Legacy of ashes: the history of the Central Intelligence Agency

With shocking revelations that made headlines in papers across the country, Pulitzer-Prize-winner Tim Weiner gets at the truth behind the CIA and uncovers here why nearly every CIA Director has left the agency in worse shape than when he found it; and how these profound failures jeopardize our national security. From the Trade Paperback edition. For the last sixty 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 Prizewinning author Tim Weiner offers the first definitive history of the CIAand 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 September 11th, 2001. Tim Weiners past work on the CIA and American intelligence was hailed as impressively reported and immensely entertaining in The New York Times . The Wall Street Journal called it truly extraordinary . . . the best book ever written on a case of espionage. 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. Intelligence must be global and totalitarian The logic of force Fight fire with fire The most secret thing A rich blind man They were suicide missions A vast field of illusion We have no plan CIA's greatest single triumph Bomb repeat bomb And then well have a storm We ran it in a different way Wishful blindness Ham-handed operations of all kinds A very strange war He was lying down and he was lying up Nobody knew what to do We had also fooled ourselves We'd be delighted to trade those missiles Hey, boss, we did a good job, didnt we? I thought it was a conspiracy An ominous drift More courage than wisdom The beginning of a long slide downwards we knew then that we could not win the war A political H-bomb Track down the foreign communists What the hell do those clowns do out there in Langley? USG wants a military solution We are going to catch a lot of hell To change the concept of a secret service A classic fascist ideal The CIA would be destroyed Saigon signing off Ineffective and scared He sought to overthrow their system We were just plain asleep A free-lance buccaneer In a dangerous way He was running a great risk A con mans con man To think the unthinkable What are we going to do when the wall comes down? We had no facts Why in the world didn't we know? We're in trouble The threat could not be more real A grave mistake It's broken The burial ceremony. 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. For sixty 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 instead. Now Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Weiner offers the first definitive history of the CIA, 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.--From publisher description 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 United States national security. For sixty 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 instead. The author offers the first definitive history of the CIA, 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. All-powerful, Brilliant, Decisive, Ruthlessly Effective ... This Is The Image Of The Cia As Portrayed In Countless Films And Novels. It Is Wrong. This Shocking Book, Based On Thousands Of Declassified Documents And Interviews With Agents At All Levels, Shows The Reality Behind The Glamorous Myth: A Blundering, Chaotic And Dangerously Incompetent Organization, So Ineffective It Was Nicknamed ‘can’t Identify Anything’ By Nato Forces. In A Story Of Botched Coups, Missed Targets, Lost Operatives And Fatal Errors, Tim Weiner Shows How The Cia Now Poses A Threat Not Only To The Security Of The Us, But The World. Traces The History Of The Cia From The End Of World War Ii To Iraq, In A Study That Condemns The Organization For Its Record, Its Inability To Understand World Affairs, The Violence It Has Unleashed, And Its Undermining Of American Politics.