Legacy of Ashes (National Book Award Winner): The History of the CIA

This product is encyclopedic in nature for it is extremely well referenced with over one hundred and fifty pages of reference material and five hundred and seven pages of very readable text on the history of the United States Central Intelligent Agency (USCIA). It is appalling to read and understand the history of the CIA during the 1950's revealing the incompetence coupled with outright falsehoods and inadequate briefings by Allen Dulles to President Eisenhower. It is extremely fascinating to learn Eisenhower was completely impotent to curb Dulles during his two terms. It appears according to the author, through recent released searches of documents, the reader is treated to inside information regarding the U2 shoot down, Allen Dulles incompetence, Castro Coup, and the planning of the Bay of Pigs (BOP) fiasco. In fact, the BOPs invasion is told here in color with material not previously exposed. Further on the reader is presented with the actual Cuban Missile Crisis with 2003 released audio taped material President Kennedy had installed in the White House. As the reader progresses the text it is apparent the CIA outright lies throughout its history which is very disturbing. It is a prime example of how government agencies block and distort the truth from the American peoples' representatives. If today with almost 350 million inhabitants in the country and a government three times the size of the 1960's the merging elements of Deep State can successfully manipulate the events of the last ten years, and with the present resist movement on the executive's agenda; with a smaller government it is highly conceivable The Deep State could have conspired to assassinate our 35th president, his attorney general and MLK. One thing that is clear from this work, starting with JFK, LBJ, Nixon, the CIA has been used against its own charter to spy on its citizens. Thus, resulting in the alienation of them from their government! With this United States credibility and its effective role damaged, it becomes known the US is intervening in international affairs of others. None the less the US relied on the CIA to subvert every nation on earth. This book revels much that is uncovered to make the reader gasp. It is very well constructed and a labor of love for the author. High praise to Tim Weiner. It contains a table of contents broken in six parts with an excellent index, black and white photographs. The reference section is a manuscript in itself! This book may be the historic authority on the subject, CIA. The hard cover product is a little pricy, but it is worth the cost to view where the American taxpayer money has been flushed done the toilet! I invite you to come and read about the worst intelligence body ever to be created!

