WOODWARD BOOKS SERIOUSLY HARMS U.S. SECURITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807540021-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: October 10, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807540021-8
Newsweek
Time
Woodward Book ? U.S. News & World Report
Seriously ~ Em
Harms U.S. Security Date
The major topic of conversation in
the Nation's Capital for most of last
week was not Judge Robert Bork's dis-
integrating chances or the Persian Gulf
activity or even the Dukakis flap. The
central subject was the just published
book by the Washington Post's major
muckraker in the area of national
security, Bob Woodward.
Called Veil: The Secret Wars of the
CIA, 1981-1987, the book was an im-
mediate sensation, making headlines
not only across the nation but across
the world. And the "facts" that Wood-
ward supposedly uncovered had their
intended shock effects. Among the
more provocative "discoveries":
? The late CIA director, William
Casey, through King Fahd and his
ambassador to the United States,
Prince Bandar, persuaded the Saudis to
involve themselves in several covert ac-
tion efforts, including a Middle East
assassination attempt that went awry,
killing 80 innocent people and injuring
another 200.
? Casey suppressed solid CIA infor-
mation that the Soviet Union, contrary
to Casey's anti-Communist predilec-
tions, was not "the hidden hand behind
international terrorism."
? Casey had admitted to Wood-
ward, when Woodward supposedly
visited him at Georgetown University
Hospital in January, that he had been
behind the plan to divert funds from
the sale of arms to Iran to the Contras.
There were other "disclosures" as
well. Egypt's Anwar Sadat, though
"not directly in the pay of the CIA,"
seemed to act like a CIA "case officer
at times." He also "smoked dope and
had anxiety attacks." The Saudi king,
aside from his involvement in killing
innocent civilians in Beirut, "did a
good deal of drinking contrary to the
strict proscriptions of his Muslim reli-
gion."
Dominica's Eugenia Charles, who
was key to the Grenada operation, may
have personally received $100,000 from
the CIA (though she denied it to Wood-
ward). El Salvador's Napoleon Duarte
"was listed in the files as a CIA asset
with a coded cryptonym." He fit in the
category between "casual informant"
and a full-blown "controlled asset."
On and on it goes in that kind of
vein. Did the American people applaud
the air strike against Qaddafi and wel-
colm the Grenada invasion? Wood-
ward's account of things is designed to
give them second thoughts.
What emerges is what Washington
has come to expect from a Woodward
manuscript dealing with U.S. national
security issues: "Revelations" that are
not only fashioned to bring into dis-
repute military and covert operations,
especially as they were conducted by
the CIA under Casey, but also friendly
nations and individual leaders who are
battling communism.
Woodward's work severely em-
barrasses allies, compromises the
most delicate CIA activities and
almost certainly increases the
vulnerability of the lives of CIA
operatives abroad.
Even former CIA Director Stansfield
Turner, who is hardly a fan of this
Administration, said last week that
"Bob Woodward did a lot of harm in
this book by disclosing techniques of
collecting intelligence and by hurting
relations between the United States and
other countries through exposures of
things we did to those countries."
Rep. Henry Hyde (R.-Ill.), a ranking
member of the House Intelligence
Committee, called Woodward's book
"very dangerous," adding: "It just
seems to me that a lot of information
was unwisely made public. It embar-
rasses us whether it's true or false and it
certainly helps our adversaries."
Aside from inflicting harm on this
country's security, is the Woodward ac-
count accurate? Intelligence experts
give him bad marks. Roy Godson, a
professor at Georgetown University
and a specialist on intelligence, says:
"The book clearly reflects the perspec-
tives of his informants and they have
very partial and selective views. I
believe that much of his story is dis-
torted and badly mistaken."
CIA operatives say that much of
what Woodward is saying is just plain
false. Herbert Romerstein, who spent
almost six years with the House Com-
mittee on intelligence, says he was
keenly aware of a "great deal of CIA
activities" when he was with the panel.
/o SGT /917
And in "all of those mentioned by
Woodward that I was somehow aware
of, Woodward was simply wrong."
One case where Woodward seems far
off base is his suggestion that Casey
suppressed a major CIA National Intel-
ligence Estimate that supposedly
stressed the Soviets were not engaged in
international terrorism. Neither the
estimate "nor its conclusions" were
made public, writes Woodward.
"As far as the American public was
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807540021-8
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807540021-8
concerned, the Soviets still stood publicly branded
by the secretary of state as active supporters of
terrorism. And the record was never corrected."
