Books and Book Reviewing, ornWhy All Press Is Good PressnWhen Bob Woodward published Veil: The Secret Warsnof the CIA, in October of 1987, two things madenthat book news. One was his assertion that William Casey,nthe late director of the CIA, had admitted to knowing aboutnthe transfer of funds in the Iran-contra deal. The other wasnthe skepticism over Woodward’s claim to have interviewednCasey in the hospital. Casey’s widow and daughter insistednthat one or the other of them was with Casey almost all thentime he was recovering from brain surgery, when Woodwardnsays he visited, and that in any case Casey was too sick tonhave had substantive conversations with anyone — much lessnwith a hostile journalist. Woodward would provide nondetails, but stuck to his story.nWith the prepublication of several chapters in Newsweek,nthe Veil controversy had broken by the time David C.nMartin came out with his review in The New York TimesnBook Review on October 18. Martin, CBS News’ Pentagonncorrespondent, was reviewing a highly-touted book about antop-secret subject on page one of the Book Review. Thencrux of the matter had to be whether or not Woodward wasnlying about the biggest revelations in his book. Surelynaddressing that would make up the heart of Martin’s review.nBut that is not the heart of Martin’s review. The heart ofnMartin’s review goes like this:n. . . the revelations are not what is so captivatingnabout this book, which reads much better in fullnlength than in the excerpts which have appeared innnewspapers and magazines. The revelations arenmerely the bold strokes in a penetrating, profanenKatherine Dalton is the assistant editor of Chronicles.n20/CHRONICLESnby Katherine Daltonnnnand sometimes brilliant portrait of what textbooksndryly call “the intelligence community.”nElsewhere he writes, “Mr. Woodward, an assistant managingneditor of The Washington Post, has got into the belly ofnthe beast. It’s all here . . .”nThis unstinting praise, a page one rave for a book thatnwould go on to be a best-seller. Martin does have somenquibbles—but after those laudatory sentences, how seriousncan they be? How “extensively did Mr. Woodward rely onnthe word of a man for whom ‘to lie was nothing’?” Martinnasks. It is a question he cannot answer. After faultingnWoodward for a few mistakes, and dismissing them as “smallnmatters,” he does wonder if Woodward substantiated morenvital parts of his story. But Martin gets no further thannwondering; CBS’s man on the scene at the Pentagon has nonevidence that Woodward has or has not double-checked.nMartin’s praise is concrete, but with his questions we are justnleft hanging.nMartin’s was only one of the 2,000 or so book reviewsnthat The New York Times Book Review publishes every year.nAs there are problems in this lead Times review, so are therenproblems in the shorter Times reviews, and as The New YorknTimes is the nation’s most influential reviewer (with the solenexception, in academic circles, of The New York Review ofnBooks), so the problems it has are universal.nThere is nothing peculiar about Martin’s review; this isnwhat reviewing is like. Maybe it’s laziness more thannanything; Martin’s review is clearly an oak-paneled-roomnjob — no legwork here — though as a CBS correspondentnsurely he has resources, some way of looking into this littlenproblem of questionable credibility. If that’s not the reason,n