Bob Woodward CIA & FBI Files Cover Government Reactions to His Reporting

A collection of CIA and FBI files related to Bob Woodward has been published by BACM Research/PaperlessArchives.com and can be downloaded at:

https://downloads.paperlessarchives.com/p/sWEB/

This collection of documents includes:


CIA FILES

CIA files are related to Bob Woodward, mostly covering issues from the 1980’s. CIA memorandum cover Agency reaction to books and articles written by Woodward.

Highlights include:

A memo indicating that columnist Jack Anderson was informing to the CIA on Woodward during the Watergate era. CIA logging of the time and dates of phone calls and meetings  between Woodward and Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey, from 1984 through 1986. Casey was DCI from January 28, 1981 to January 29, 1987 and he died on May 6, 1987.

Files show CIA officials blamed Woodward for the death of CIA Beirut bureau chief William Buckley, because of an article appearing in the Washington Post that reported that the CIA was responsible for a bombing in a Beirut suburb. A memo from the CIA Acting Director of Personnel to the Deputy Director for Administration, warns that Woodward has filed Freedom of Information Act requests regarding the Agency’s Voluntary Investment Plan.

Much attention is given to how much secret information was in Woodward’s book “Veil.” A review of the book in an internal CIA journal says: “This is a bad book not just because Woodward arrogates to himself the right to decide what is classified and what is not. Nor is it bad just because of its relentlessly chronological line of march, plowing insistently through all possible connections of logic or subject matter; or just because it demands that you take so much on faith (although we’re getting closer to the truth now). No, Veil is bad because Woodward fails to turn himself from an investigative reporter into an author.”
 
FBI FILES

FBI files are related to Bob Woodward chiefly dealing with Watergate.

Much of the focus of these files concern if FBI Agent Angelo J. Lano, who was heading the investigation of the Watergate break in, was a source of information for Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and the Washington Post during the investigation. The files further address if the Post had a source in the FBI.

 
About Bob Woodward

After leaving the military in 1971, Bob Woodward turned down going to Harvard Law School, instead taking a job at the Washington Post.

He has won nearly every American journalism award, and the Washington Post won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for his work with Carl Bernstein on the Watergate scandal. 

Woodward was accused of fabricating a deathbed interview with CIA Director William Casey, as described in his book, “Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA,” (1987),  about the CIA’s “secret wars” during  William J. Casey’s leadership of the Agency. Some critics say the hospital bed interview of Casey featured in the book could not have taken place as written. According to Woodward, when Casey was asked if he knew about the diversion of funds to the Nicaraguan Contras, “His head jerked up hard. He stared, and finally nodded yes.” Woodward wrote that when he asked him “why?,” Casey responded saying twice, ”I believed,“ then fell asleep.

A number of officials, including President Reagan, publicly said that it was impossible that Woodward had interviewed Casey in his hospital room in January 1987, because they alleged Casey could not speak. This was disputed by others who talked with Casey at the time. For example, Robert M. Gates, Casey’s deputy at the time, in his book “From the Shadows,” recounts speaking with Casey during this exact period. Ronald Kessler wrote in his 2003 book, “The CIA at War,” that the CIA’s internal report found that Casey “had forty-three meetings or phone calls with Woodward, including a number of meetings at Casey’s home with no one else present,” during the period Woodward was researching his book.

Contact Information

Jerry Spencer

Communications Director

Jerry Spencer

Contact via E-mail