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA is a somewhat loose, roughly chronological compendium of events, activities, and leaders associated with the US Central Intelligence Agency from its inception in 1945 through 2007. Information for the work appears to have been gathered from numerous primary and secondary sources, including conversations with former members of the CIA, politicians, and a number of unclassified documents with some declassified just prior to the first publication of the book in 2007. Taken at face value, this New York Times reporter’s work shocks the reader in two ways. First, we are given to believe that the bulk of the efforts of the CIA from 1945 to 2007 were failed operations resulting from incompetent and bungling leadership within the agency. One comes away thinking the entire enterprise of U.S. intelligence gathering and covert operations is a series of one mis-guided, unmitigated disaster after another. The reader is treated to a litany of stories about ineffective and/or ignorant leadership, politically-motivated subterfuge, in-fighting, and downright deliberate deception and deceit on the part of the CIA with, and between and among others in the executive branch (presidents, vice presidents, and cabinet members), members of the military establishment, congress, and the state department. Second, this reader was appalled at the extent of CIA-sponsored “interventions” which are redolent of the highest degree of hypocrisy and duplicity in the violations of norms national sovereignty. Contemporary allegations of Russian interference in the United States election process through social media tampering seem quaint compared with the dozens or hundreds of episodes of interfering with foreign governments and societies; directly and indirectly destroying and/or supporting (sometimes both at the same time!) political actors and systems of governance in countries around the world. Dispensing propaganda and operating Radio-Free Europe pale against charges of assassination, coups, and para-military incursions, and full-blown (or at least partial) direct, but unacknowledged, military invasions. Justification for this no-holds-barred approach to intelligence gathering, counter-intelligence, espionage, and counter-espionage (and apparent counter-counter espionage, etc.), was the mission to combat, conquer, or at least contain the largely Soviet-engineered spread of communism. The net result of most of the work of the CIA seems to amount to an abhorrent waste of money, thousands of lives (CIA and surrogate foreign agents), layered on top of a litany of characters – at the highest level of government – engaging in all manner of excess, self-dealing, over-wrought ambition, and hubris with extremely little of benefit to the national security of the United States. The recurring themes of excesses, poor stewardship, lives lost needlessly, and infighting, bureaucratic incompetence, and weak, or at best ignorant, leadership throughout the CIA’s history is disheartening. Regarding the work itself, I must acknowledge and applaud Weiner’s effort to tackle such a difficult subject, especially one in a domain in which obscuring and obfuscating information is the modus operandi and where a good bit of the evidence is based on declassified information (at least those fragments of the total store of data the government has allowed to be declassified), together with conversations and dialogs with many who may have an ax to grind, a legacy to protect or promote, along with a fair amount of unsubstantiated stories, opinions, and conjectures. The reader must accept at the outset that only a partial story can be viewed and that much more (some at least as horrific as was exposed in the book itself), lies beneath the surface and veil of necessary, or at least claimed necessity for, secrecy to protect national security interests. The author pulls no punches in indicting the rank and file of politicians, military personnel, and civilian actors, showing culpability on both sides of the aisle of American politics. However, his wagging finger displays a hint of partisan slant at times. The journalistic reporting work of “facts,” to the extent the information reported can be considered as such, is punctuated with normative interjections, assessments, conclusions, and declarations that are mostly facile and unwarranted, or at least unproven. Clearly short on analysis, the work fulfils its ostensibly expository purpose, shedding light on the darker side of U.S. national security efforts. Legacy of Ashes points to the many challenges and obstacles facing those tasked with ensuring national security at all costs, including recruiting, training, and deploying spies and covert operations personnel (while keeping “moles” or foreign spies out of the ranks). Weiner points out the inherent paradox of the intelligence business that relies on methods, techniques, and programs of deception, disinformation, and mis-direction that run counter to principles underlying the U.S. Constitution, U.S. law, and likely that offend the moral and ethical sensibilities of a large part of the American electorate. The CIA Director role has shown to be a revolving door counting more than 30 different individuals (counting interim or acting directors) in its 73 year existence. Weiner notes this in his book and describes the challenges that such churn in leadership cause. By my count, the CIA director role has been filled by 12 or 13 career military officers, 7 academics, 5 lawyer/diplomats, 1 senator, and 2 business people (industrialist McCone, and oil man George H.W. Bush), with the remaining dozen or so individuals being career civil servants. One could argue that the bias towards military and civil service backgrounds is less suited and ill-matched to the requirements of leadership in such an organization as the CIA with such a mission as the CIA’s than that of an experienced and successful business person who knows how to set up and operate a sustainable operation. Granted the spy business is categorically different than making steel and setting up telecom infrastructure (McCone), and pumping oil (Bush), but sound command, control, and communication organization principles still apply. My opinion aside, it is clear from the book that the CIA has been in a constant state of identity crisis: Who are we? What is our mission? How should we organize and operate? What should we do/not do? How are we positioned vis-à-vis the Pentagon, the state department, the executive branch, the judiciary, Congress, etc. Has anything changed at the CIA in the decade since the Legacy of Ashes was published? I would like to see a follow-on work that scrapes together enough scraps about the CIA’s most recent decade to get some insight. I may have to wait another few years or longer before more documents are declassified to learn more. One could conclude from reading this work, assuming what is written accurately reflects the apparent doings, mis-doings, and state of disarray of the CIA, that the U.S. cannot possibly do the kinds of clandestine work, espionage, covert operations, etc. required to ensure the national security of our country given the values and structure of the our culture and system of governance. Perhaps the failures and shortcomings of the CIA imply reversion to old-fashioned, “hard-power” methods of geopolitical influence to avoid fighting an enemy with one hand tied behind our back. Exercising more severe “soft-power” methods for example economic sanctions may not be a substitute for hard power, but can certainly augment an arsenal of military and clandestine efforts. The rules of engagement for applying hard-power have historically been clearer when America’s leaders and people appeared to have the “stomach for war.” There is much complexity, guesswork, and difficulty in attempting to discern intentions when using military power, but the world of clandestine work is perhaps more-so burdened with these same challenges and is thus more prone to mis-calculation. Arguably, the focus of CIA efforts since the turn of the century is on non-state actors, i.e., terrorist groups and less on the designs of imperialist nations (Russia, China). Also, maybe Jimmy Carter was onto something in his efforts during his administration to direct at least some of the CIA’s resources towards addressing humanitarian crises around the world (as Weiner describes Carter’s direction to CIA leadership to sabotage apartheid in South Africa). Who knows if our CIA resources could have intervened in the Rwanda crisis of 1994 – perhaps half a million lives could have been saved. Is North Korea on the CIA’s radar? How about the dire situation in Syria and the Kurds in northern Iraq abandoned by the U.S. after deposing Saddam Hussein? Food for thought. Definitely worth a read. But you may end up hearing a little inner voice whisper outlandish speculations: “Is the author of Legacy of Ashes secretly on the CIA payroll?” or “Does he have a secret bank account in Switzerland being filled with Russian rubles for every word he writes that disparages the CIA?” Or maybe the KGB just wants me to believe the former and the CIA the latter, or vice versa. Hmmm…

