warned Wallop at
one point that if he brought up McMahon's dismissal again, Wallop would no
longer be considered a friend.
Wallop also said he believes Woodward is simply lying when he recounts a
death bed interview with the CIA director in which Casey reportedly admitted
he knew that profits from illegal arms sales to Iran were being diverted to
Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
"I believe the book is a novel,'' Wallop said, charging that Woodward
''substantially rewrote'' his book after the Iran-Contra affair came to light
and after Casey died.
Casey is not ''quite the adventurer'' Woodward describes him as being, Wallop
said, adding Casey did not order all the unauthorized covert activities alleged
in the book.
Wallop said he believes much of Woodward's information came from someone
still in the CIA who wants to shape the agency's image and U.S. foreign
policy, but who did not want to be quoted himself.
Wallop declined to speculate who that person is, but said it was ''very
convenient to place those words in the mouth of a dead man."
Some of the factual information in Woodward's book involve ''serious national
security leaks,'' Wallop said.
Wallop also said he doubted that Woodward, who gained fame and a Pulitzer
Prize for his coverage of the Watergate scandal along with fellow reporter Carl
Bernstein, had the close relationship with Casey that he claims.
Oil would venture to say that of the meetings Woodward claimed to have had
(with Casey), more than half were chance meetings at cocktail parties,'' Wallop
said.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807540016-4