---
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title: "Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA"
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# National Book Award Winner 500+ pages of in-depth CIA history Based on 50,000+ CIA documents & interviews Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

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## Summary

> 📖 Dive into the CIA’s shadowy legacy before everyone else does!

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- **What is this?** Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
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## Key Features

- • **Unprecedented Access:** Draws from over 50,000 declassified CIA documents and hundreds of insider interviews for unmatched depth.
- • **Comprehensive Coverage:** Spanning from WWII origins to post-9/11, revealing the CIA’s hidden failures and controversies.
- • **Award-Winning Authority:** National Book Award winner and New York Times bestseller—trusted by experts and readers alike.
- • **Eye-Opening Revelations:** Exposes decades of covert operations, leadership blunders, and national security risks you won’t find elsewhere.
- • **Critical Acclaim & Influence:** Ranked #1 in National & International Security books, shaping conversations on intelligence and governance.

## Overview

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA is a Pulitzer Prize-winning, National Book Award-winning exposé by Tim Weiner that chronicles the CIA’s turbulent history through over 50,000 declassified documents and interviews. This 500+ page bestseller reveals the agency’s repeated leadership failures, covert operations, and impact on U.S. national security from its inception after WWII through the war on terror, making it a definitive and critically acclaimed resource for understanding American intelligence.

## Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • With shocking revelations that made headlines all across the country, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Tim Weiner gets at the truth behind the CIA and uncovers why nearly every CIA director has left the agency in worse shape than he found it, and how these profound failures jeopardize our national security. " For anyone interested in the CIA or American intelligence since World War II.” — The Washington Post A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Century • The precursor to the New York Times bestseller The Mission For years, the CIA has managed to maintain a formidable reputation in spite of its terrible record, burying its blunders in top-secret archives. Its mission was to know the world. When it did not succeed, it set out to change the world. Its failures have handed us, in the words of President Eisenhower, “a legacy of ashes.” Now Pulitzer Prize–winning author Tim Weiner offers a definitive history of the CIA—and everything is on the record. LEGACY OF ASHES is based on more than 50,000 documents, primarily from the archives of the CIA itself, and hundreds of interviews with CIA veterans, including ten Directors of Central Intelligence. It takes the CIA from its creation after World War II, through its battles in the cold war and the war on terror, to its near-collapse after 9/ll. Here is the hidden history of the CIA: why eleven presidents and three generations of CIA officers have been unable to understand the world; why nearly every CIA director has left the agency in worse shape than he found it; and how these failures have profoundly jeopardized our national security.

Review: If you are or have been in the CIA, do not read this book! - 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!
Review: Eye-opening, thought-provoking, inconclusive - just what you'd expect from spy business exposition. - 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…

## Features

- National Book Award Winner

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #17,807 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #1 in National & International Security (Books) #3 in Political Intelligence #9 in American Military History |
| Customer Reviews | 4.5 out of 5 stars 2,258 Reviews |

## Images

![Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71d-T2AzruL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ If you are or have been in the CIA, do not read this book!
*by H***E on April 20, 2025*

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!

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Eye-opening, thought-provoking, inconclusive - just what you'd expect from spy business exposition.
*by G***S on December 31, 2018*

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…

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Comprehensive History Of The CIA
*by J***O on October 6, 2018*

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.

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