Legacy of Ashes

The History of the CIA

Tim Weiner

Pulitzer Prize-winning Correspondent for the New York Times
Author and 2007 National Book Award Winner, Legacy of Ashes

In his balanced, and thus all the more disturbing, history of the CIA, Tim Weiner tells how an agency intended to inform the President about the world became so mired in cloak and dagger politics that the US now lacks the intelligence it needs to operate effectively on the world stage. Why is it that the agency intended to provide us with intelligence about the world became a tool to shape our perception of that world for political purposes? Why, for decades, did the agency acquire a shining reputation despite misreading nearly every global crisis? How did the CIA misread Castro's Cuba, chances of victory in Vietnam, and the Soviet Union's staying power? Mr. Weiner argues that these C.I.A. missteps have encouraged many of our gravest contemporary problems: Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and terrorism.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times, over the past 20 years Tim Weiner covered the CIA and reported from eighteen countries (including Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Sudan), covering wars, coups and foreign policy. Legacy of Ashes, his third book, is the first history of the CIA compiled entirely from firsthand reporting and primary documents. It is on the record - no anonymous sources, no hearsay.