Most of the information in this book was obtained from interviews with more than 250 people involved directly in gathering or using intelligence information. I conducted multiple interviews with more than one hundred of these people; about fifteen key sources were each interviewed a halfdozen or more times. I would prefer sharing the name and position of each source with the reader. But because of the topic’s sensitivity, nearly all the interviews were conducted on “background,” which means that I have promised that these sources will not be identified. The simple reality is that people will not discuss intelligence and security matters without this protection. A number of sources also provided access to documents, memoranda, notes, calendars, other written chronologies, letters, transcripts and diaries. Where quoted directly, the documentation is identified in the text. I found, however, that the discussions with well-placed sources were generally more illuminating than reading stacks of documents.
The various investigations of the Iran-contra affair, including those of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the Tower review board, the joint Senate-House select committees, and independent counsel Lawrence Walsh, provided additional information and documentation, especially for the years 1985 and 1986.
The use of dialogue in meetings or conversations comes from at least one participant or written memos or contemporaneous notes. In the narrative when someone is said to have “thought” or to “believe,” that point of view has been obtained from that person or from some source who gained direct knowledge of the person’s conclusions from a conversation with that person. I have attempted to preserve the language of the main characters and sources as much as possible, using their words even when they are not directly quoted, reflecting the flavor of their speech and attitudes as best I could. In those cases where the memories of sources or the documentation was not absolutely clear no quotations were used.
Ken Auletta wrote in his most recent book, “No reporter can with 100 percent accuracy recreate events that occurred some time before. Memories play tricks on participants, the more so when the outcome has become clear. A reporter tries to guard against inaccuracies by checking with a variety of sources, but it is useful for a reader—and an author—to be humbled by this journalistic limitation.” I subscribe fully to this important observation.
Work on this book began in late 1984. My purpose was initially to cover only the first four years of the CIA under Reagan and Casey. But during the reporting and writing of this book, I worked daily as a reporter and an editor at The Washington Post, and it soon became clear from events relating to Nicaragua, Libya and Iran that the book would have to cover 1985, 1986 and a portion of 1987. Since this book is one of the first to treat the subject, I realize that it will by no means be the last word or even come close to it. Accordingly, this book is much closer to journalism than to history, particularly as the Iran-contra hearings and the various investigations continue.
In half a dozen scenes in this book, the editors at the Post and I were involved in making decisions about publishing national-security stories. In these cases, I was my own source and reluctantly I enter the narrative in an attempt to describe as precisely as possible what happened. I also describe several of my meetings with William J. Casey.
I have attempted to tell the story of intelligence from three main perspectives: (1) Director of Central Intelligence Casey, (2) the White House, (3) the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
I had more than four dozen interviews or substantive discussions with Casey from 1983 to 1987. We talked at his house, at his office, on plane rides, in corners at parties, or on the phone. At times he spoke freely and explained his views. At other times he declined. Overall, I was able to obtain his perspective on the major intelligence topics discussed in this book. He once said, “Everyone always says more than they’re supposed to.” It was a maxim he clearly accepted both in others and in himself. He rarely was willing to be identified by name or as a source for my newspaper writing. He also knew I was gathering information for this book on his CIA, and on a number of occasions he stipulated that information was not to appear in the next day’s newspaper but was for the book. Among many other things, Casey thought of himself as a historian. In fairness to him, I am sure that if he had lived to write his own account, this is not the way he would tell it. He would disagree vehemently with me, as he often did while he was alive. I, nonetheless, am certain he would recognize all or nearly all of what is assembled here. So this is in no sense an “authorized” version of his CIA years, but he was a participant. It was perhaps his way of playing defense, or shaping the story, or out of curiosity.
The White House and the National Security Council are the most important users of intelligence. Dozens of members of President Reagan’s staff assisted me. The President was not interviewed.
In 1971, Senator John C. Stennis, a strong supporter of the CIA, said on the Senate floor, “Spying is spying…You have to make up your mind that you are going to have an intelligence agency and protect it as such, and shut your eyes some and take what is coming.” After the intelligence abuses were exposed in the 1970s, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was probably the most visible congressional overseer of intelligence activities, designated to watch and monitor. By law, it and its counterpart in the House were to insure that congressional eyes were open. In the Reagan years, legislative oversight of intelligence stumbled along and finally failed, and many Senate committee members and their staffs assisted me in recording that story.
A word is in order about secrets. It is easy on one hand to adopt a stance of reverence about classification and assume that because someone has stamped a document SECRET or TOP SECRET that actually means it was so sensitive that it had to be kept classified. On the other hand, it is easy to become skeptical and assume that classification has no meaning, that it is a ritual designed to conceal bad policy and embarrassment. Guided by my best sources, I have attempted a middle course in choosing what to disclose. But there is no sterilized version of this story that could have much meaning, and this is not one.