<
http://www.webcom.com/ctka/pr196-woodward.html>
Excerpts:
"The staunchly conservative Bob Woodward grew up in Wheaton, Illinois.
A good student at Yale, he was ultimately one of fifteen seniors 'tapped' for one of that university's secret societies, Book and Snake, a cut below the more infamous Skull and Bones, but the top of the second-tier fraternities. Woodward had his first journalistic experience working for the Banner, a Yale publication. In his 1965 yearbook he was referred to as a 'Banner mogul.' Havill writes.
Certainly, with the CIA encouraged to recruit on the Yale campus, particularly among history majors and secret societies, it is more than reasonable to assume Bob may have been one of those approached by the agency, or by a military intelligence unit, especially after four years of naval ROTC training. Although it would answer a lot of questions that have been raised about Bob Woodward, at this point one can only speculate as to whether he was offered the chance to become a 'double-wallet guy,' as CIA agents who have two identities are dubbed. It would certainly be understandable if he decided not to adhere to the straight and accepted the submerged patriotic glamour and extra funds that such a relationship would provide. It would also explain the comments of Pulitzer Prize-winning author J. Anthony Lukas, when he wrote in 1989 that Bob Woodward was 'temperamentally secretive, loathe to volunteer information about himself,' or the Washingtonian's remarks in 1987: 'He is secretive about everything.' As Esquire magazine put it, summing up in its 1992 article on Bob, 'What is he hiding?'
The 'Floating Pentagon' Assignment
Three days after graduating from Yale, Woodward was sent by the U.S. Navy to Norfolk, Virginia, where he was commissioned as an ensign by none other than U.S. Senator George Smathers from Florida. Bob's assignment was to a very special ship, called a 'floating Pentagon,' the U.S.S. Wright. The ship was a National Emergency Command Ship-a place where a President and cabinet could preside from in the event of a nuclear war. It had elaborate and sophisticated communications and data processing capabilities. It had a smaller replica of the war room at the Pentagon. It ran under what was called SIOP-Single Integrated Operation Plan. For example, in the event of nuclear war, the Wright was third in line to take full command if the two ahead of it, the Strategic Air Command in Omaha (SAC) and NORAD, were rendered incommunicado. Woodward-straightfacedly-told authors Colodny and Gettlin (Silent Coup) that he guessed he was picked for the ship because he had been a radio ham as a kid.
Aboard the Wright, Woodward had top secret 'crypto' clearance-the same clearance researcher Harold Weisberg found had been assigned to Lee Harvey Oswald when he was himself in the Marines. Such clearance in Woodward's case gave him full access to nearly all classified materials and codes on the ship. Woodward also ran the ship's newspaper. Woodward has insisted that possessing a high security clearance is not necessarily indicative of intelligence work."
....snip...
"The Legacy of Deep Throat
Whatever his background, whatever his connections, one cannot trust what Woodward says as fact.
Take, for instance, his account in Veil of his last interview with dying CIA Director William Casey. Havill tracked down Casey's family, friends, hospital security staff and CIA guardians and found that the visit Woodward described was impossible. First of all, Casey was under 24 hour guard by several layers of security: CIA members, hospital security, and Casey's family. And Woodward had already been stopped once while trying to see Casey. According to one of Havill's sources, Woodward was not merely asked to leave, as Woodward reported in his book, but was forcibly shoved into the elevator. And Woodward's story kept shifting. Woodward told a Knight-Ridder reporter that he had gotten in by flashing his press pass. To Larry King, Woodward claimed he just 'walked in.' But even assuming he somehow managed to get by all of that security, Woodward would still have been the only person to claim that Casey had uttered intelligible words in those last hours. The only other person to make such a claim was Robert Gates, who himself became CIA Director. The family, doctor and medical staff said Casey could not make words at this point, only noises. At least Gates questioned whether he might have been imagining he heard words. Woodward has never retracted his 'conversation.' In addition, Woodward once said that Casey sat bolt upright, which would seem highly implausible given his rapidly deteriorating state. Onetime CIA Director Stansfield Turner, a friend of Woodward's since 1966, said Woodward told him he'd walked by Casey's room and Casey had waved to him. Casey's bed was positioned in such a way in the room as to make that impossible too."
==============================
This article was written several years ago, and I've started to lean in the direction that Woodward was indeed ONI instead of CIA. The one fact that still has me believing that Woodward is CIA is the description of the ongoing CIA program known as "Operation Mockingbird": <
http://www.prisonplanet.com/analysis_louise_01_03_03_mockingbird.html>
But everything else in this article seems to fit what we've seen and heard from Woodward over the years.
I personally question Woodward's account of the so-called "slam-dunk" quote from George Tenet. It appears that Woodward likes to routinely use what some in the business describe as "literary license". Questions have been raised about virtually everything Woodward has written, but that never stopped his rise within the management structure of the Washington Post.
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