Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA [Paperback]

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."Must reading for anyone interested in the CIA or American intelligence since World War II." —The Washington Post“Legacy of Ashesis the best book I've yet read on the CIA's covert actions." —Edward Jay Epstein,The Wall Street Journal"Legacy of Ashesshould be must-reading for every presidential candidate—and every American who wants to understand why the nation repeatedly stumbles into one disaster abroad after another.”—The Boston Globe“A timely and vital contribution . . . [that] glitters with relevance.”—Los Angeles Times“This is by far the scariest book of the year.”—The Christian Science MonitorTim Weiner, a reporter forThe New York Times, has filed stories from inside the CIA and around the world for twenty years. He is a past winner of the Pulitzer Prize for covering national security. This is his third book.AUTHOR’S NOTE

Legacy of Ashesis the record of the first sixty years of the Central Intelligence Agency. It describes how the most powerful country in the history of Western civilization has failed to create a first-rate spy service. That failure constitutes a danger to the national security of the United States. Intelligence is secret action aimed at understanding or changing what goes on abroad. President Dwight D. Eisenhower called it “a distasteful but vital necessity.” A nation that wants to project its power beyond its borders needs to see over the horizon, to know what is coming, to prevent attacks against its people. It must anticipate surprise.lă