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Some journalists had just the opposite complaint. Why, they wondered, did Woodward (who has written some 75 stories about the CIA and related topics for the Post since January 1986) not go to press immediately with several of his revelations, especially Casey's deathbed interview? "If you allow your reporter to keep the best nuggets for a book, I don't think you as an editor are doing your job," says Dennis Britton, deputy managing editor of the Los Angeles Times.
Post editors say they knew about the deathbed interview but decided not to run it because it was too "ambiguous." The Post did print a Woodward story in 1985 on CIA involvement in the Fadlallah assassination attempt. But it made no mention of the role of Casey and the Saudis, information that Woodward says he learned only last July. In any event, Post editors contend that the paper benefited greatly from Woodward's dual role. "It isn't enough that the Washington Post, thanks to Bob Woodward, got all these stories first," said Executive Editor Benjamin C. Bradlee. "It's that we didn't get them to fit some schedule that the critics think was more appropriate."
Some Casey intimates contest Woodward's claim that the reporter had "more than four dozen interviews or substantive discussions" with Casey, who was notoriously distrustful of the press. "I know of all the meetings," says George Lauder, director of public affairs under Casey. "The only way you can reach that number is add all the cocktail chatter and parties." Yet CIA sources believe at least some sensitive details had to have come from Casey. In Woodward's opinion, Casey talked to him as a defensive measure, to learn $ exactly how much he knew about CIA operations. Thus Veil offers a final posthumous irony: Bill Casey, who complained so frequently about Government leaks, may have been the most skilled leaker in Washington. After all, who will ever be able to prove or disprove what the late director may have told Bob Woodward?