I read this book as part of my ongoing research into the assassination of President Kennedy. People who are viewed as experts on the JFK mystery say all roads lead back to the CIA. The assassination came through them. The great Fletcher Prouty worked with Allen Dulles at the Agency up until the time JFK was killed. There's probably two main points in Fletcher's books: 1. The CIA mutated into something Harry Truman never intended when he set up the Agency after World War II. 2. After World War II the United States stopped respecting the sovereignty of other countries. I would say Mr. Weiner's book is consistent with what Fletcher said. I don't think Mr. Weiner is a JFK conspiracy guy. Rather he relies on official sources such as declassified CIA documents and statements made by various people over the years. Mr. Weiner himself has conducted interviews with many famous people such as former CIA directors and even World War II general Douglas MacArthur. Once someone believes that President Kennedy was murdered by a domestic conspiracy this belief changes their perspective about anything people like Richard Helms or Lyndon Johnson said. For example: Public Record: The Gary Powers U2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviets. Conspiracy Theory: The CIA sabotaged the U2 to derail President Eisenhower's peace summit with Nikita Khrushchev. Public Record: Lyndon Johnson was tormented and conflicted about the situation in Vietnam. Conspiracy Theory: U.S. military intelligence was feeding President Kennedy and Secretary Of Defense Robert McNamara all lies about Vietnam. But they were telling Vice President Lyndon Johnson the truth about what a quagmire Vietnam had become. Johnson already knew what the end result would be in Vietnam while he was still the Vice President. Public Record: Lyndon Johnson said JFK's assassination was 'divine retribution' because of JFK's role in the death of President Diem in Vietnam and the Kennedy brothers' plots to assassinate Fidel Castro in Cuba. Conspiracy Theory: Lyndon Johnson and his Texas billionaire pals were part of the domestic conspiracy to assassinate JFK as was FBI director J. Edgar Hoover also. Public Record: I don't know what the CIA has said they were trying to do in Vietnam. I guess they claimed they were trying to save the entire world from global communism. Conspiracy Theory: There never was any real military objective in Vietnam. The goal in Vietnam was to create a bottomless money pit of military spending even if this meant putting American military service personnel into harm's way. Public Record: CIA spooks Richard Helms and James Angleton were convinced that Lee Oswald acted on behalf of the Soviets when he assassinated President Kennedy. Conspiracy Theory: Angleton was the only individual within the CIA who had the knowledge, authority, and diabolical mind required to be the mastermind of the JFK assassination and to place the blame on Oswald. When JFK got killed the Agency raised the ominous (although completely false) specter that the Soviets and Fidel Castro were behind the assassination. As I said author Tim Weiner doesn't cross the line into the conspiracy realm in this book. But even so just what he says about the CIA based on the public record isn't very flattering for the Agency. Even though Mr. Weiner doesn't say the CIA was involved with JFK's murder, he does say they did things like that and much, much worse in other countries.

