Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

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Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
by Tim Weiner
from Anchor

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

• History of a newspaper that kills
  The author begins the book by saying that all Harry Truman wanted was a newspaper. If the author's history as outlined in this book is to be believed, what Truman and his predecessors eventually got was an organization that could be described as a superposition of incompetence and savagery. With each passing paragraph the reader is introduced to an organization that fancied itself above the law and indulged itself in every manner of vile actions, many of them going completely beyond the pale of acceptable... more info

• Useful
  Written by an experienced journalist, Legacy of Ashes is simultaneously a serious effort at a compreshensive narrative of the CIA's history and a scathing indictment of the agency's performance. Weiner's account is based on analysis of an extensive amount of documenation, including once classified CIA internal histories, and a large number of interviews of former CIA personnel, including several former Directors. Organized chronologically in a series of short chapters, Weiner traces the Agency's... more info

• 'Must Reading'
  This book or tapes should be read by anyone who recognizes the critical importance of Intelligence to those who are responsible for leading our country in the perilous enviornment we must navigate in. Unhappily, on balance, we appear to have done a pretty inadequate job to date. This book uses no annonymous sources but only CIA documents to show how bad our history has been in serving all occupants of The White House. If ever accurate information and analysis is needed it is now. Read this incredible saga.

• The Worst of The CIA
  I had really high hopes for this book, having had it suggested to me by so many people, but alas, it just doesn't live up to the hype. Like any Best of/Worst of album the book is long on slick cuts, short on substance. So, Weiner hates the CIA. He regards everything that they did as being flawed by lies, deception, incompetence, folly, drunkeness. Ok. He feels that vast amounts of humna and other capital have been squandered to no good end. Ok. BUT in terms of writing the whole thing falls flat & gets... more info

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