Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987

...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.

Woodward's story of Casey's years at the helm of U.S. state terrorism centers around Casey and his British-bred, WWII-honed perspective used to justify government covert actions that include torture, disappearance, and death. We learn that America did not begin her slide down the slope to Nazi Germany with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in the Twenty-First Century. It began when Hitler's faults began to take revenge on the Allies through the creation of the OSS in London, predecessor to CIA. Under Reagan's two terms as President with Casey at the helm of CIA, U.S. state terrorism ran rampant in its aim to establish a system of Anglo/U.S.-sponsored authoritarian states.

Woodward is interesting to read because he provides information along with disinformation, twisted around more information and more disinformation, so that unraveling it becomes a challenge. Beginning on page 6, Woodward lets us know that he intends to take the uninitiated for an Orwellian ride. Stansfield Turner was Director of the CIA when Jimmy Carter was President, but either the CIA did not keep him completely informed of its covert activities; or Turner did know - but Woodward portrayed him as not knowing in the interest of disinformation. According to Woodward, Turner wanted "to funnel covert money or assistance to some groups or individuals inside" Cuba, Libya, and Iran "to oust three leaders who were troublesome to U.S. interests - Cuba's leader Fidel Castro, Iran's leader Ayatollah Khomeini, and Libya's Muammar [sic] Qaddafi. The response from the DDO was: No, . . . Turner had been surprised at the depth of their reluctance" (p6).

The fact is that all three leaders were put into office by CIA and received subsequent CIA covert support to maintain their regimes. The Le Monde reported in 1979 that Khomeini had been stashed in France as part of a CIA Number Two back-up plan that, in the event that Shah Pahlevi and his SAVAK lost control in Iran, envisioned the CIA's Ayatollah Khomeini telling the Iranian people what they wanted to hear and duping them with Islamic rhetoric. And that is precisely what happened after the Shah fled Iran in October of 1979. Two weeks later the CIA personnel in Teheran were predictably taken hostage after CIA intentionally leaked the false rumor that they were going to reinstall the Shah. The hostage-takers wanted a swap - to exchange the CIA personnel for the Shah so he could be executed for his heinous crimes and Iranian fears could be put to rest that the Shah would wreak terror again. CIA subsequently sent Khomeini to do a Ross Perot on the Iranian people - to drug them with words they longed to hear, words of peace through submission to God. The CIA's Ayatollah duped many with his Islamic rhetoric, but the socialists could not be fooled - he later killed tens of thousands of them and caused a resulting diaspora of Iranian socialists around the globe. Once secure in his new position as Caesar in the new Iranian Roman-style republic engineered by CIA, the Ayatollah's Iranian F4 fighters were subsequently provided covert U.S. AWAC support against Iraqis MIGs during the Iran-Iraq War, Iranian surveillance stations were maintained along the Soviet border, and oil flowed from Iran to Europe and Japan. Despite the camouflaging anti-U.S. rhetoric from Khomeini ("The U.S. is an evil `Shaytaan'"), nothing changed in terms of U.S. strategic interests. The average man would do well to remember Tom Paine's truism - "war is the gambling table of governments, citizens the dupes of the game".

Since CIA hijacked the Iranian coup and installed Khomeini, how could a Director of CIA not know what was really happening in Iran? Either Turner did know and Woodward did not want his readers to know what Turner knew; or Turner didn't know. The idea of Turner not knowing is absurd considering the extent that CIA was complicit, but this is the disinformation that Woodward wants his readers to believe. Woodward writes: "When the Shah of Iran came to the United States for medical treatment in October 1979, two weeks before the American hostages were taken in Iran, . . . Turner realized . . . that he was isolated both from his own agency and from the President he served" (p8). The fact is, according to the Le Monde in 1979, that Iranians reacted predictably to intentionally leaked CIA reports that CIA was going to reinstall the Shah, and predictably the Iranians grabbed the CIA personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Teheran in order to later do a swap for the Shah - that way they could lock the Shah away and not worry about him reviving his CIA-maintained Hitlerite SAVAK regime. Woodward would have us believe that Turner is oblivious to what his CIA is doing or what Le Monde is saying about his CIA.

Woodward's disinformation quickly mounds up: "He and his CIA had studiously misread Khomeini as a benign, senile cleric, and now he held the United States hostage"(p11). The reality was that CIA had orchestrated the realization of the hostage crisis so that their number two man - Ayatollah Khomeini, could take over where the Shah left off by singing a different tune.

