Overview
“Everyone always says more than they’re supposed to,” CIA Director Wm J. Casey told Bob Woodward in one of their interviews. Using hundreds of inside sources & secret documents, Woodward has pieced together an unparalleled account of the CIA, its Director & the US government.
Casey, CIA Director from 1981-87, reflected & helped define the foreign policy aspirations of the Reagan administration that will come to be seen as defining its era. Maneuvering around Washington power centers, he was given a free hand & became probably the most powerful CIA Director in its 40-year history. He played comfortably & confidently on the world stage, committing his nation & President to new, expanded covert wars & clandestine relationships. Bound together by generation & philosophy, Reagan & Casey became a team that attempted to reshape the world. Woodward’s extensive access includes a hospital visit to Casey on his death bed—so remarkable that it was doubted for years before Ronald Kessler put the issue to rest in his book, The CIA at War, which cites confirmation from Wm Donnelly, head of CIA administration, that “Woodward probably found a way to sneak in,” as well as Britt Snider, general counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, whose formal investigation found that Woodward had 43 meetings & phonecalls with Casey, including at the director’s home.
Veil is the story of the covert wars that were waged in a secretive atmosphere & became the centerpieces & eventual time bombs of American foreign policy in the 1980’s.