The failures of the CIA have often been covered by the talking heads on TV, particularly the cable news channels, but this book is based on released documents from around 2004. It goes into the internal incompetence of the CIA and the cultural disorganization and chaos. Very much worth reading. One thing that did not get covered is the possible skimming of money and other assets. It is often mentioned that much of the methodology of the CIA was to bribe millions of dollars and tons of weapons. Considering the propensity of members of the CIA to lie or withhold information, I expect that it is likely that people within the CIA were also skimming a lot of the money that was supposed to be used for these bribes. There is no mention of tracking of this money or the weapons, so I expect there was considerable embezzlement within the agency.

This was not an easy book to read. Not because of the writing, which was superb, but because of the tragic story it tells. Overtly, it is a history of the CIA and is fascinating for that. However, I also appreciated it as a window into the American psyche and recent American history. I was familiar with many of the key figures, but only very superficially. Having lived through most of the time described, I became aware of how shallow my own understanding of events really was.

For those who are looking for a historical work on the CIA this is not their book. The author is a journalist, and the book is written in journalistic style. Good journalistic style, and probably good journalism, but this is not history. Telling the history of the CIA, an institution that has been so intimately involved in American foreign policy, is a daunting task. Given the limitations of space, Weisner has tried to do a good job. Not sure if he has succeeded. He focuses on the anecdotic, not providing the big picture. Unless you think that the big picture is that the CIA's history is an impressive collection of blunders, with almost no successes (too bad to be true, I think). Anyway, the anecdotes are more interesting when they refer to events closer in time (and even more when they deal with the Bush II Administration). The final chapters of the book made a more engaging read. An additional problem is that the author's opinion and point of view is too evident (thus the non-historic character of this work). He does not even try to hide his personal take on many international past events. A more nuanced approach would have been welcome. I am not an expert on the CIA. Therefore, I do not feel prepared to opinionate about the accuracy of Weisner's assessment. But his style has pushed me a little back. I liked the book, but it could have been better. Weisner has the contacts and the information, but he lacked the skill to put together a real piece of excellent, objective and valuable research. I hope that in a second edition, he comes with a worthier work.

This is both an illuminating and frustrating book. Tim Weiner is a long-time reporter for the New York Times whose beat has been the American intelligence community. This book is engagingly written and draws on a remarkable selection of sources--including direct interviews with many involved in intelligence work and wide-ranging examination of archival materials. Weiner probably is uniquely qualified to write this book. To his credit, he names names, cites his sources, lays the materials openly on the table. I think we should, to a large extend at least, believe the tales he tells. And hair-raising tales they are. Weiner shows us that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Central Intelligence Agency has from its beginning in the aftermath of World War II been a force for incredible evil in the world. At the same time as we learn of the CIA's mostly uninhibited zeal for murder and mayhem, generally in the context of the denial of self-determination for innumerable peoples around the world, we also learn of the extraordinary failures of the Agency. Most notably, the CIA utterly failed to gain understanding of the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. In the first couple of decades, the CIA left the American government pretty much completely in the dark concerning Soviet activities and intentions. It's amazing and extremely distressing to realize that the entire first generation of American cold warriors, who shaped our nation in tragic ways toward domination by militarism, beat the drums of warning against the Soviet threat with absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of what was actually going on with the Soviets. It truly boggles the mind. Then, at the end of the Cold War, with the CIA continuing to feed its political masters the analyses that were desired to sustain the Cold War that had become so profitable for the American Military-Industrial Complex, our "intelligence" service complete missed the signs of the impending collapse of the Soviet system. However, sadly, the book is not nearly as good as it could have been. Weiner is a good storyteller, and he treats us to some extraordinary stories--most profoundly distressing. The sum is less than the parts, though. We mostly just get one story after another, numbing and troubling details one on top of the other. But Weiner does little to put it all in perspective. Part of the problem is how Weiner gives us some swashbuckling details about various nefarious projects such as the overthrow of governments in Iran and Guatemala, the attempt to overthrow the government of Indonesia, and involvement in the overthrow of Chile's government--but he doesn't give us much followup on the long-term devastation wrought by these actions. And he does little to connect the dots between the CIA's original violence and the blowback over time in terms of ensuing wars and conflicts (seen, most obviously, in Iran and Afghanistan). Weiner doesn't himself seem to accept the logic of the account he gives. Simply based on this book, we would have to conclude that the CIA has been hopelessly flawed from the start, embarking upon one disastrous mission after another, combining incompetence with malevolence. But in the end, inexplicably, Weiner leaves us with a pretty benign conclusion--the U.S. needs the kind of intelligence the CIA could provide for the well-being of our nation, so let's hope for constructive reform. Strangely, as he recounts the demise of the CIA in the 21st century, Weiner acts as if the earlier history included many successes--even though he has not told us of those and in fact tells stories of one failure after another. With all the shortcomings of this book, Legacy of Ashes nonetheless paints a devastating picture of American foreign policy. From its beginnings, the CIA has constantly subverted democracy both within the US and around the world. Weiner makes it clear, though with too little elaboration, that all post-World War II American presidents have been utterly disdainful of the ideals of democracy and self-determination whenever it suited their interests to "turn the CIA loose" in messing with other countries. One story I was unfamiliar with was President Eisenhower's orders that the CIA overthrow the government of Indonesia in the 1950s. Due to incompetence, the Americans failed initially; but the stage was set for one of this centuries worse bloodbaths several years later when General Suharto came into power and under his leadership (and with CIA complicity) hundreds of thousands of Indonesians were slaughtered. Weiner doesn't give us much on the followup, and doesn't mention at all a later directly related bloodbath when Indonesia massacred hundreds of thousands of Timorese. The big irony of Weiner's story, which he completely misses, is that with all its malevolence and incompetence, the CIA utterly failed in its stated task of serving American national security--yet, the sky did not fall! America didn't need the kind of "intelligence" the CIA was supposed to provide after all. The CIA's is indeed a "legacy of ashes," but its extraordinary failures did not result in severe damage to the United States. We more or less managed just fine without the CIA's "product." In fact, to the extent that America's genuine national interests have been at risk in the past sixty years, it has not so much been because of the failures of the CIA to protect us from our "enemies," but more because of how the CIA has created enemies due to its violent and destructive deeds.

