Legacy of Ashes - by Tim Weiner (Paperback)

About the Book

For the last 60 years, the CIA has managed to maintain a formidable reputation in spite of its terrible record. Now Pulitzer Prize-winning author Weiner offers the first definitive history of the CIA--and everything is on the record.

Book Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER - 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.

"For anyone interested in the CIA or American intelligence since World War II." --The Washington Post

A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Century

For 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 Prize-winning author Tim Weiner offers a definitive history of the CIA--and 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 9/ll.

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.

Review Quotes

"Must reading for anyone interested in the CIA or American intelligence since World War II."
--The Washington Post

"Legacy of Ashes is the best book I've yet read on the CIA's covert actions."
--Edward Jay Epstein, The Wall Street Journal

"Legacy of Ashes should 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 Monitor

About the Author

Tim Weiner, a reporter for The 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.