But that charge appears manifestly untrue. The
Democratic staff of the subcommittee on Over-
sight and Evaluation of the House Select Commit-
tee on Intelligence released on Sept. 22, 1982, a
report dealing with the major CIA intelligence
estimate that Woodward clearly appears to be
referring to.
The report not only concluded that the CIA
intelligence estimate was of "very high quality,"
but said it "succeeded in being direct and clear in
its conclusions that the Soviets are deeply engaged
in support of revolutionary violence and directly or
indirectly support terrorism, while making careful
distinctions and pointing out areas in which evi-
dence was substantial, or thin, or on which inter-
pretations differed."
Woodward, in short, appears to have been whol-
ly mistaken in claiming the CIA estimate was
buried and in charging that it relieved the Soviets
of accusations that they are a primary supporter of
terrorism.
Woodward's accuracy has not only been dis-
puted in connection with his telling of substantive
CIA activities, but he has also run into heavy skep-
ticism concerning his claims that he visited with
Casey in his Georgetown Hospital room on the
sixth floor for four minutes
According to Woodward's account, Casey asked
him if he had finished his book and then admit-
ted to Woodward that he had known about the
diversion of Iran arms sales money to the Contras
all along. Why did you support it? Woodward said
he asked, with Casey purportedly responding: "I
believed" and then falling asleep.
Woodward refuses to say in his book or in public
the precise day or time he entered Casey's room,
maintaining only it was "several days" after CIA
security guards had blocked him from gaining ac-
cess to the CIA director on January 22. Woodward
states he won't say because "somebody helped me
and I'm protecting that person." But skeptics also
note that if Woodward did pinpoint the day and
hour, his story could then be subjected to a thor-
ough testing, which he may wish to avoid.
The Washington Times, which has been digging
heavily into Woodward's story, reported last week
that a physician familiar with the facts, who spoke
on condition of anonymity, charged that Wood-
ward's account of the hospital meeting was
"medically impossible." Casey's condition, said
the Times, "gradually worsened into a severe form
of 'aphasia' that left him unable to either under-
stand or reply to questions."
Mrs. Casey and her daughter, Bernadette, both
of whom we spoke to last week, have vigorously
denied Woodward's account. Elaborating on what
she initially told the media, Mrs. Casey said that
"From the day he went in [to the hospital], he was
surrounded with CIA security, and there was a
security man at the elevator [and] a security man
watching the door of his room. all the time.'." On
the same floor, in another room, she said, there
were three other CIA security men whose purpose
was to relieve the other two. "There was constant
security at all times."
Aside from all this security, Mrs. Casey con-
tinued, "myself and my daughter were with Bill
constantly. I was on the night shift from eight to
whenever she (Bernadette) would come in the
morning. And she was on the day shift.
"We never had to leave the room. Our meals
were served there. And there was a bathroom in the
room. So we never had to leave it." Mrs. Casey
also said her husband was in a room that "was in a
very strategic place where the nurses and doctors
could watch him all the time, because he was a very
sick man...."
He had a cancer on the left-hand side of his
brain, she added, which paralyzes the right side.
"So he was paralyzed in his leg, in his arm, in his
vocal cords in his neck, and half of his tongue, his
right side of his tongue, was paralyzed. He rarely
spoke because he couldn't speak.
"We never had a conversation, it was a very sad
thing, from the moment after the operation until
he died."* [F had "a little speech foal short t flue,"
but "he couldn't pronounce 't#oo-syI atSle words.
He couldn't pronounce the words '1 believed' like
Woodward said."
Bernadette Casey corroborated Mrs. Casey's
version to us, saying: "He could not say, 'I be-
lieved,' it's preposterous.... He also has my
father sitting up. He could not sit up alone. That
was impossible, too. The whole' thing is impos-
sible."
Former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence
Ray Cline, who has had a long and distinguished
career as a high-ranking intelligence official, says
he believes Woodward's book, strewn with anony-
mous quotes, is full of fiction, but has nevertheless
been "damaging to our interests abroad." And he
says he thinks Woodward "invented this hospital
interview" to enhance the value of the book sales.
"It is my strong conviction," Cline told us,
"based on my knowledge of the family and the
security. system, that he didn't get in the room."
But, adds Cline, "If in some weird way he did,
that's even more unconscionable. Can you imagine
in order to get a news story, and sell a book, you
would risk the life of a dying man by intruding in
his hospital room against hospital regulations, and
then recognizing that ... you were obviously deal-
ing with a man in no position to communicate
responsibly. I think that's immoral."
Woodward, it seems to us, has a major credibil-
ity problem, but the big question is whether the
media-or at least the honest journalists in their
midst-will continue to pursue the obvious inves-
tigative paths that have been opened for them.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807540021-8