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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 327.1273009
EAN: 9780307389008
ISBN: 0307389006
Label: Anchor
Manufacturer: Anchor
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 848
Publication Date: May 20, 2008
Publisher: Anchor
Release Date: May 20, 2008
Sales Rank: 1029
Studio: Anchor
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
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.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - CIA as evil once again
Well having an interest history and how we held the soviets back I bought the book and audio cd of Legacy OF Ashes.
I though listened and read carefully and after taking in the entire book I am left with a bad taste.....the book really gives very little positive's to the fellows who really had little or no idea how to be spys etc. other than the fact that they were brave enough to give it go!
The book really attacks them all as being fools who couldn't shoot straight and so on and frankly that is not correct.
My suggestion would be to read some of the other books out there on the CIA and really see how hard it was to foil the soviets as they were brutal and vilolent and we as Americans really didnt know how to deal with what we know now and they new then as EVIL!!!!
The agents for Russia stopped at nothing to steal secrets from the US as well as convience hundreds of Americans that the soviet union was a pleasant carefree workers paradise , when in fact it was Stalin's sandbox that he ruled with an iron fist! The terror of 1938 read about it as it will open your eyes to the mesery of the soviet union ; punishing those who disagreed with him or he imagined disagreed etc. The truth as we know it is Socialism is Evil in all its forms ...the powerfull use it to control the many !Think about it horror was living under communist rule in the 1920's to the 1980's the fench in Berlin wasnt put up to keep everybody out but to keep everyone in!
Thank ... Read More
Rating:  - Excellent discussion of the CIA
This is a fairly comprehensive study of the CIA and its history. The author has added very extensive endnotes. It evenly covers the sixty year history of the agency and the various manifestations. The most interesting past is the beginning sections, where the author relies on recent declassified documents. The book is not without its faults the author has it's bias of the concept of "original sin" - the agency was designed poorly from the beginning and the founding fathers of the CIA laid the basis for future disaster. This is an arguable premise, but the author attacks with a little too much zeal. He is also sometimes a bit sympathetic for the more modern CIA staff and directors - remember that he has spent 20 years covering the CIA as a journalist, and he starts relying more on interviews of Tenet, etc. Despite this, it deserves a five star rating and should be on the list of recent required reading.
Rating: - Questionable history and scholarship -- but very entertaining
Please do not let this be the only book you read about the CIA before making personal judgments. Weiner's book is deliberately provocative, biased, and hostile in the extreme, and, in spite of his extensive research, is not a scholarly presentation. It is much closer to being a form of tabloid journalism than a thorough history. Because of that, it manages to soften the desultory work of good history and be both entertaining and informative. In this day-and-age, it is all about "spin," and this book spins like an angry top. If you insulate yourself with that knowledge, however, you will be able to glean insights that official histories will not give.
Rating: - An amazing history of the CIA.
This book is a real eye-opener, and I highly recommend it.
I never expected the CIA to have world leaders on their payroll. I was shocked, for example, to find that King Hussein of Jordan was on the CIA's payroll. Some leaders in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and South American countries were also on the CIA's payroll (and some still are). Now that this book is out, how will the people of these nations feel? How do the Jordanians feel, for example, knowing that their former King worked for the CIA? One question with a self-answer goes through my mind: Do leaders govern for the good of their people or for their self-interest and preservation?
Since its creation in 1947, the CIA stood as an elite force representing the power of the United States. But according to the author, this is an illusion. This book will demonstrate that in fact the CIA failed in most of its goals, and did not live up to its mandate. According to the book, the CIA has been incompetent, naïve, chaotic, and a danger to American interests. For example, the CIA was unable to foresee the fall of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War, the fall of the Shah of Iran and the coming of the ayatollah Khomeini, and more recently, the Indian nuclear tests, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the events of 9/11. The CIA also gave wrong information to the Bush administration in 2001 and 2002, claiming that Iraq was an imminent threat to the US and that it possessed weapons of mass destruction. This information led to an unjustified ... Read More
Rating: - A Wealth of information
This book is extremely well-written and includes a wealth of previously unknown information. Basically it starts with the creation of the CIA and continues to the present. It provides details that pretty well shows how the leaders of the CIA operated mostly on what they believed was wanted of the CIA versus what was actually wanted. And, in many cases, the CIA operated on only what it's leaders wanted. I am completely amazed at the intricacy of operations between our Government and other countries.
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