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Veil also gives a detailed account of the CIA's history of covert support for the Nicaraguan contras and reveals that the agency, beginning in the Carter years, gave financial aid to La Prensa, the opposition newspaper that was shut down for 15 months by the Sandinista government before reopening last week. Past charges by the Sandinistas that the paper was CIA-supported have been denied, and Publisher Violeta Chamorro last week labeled Woodward's revelation "totally false."
Among the book's other disclosures: Bashir Gemayel, the Christian leader assassinated after being elected President of Lebanon in 1982, had been on the CIA payroll for years; the agency monitored Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's phone conversations during the Achille Lauro crisis; and Argentine officials supplied intelligence data to the CIA during the Falklands war, information that was passed along to Britain, Argentina's enemy in the conflict. Woodward relates that a suspect being interrogated for the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Lebanon died after being tortured by a CIA officer with an electroshock device. (The officer involved was later fired.) There are gossipy revelations about Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi (according to CIA intelligence, he liked to wear high-heeled shoes and makeup) and piquant glimpses inside the Reagan inner circle. After Reagan was shot in 1981, Woodward says, his recovery was far slower than the White House acknowledged, and some aides "began to consider the possibility that his was going to be a crippled presidency." Even when Reagan was healthy, Woodward says, Casey found the President strangely passive, lackadaisical in work habits and reluctant to make decisions.
While many of Veil's revelations remain to be corroborated, a number of former CIA officials interviewed by TIME, including ex-CIA Chiefs William Colby and Stansfield Turner and former Deputy Chief Bobby Inman, gave the book generally good marks for accuracy in the episodes with which they were directly involved. Their major complaint is Woodward's habit of overdramatizing and embellishing quotes. Says Inman: "Everything's just a couple of degrees more colorful than it really was."
A more serious objection from many in the intelligence community is that Woodward's expose has divulged classified information that will damage U.S. spying efforts. The book, for example, includes a detailed explanation of Ivy Bells, an eavesdropping operation aimed at Soviet underwater cables, betrayed to Moscow by Spy Ronald Pelton -- details that the Post refrained from printing last year in response to pleas from Casey that it would harm national security. Woodward insists he carefully weighed security considerations and excised any information that might damage ongoing operations. Still, ex-CIA Director Richard Helms charged that such disclosures harm the agency's credibility with potential sources and will "play havoc with our recruiting." Senior intelligence officials are so distressed that they are considering prosecuting Woodward under statutes that make it illegal to publish secret communication techniques or information.