Legacy of Ashes; The History of the CIA
by: Tim Weiner
Published by: Anchor Books
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Reviewed by Paul Markowitz
This fascinating, provocative and relevant book is a history of the first sixty years of the CIA compiled solely from first-hand reporting and primary documents. It is a devastating account of how the agency lurched from crisis to crisis, unable to establish a first-rate intelligence organization in an increasingly complex and dangerous world.
What began as a successor to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the military intelligence unit during WWII, the CIA was established to combat the emerging threat of the Soviet Union at the tail end of that war. The goal of the CIA was to ensure that there would never be a second “Pearl Harbor,” but the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1989 left the CIA somewhat aimless without its original raison d’etre. With the horrendous attack on 9/11, the initial reason and great fear that brought the CIA into existence had already come to pass.
The ultimate findings of this award-winning study is that each President due to their own idiosyncrasies or failings left the CIA worse off than the previous administration. Some chose incompetent directors, others chose to ignore sound advice, while still others made decisions due to political criteria rather than substantive ones. Some presidents made the CIA a personal surveillance agency against presumed domestic enemies, while others pressured the CIA to tailor its findings to fit White House policy to the detriment of the organization and the country.
This caustic indictment suggests critical errors were made by and to the CIA throughout its history. Its choice of gadgets over spies left it totally unaware of many critical developments. Its love of high wire covert actions over time-consuming intelligence gathering often left it bereft of knowledge and in embarrassing international situations.
The conclusion that Weiner has come to is that the CIA ended its sixty-year history the same way Eisenhower evaluated it at the end of his administration – as a “legacy of ashes.”
Armchair Interviews says: Most thought-provoking information.
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