Having established himself as a disinformationist and probably a wordpusher on the CIA payroll in addition to his job at the Washington Post, Woodward's story progresses toward its main character William J. Casey. Casey came from the OSS - "the old-hand, old-boy network" that began in London, England during World War II. "These men were the operators, the inner agency, the band of brothers . . . the dedicated secretive operatives who did the dirty work . . . a club that didn't meet"(p4). Woodward explains "They had been trained by the British, and CIA traditions were British traditions". Woodward says Casey "sat in London headquarters creating a spy network" (p37). American-powered British empire was the result, although the British have remained discreetly behind the scenes (See Nicolas John Cull's "Selling War").

After WWII, Casey made one unsuccessful stab at running for election to public office when he sought the Republican Party nomination to be their Long Island candidate for Congress in 1966 and they chose someone else. Afterward, "Casey returned to behind the scenes, where . . . many . . . thought he belonged" (p19). By early 1980, he became Ronald Reagan's campaign manager when Casey was "writing a book on the OSS" (p17).

Ronald Reagan won the election and Carter lost his bid for reelection. Stansfield Turner was hoping Reagan would keep him on as CIA chief, but that was not to be. Woodward relates an interesting aside about a warning from French intelligence chief Colonel Alexandre de Marenches that was given to President-Elect Ronald Reagan after he and Vice President-Elect George Bush won the election and waited for Carter to leave the White House - "`Don't trust the CIA'"(p22). Woodward further relates "Reagan repeated Marenches' warning - `Don't trust the CIA' - to George Bush, who had been CIA chief in 1976-77. Bush thought it was hogwash, but all the same it obviously left a deep impression on Reagan" (p22). Reagan then asked Casey to head the CIA and he later agreed, but Reagan was shot anyway weeks later by the son of Bush's close friend in a deadly assassination attempt that was thwarted by the surgical prowess of Dr Rodman from Alliance, Ohio. Subsequently, Vice-President George Bush sat in the driver's seat at the White House while Reagan and his "voodoo economic" was on the mend. Bush, as former director of CIA, and Casey, as the current director of CIA, remained true to their OSS roots and British traditions.

On page 55, Woodward says that CIA chief Turner, prior to Casey, believed the Soviet economy was in trouble and that any alleged military superiority was false. If what Woodward says about Turner is accurate, then I can say that Turner was correct in thinking that the Soviets were in trouble because in 1980 the Soviets were certainly in trouble from my viewpoint on Shemya Island. That year I learned that Reagan's Red Scare was largely balderdash. He was scaring U.S. taxpayers into giving up large amounts of cash to his bomb-making corporatist friends to defend ourselves from a largely imagined threat. On page 56, Woodward says "That meant that the Soviet advantage was not real".

Woodward's story carries on for over 500 more pages and is chock full of information and more disinformation. My review can't possibly due justice to it all. Read the book and discern for yourself whether Bob Woodward is a CIA wordpusher or not.

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.

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!

I was looking for facts when I bought this book, I was disappointed.

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.

This another book that should be required reading for all Americans who can read.

I know the content. I had one, but lost it. Has much Historical value. Bob Woodward is the best investigativ Journalist since Watergate.
I am glad I got hold of this Copy.

For those of us old enough to remember the Reagan Era, it is an interesting nostalgia trip to go back to those days with books such as this:

' Veil ' chronicles the CIA's activities under then Director (the late) William Casey, who passed away shortly prior to the book's publication.

And ' Veil ' is immediately notable because it was written with the cooperation of Casey, as well as others in the Reagan Administration, while they were still in office, and also because it was released while the ' Iran-Contra ' scandal, which is addressed in detail in the book, was still in the news at that time.

With the benefit of hindsight, ' Iran-Contra ' appears to be a classic case of good intentions gone seriously wrong, and in which matters became so covert, with so many ' insulating layers '. that the players themselves had trouble keeping control.

Woodward actually paints a largely sympathetic portrait of these players: Casey, North, Poindexter, Etc., (less so with Secord, who appears to be little more than a war profiteer) and includes in the book documents signed by Reagan himself, that appear to actually be ' Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Cards ' for all of them.

Woodward's descriptions of the relationships between Intelligence Community, Congress, & the White House (including the White House staff's relationships with each other) are also detailed and insightful.

One curious omission was the lack of detail regarding the US support for the Mujahideen vs. the Soviets in Afghanistan, which, like the anti-communist efforts in central America, Reagan & Casey also supported strongly (However, anyone with an interest in that topic can read ' Ghost Wars ' by Steve Coll).

All in all, ' Veil ' is a great read about an era that is, for better or worse, important in American & World History.

MCK

This book is primarily about the war of words inside the government concerning how things should be done. Because of this, it was different than I had expected.