Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

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It's a hit!

Praised by many critics and shunned by many people personally familiar with the CIA and other intelligence services, this book is really worth a re... (show more)

Praised by many critics and shunned by many people personally familiar with the CIA and other intelligence services, this book is really worth a read. While not as well rounded as "The Agency" or "For the President's Eyes Only", this one does a good job of updating the history of the CIA (since the other 2 books are over 10 years old)
Now, with a book like this, you have to take things with a grain of salt. I'm sure there is no way of knowing just exactly what goes on inside the CIA. It seems as though the author has a unrealistic expectation as to what a good intelligence service should be, but his descriptions of the early days of the OSS/CIA make the agency out like a bunch of bumbling idiots who don't know what they are doing. As he traces the history of the agency up to 2007, regardless of what side of the fence you fall on, it is easy to see just how hard it is to play the spy game. It is also disturbing to see how politics and power misguided the agency and led to some of the more familiar tragedies of our generation. (show less)

 

 

by Facebook narys

No, it's a flop!

An interesting book to say the least. However, Weiner lets his politics show when reviewing this book. The back cover blurb mentions that he has ... (show more)

An interesting book to say the least. However, Weiner lets his politics show when reviewing this book. The back cover blurb mentions that he has covered the intelligence community for many years and hints that he supports the community and its efforts. This book shows a very different reality. As stated in other reviews of this book, Mr. Weiner obviously has a large chip on his shoulder regarding the Bush Administration. This book chronicles the many failures the Agency has had over the years, and whenever there was a particularly egrgious failure, Weiner manages to tie it somehow to either his perceived vison of the Bush Administration's ineptitude in handling foreign or domestic policy, or the events that led to 9/11. After the fifth reference or so by the time he gets to the Kennedy Administration, I began counting how something else could be traced to Bush's ineptitude. I finally got to about 11 by the end of the book. Also, as stated in other reviews, the book focuses particularly on how the Agency is mishandled crises over the years. Personally, reading a book such as this, if our security were to be handled by such an inept agency, we all would have been speaking Russian by now. Considering the hammer and cycle is NOT flying over the Capitol last time I checked, it would lead to the possbility that the CIA has, in fact, been instrumental in keeping the keeping the hounds at bay and was key in helping win the Cold War. This should lead to the conclusion that something must have gone right, a fact Mr. Weiner glosses over except the Cuban Missile Crisis. The plain fact is, the CIA cannot trumpet its victories (or losses) precisely because of the nature of its business and it is only when a scandal happens that we become aware of it. That said, the book is not totally without merit. It is actually a fascinating look at how each Presidential Administration has used the CIA to accomplish its own ends and goals. From this angle, the book is quite good, exposing an interesting story that is usually not focused on, the relationship between the CIA and Presidential politics. This is a key relationship in understanding how the nation's intelligence community carries out its mission and defines success. In this, the book is quite candid about how each President from Truman to Bush Jr. viewed what the Agency can do and its perceived worth, and how that relationship either helped or hamstrung the Agency in its ability to carry out the missions it was assigned. Overall, I would give this book 2.5 stars out of five. (show less)

 

 

by Tom Foulke

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  Legacy of Ashes may be the most enjoyable nonfiction I have read all year. Just an excellent work.
  
  It is full of good sentences. Not merely workman-like, solid sentences, but clear, hard sentences that are a pleasure to read. A description of E. Howard Hunt: "Relentlessly mediocre".
  
  Can one possibly run an intelligence service without agents who speak the local language? It just seems so unlikely. In a chapter about Iran and Kermit Roosevelt, Wiener writes that the CIA had 4... (show more)

  Legacy of Ashes may be the most enjoyable nonfiction I have read all year. Just an excellent work.
  
  It is full of good sentences. Not merely workman-like, solid sentences, but clear, hard sentences that are a pleasure to read. A description of E. Howard Hunt: "Relentlessly mediocre".
  
  Can one possibly run an intelligence service without agents who speak the local language? It just seems so unlikely. In a chapter about Iran and Kermit Roosevelt, Wiener writes that the CIA had 40 agents in Iran, none of who spoke Farsi. None!
  
  I think intelligence services are, or should be, essentially just government news organisations; they develop sources, gather intel, and package it to suit their readers. But Wiener suggests that the CIA never became dedicated to this role, because it was unglamorous and, let's face it, difficult. And so they looked for quick solutions. An old director would be shown the door, a new director would come in, sack people, re-organize and demand fast results; constant pressure to do quality intelligence work - by next week!
  
  How much of this was a result of political pressure as opposed to poor management is debatable. There is certainly enough blame to go around. It was fascinating to read of how Nixon distrusted the CIA, believing it to be a cabal of "Georgetown liberals", incapable of taking the communist threat seriously enough. God bless that man. The Kennedys pushed the agency to make Castro the priority - regardless of his actual impact or importance. This pressure on the agency to trim its reports to the polital winds began long before George W Bush, and has never been adequately resisted.

  The book was terribly depressing for anyone interested in America's foreign policy. A great nation - let's face it, the greatest nation - with a third rate intelligence service, driving its good operatives to depression and suicide, recruiting and retaining alcoholics and cowboys, and forever shying away from long term investments in developing human sources overseas.. (show less)

   

  by Aaron Gardiner on Jul 22, 2008 at 12:55PM

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  Tim Weiner portrays an agency out of control, its arrogance matched only by its incompetence.

  The CIA has sent hundreds of foreign operatives to their deaths in dozes on blown operations. It has attempted to overthrow governments in Chad, Chile, Congo, Cuba, Domincan Republic, Ethiopia; Guatemala, Haiti, Indonesia, Iran, Nicaragua, and Syria; and to manipulate elections in Brazil, Japan, Thailand, and elsewhere. The coup that deposed Mossadeq had unintended consequences that reverberate to... (show more)

  Tim Weiner portrays an agency out of control, its arrogance matched only by its incompetence.

  The CIA has sent hundreds of foreign operatives to their deaths in dozes on blown operations. It has attempted to overthrow governments in Chad, Chile, Congo, Cuba, Domincan Republic, Ethiopia; Guatemala, Haiti, Indonesia, Iran, Nicaragua, and Syria; and to manipulate elections in Brazil, Japan, Thailand, and elsewhere. The coup that deposed Mossadeq had unintended consequences that reverberate to this day. Another "success" was the 1973 coup against Salvador Allende that put Augusto Pinochet in power.

  Gangsters, terrorists, and brutal dictators have been the on the CIA payroll. Throughout the 1950s, the CIA performed LSD mind-control experiments on human subjects. The 1950s was also the period when the CIA first began to spy illegally on American citizens.

  When Congress attempted to gain a measure of control over the agency in the 1970s and 80s, CIA directors simply lied to Congressional subcommittees -- culminating in the debacle of the Iran-contra arms-for-hostages deal, spearheaded by William Casey but personally approved by Reagan.

  To be sure, the Soviet Union did not play any nicer during the Cold War. But it's hard to see how the flow of American arms and cash to various right-wing dictators and military juntas helped to stabilize those nations or bring about the fall of Communism, which ultimately wore itself out.

  Anyone who still believes that America is one of the good guys, or that our government reflects the will the people, should read this book. (show less)

   

  by Facebook narys on Feb 23, 2009 at 04:12AM

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