This is not a heavy detailed analysis of the CIA but a great over view of the CIA with brief chapters broken in periods of time, by presidents or a certain activity thus it reads like a catalogue of CIA adventures including an excellent telling of its origins under Wild Bill Donovan. Thus, this is a very fast paced read and the reason why I give it 5 stars is because it serves the purpose of giving a broad history of the CIA with reasonable detail without great depth so it is an enjoyable read that serves as an excellent primer for the evolution of the CIA from the beginning to the end. The documentation; however, is excellent thus it was well researched. The only negative is that the author records so many notable negative events such as the Bay of Pigs, failures to get a leg up on the Russians during the cold war to the recent "slam dunk" proclamation that one does have to wonder if the leaders of the CIA were quite frequently a bunch of blithering idiots. However, failures are most likely more notable and many of the unknown successes may be a product of the service's secrecy. The one theme that is very note worthy, and probably fueled by the real paranoia of the cold war and spread of communism during the 40s and 50s, was the preoccupation with interfering with the governments in other countries as opposed to sheer espionage. That is the greatest part of the author's history as more than once our government sided with a harsh dictator that in retrospect cost the US friends in the future. Probably, the biggest weakness of the book is to properly put in perspective what it was like during those times that perpetuated the need to get involved with the politics of another country. The one serious element brought forth was the fact that heads if the CIA, and sometimes rogue station chiefs, were less than truthful within the organization and to the Presidents themselves, the latter being the biggest disappointment.

Typically US writing style but filled with details and cross referencing that made this entire book an engaging read. I personally enjoyed the level of detail supported by factual referencing u deepened by personal reflection and operational experience. Has encouraged me to read his follow-up ‘The Mission’. Anyone with an interest in 20th Century politics post WWII this is a must read.

Arrived in perfect condition, very happy with quality and fascinating book!

assessment of CIA history. Fair and well written. With so much nonsense written about the agency, books like this serve a valuable purpose. Covering the whole of its history, there are gaps, most notably any reference to waterboarding. It leaves the reader wanting more. I hope it will be reissued and updated soon.

"The history of ashes" reads like a novel, with the tiny little difference that it is not. Amazing what Mr Weiner achieved with this book. Looking for a sequel.

This means CIA is a total failur, nothing more.