Woodward’s book exposes, hangs out to dry, stabs in the back, snitches on—pick your disdainful phrase—many of the people who had agreed to talk to him on condition that he keep their names secret ... In Secrets he violates his promise to a host of people ... He resorts to casuistry—a form of self-serving and shoddy reasoning—to free himself from his vows of nondisclosure ... Mr. Woodward has distorted the very meaning of 'off the record' or 'deep background.' He has gerrymandered the boundaries of confidentiality to sidestep established ethics.
Scrupulous with facts but famously unable or unwilling to reflect, he’s not a completely satisfying narrator of his own story ... What these reporting tales lack in perspective, they compensate for in self-portraiture of a tireless, sometimes shameless reporter with a remarkable knack for getting people to give him what they don’t want to give ... I've found it possible to forgive Woodward’s opaque sourcing, betrayals of trust, and credulousness, but not the other fault for which he’s indicted: bad writing. This turns out to be a perplexing one. In Secrets we learn that he can write well; he just seems to choose not to.
The more personal stuff is riveting and genuinely moving, but it takes up precious little space in this nearly 600-page book, chunks of which are given to extended quotations from Woodward’s previous books.
Woodward is more forthright about who told him what. Perhaps the most emotional story in the book is that of Richard Darman, who was his source extraordinaire and became his best friend until Woodward, in Darman’s view, betrayed him by publishing information that could be traced back to him.
