Legacy of Ashes The History of the CIA Author:Tim Weiner This is the book the CIA does not want you to read. For the last sixty years, the CIA has maintained a formidable reputation in spite of its terrible record, never disclosing its blunders to the American public. It spun its own truth to the nation while reality lay buried in classified archives. Now, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times... more »reporter Tim Weiner offers a stunning indictment of the CIA, a deeply flawed organization that has never deserved America's confidence. Legacy of Ashes is based on more than 50,000 documents, primarily from the archives of the CIA. Everything is on the record. There are no anonymous sources, no blind quotations. With shocking revelations that will make headlines, Tim Weiner gets at the truth and tells how the CIA's failures have profoundly jeopardized our national security.« less
juicyfruit reviewed Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA on
Helpful Score: 1
I have mixed feelings for this book. As an audio book, it was not the best. The narration was dry with hardly any attempt at different voices or tones. Very monotonus. The writing itself was better. This book gives quite a good look at the history of the CIA and Weiner took pains to use original sources and attribute quotes to actual people - no anynomus sources. I was impressed and surpriesd by the detail that is covered. This books allows us to peek behind the curtain of secrets and I would reccommend it to anyone who has an interest in American government or world events.
Evelina (amerigo) reviewed Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA on
Dense, factual, eye-opening account of the CIA from Truman to Bush43. The author reveals the CIA warts and all and leaves you to draw your own conclusions about past events. He bases his research on recently declassified information (some recently "re-classified") and interviews, with extensive notes at the end.
Although not very complimentary as another reviewer said, Weiner recognizes the importance of swift, accurate intelligence for the sake of national security. He outlines the history of the CIA's decision-making -- the hubris, the predominance of covert action over active intelligence (spying), the inability to self-examine when things go wrong, and just the nasty push and pull of politics between the Whitehouse and the Director of the CIA. Now that the CIA appears to be swallowed up by the Pentagon after the fiasco of Iraq's WMD's, (Weiner views this as a testament of the loss of faith in the CIA but not necessarily what's best for the CIA as an institution), he rather poignantly wonders if it might be too late for the CIA to rise again from the ashes of a legacy that has fallen far, far short of delivering its best work.
