Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner
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Book Reviews of Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
Book Review: The omitted organizations
Summary: 4 Stars
The omitted organizations
Tim Weiner's book on the CIA is excellent, so is Ron Suskind's "one percent doctrine", they are in fact too good. Why has it suddenly become possible to write such self critical books? It seems, they would have been impossible a few years ago. We must ask what has happened that make them possible, and who profits from them. I am not suggesting a conspiracy, certainly not on the part of these two authors, but I am asking why it suddenly has become possible to find all these excellent sources in such large numbers. The answer is in part found by looking at what and who are not criticized. People of influence feel they can talk more freely.
Weiner's book, besides delivering a crushing critic of the CIA, has little critic of all other parties and organizations involved, other intelligence organizations, the previous presidential administrations and the multinational companies, almost to the point where he gives the picture of a CIA operating in a vacuum, all by itself, like a dog which has run away from home. The book has a message which is shared by many power centers in the US: the CIA has not been worth the money and must be redone (human rights are secondary in the book).
Suskind's book has the same accusing, almost prosecuting, form as Weiner's. This is clearly the expression of a US ready to deal with two organizations in its centre; in the first case the CIA, in the other the Bush administration. The US sense of crises has been strengthened by the failure in Iraq and now with the ongoing financial crises. Americans have always been good at detecting problems and making changes, even if it means doing the same failures again.
Will these processes lead to actual prosecutions in the case of members of the Bush administration? Probably not, at least not in the US. (Cheney like Kissinger may avoid personal trips to Europe). Will they lead to a fundamental change in US foreign policy, less aggressive? Probably not, no leading power regardless of its nationality has been willing to let go of an upper hand. The weakness lies in part in human nature in part in the nation state logic. It is not a typical American problem, or even a Rebublican. unfortunately not, it would have been so much easier.
Weiner's book is a clear message to the next administration to redo the CIA (again). To make this transmission easier he has, intentionally or not, omitted many of the organizations which work in symbiosis with the CIA. This is the book's biggest weakness as a critical piece of work.
Book Review: More Bile from the Grey Lady
Summary: 2 Stars
Tim Weiner's unrelentingly critical and scabrous account of the CIA is occasionally interesting from a chronological standpoint; he outlines the history of the outfit. The book is in the tradition of Seymour Hersh et al, supposedly a revelation, but mainly a rehash of leftist crit-think.
Frankly not worth the paper it is printed on.
Book Review: Spooks.
Summary: 4 Stars
Very interesting book, especially for one who has lived through most of this history. Jumps around a bit chronologically. Confirms what other Agencies & Dept's. claim, i.e., none of our governmental agencies communicate with each other to the detriment of national security. A lot of "turf wars."
CIA operations were not well thought out, very shallow and as Dick Holm was quoted during the Kennedy years, he rued "the ignorance and the arrogance of Americans arriving in SE Asia...We had only minimal understanding of the history, culture, & politics of the people we wanted to aid..." Some personnel in our various Agencies now try to remedy this attitude, by achieving a greater understanding of these things.
Book Review: Spectacular Failures at Impossible Tasks
Summary: 4 Stars
This is an important book because of the insight it provides about the nature and history of the CIA's work. It's hard to read, partially because it is so repetitive. According to this book, throughout its history the CIA has failed spectacularly at essentially every major task it has undertaken. And, in so doing, it has caused thousands of deaths, wasted billions of dollars, operated lawlessly and shown total disregard for the wishes of the presidents it has "served". It's not a pretty picture.
The more failures that are chronicled, the more a reader almost has to conclude that the job of gathering good, actionable intelligence is essentially impossible. There's no place for CIA operatives to go to learn how to do their jobs effectively. They have talent and drive, at least at the beginning of their CIA careers, but they are not superhumans and are overwhelmed by their tasks.
I wish there could have been an appendix or a companion book in which another author might take issue with the way this book presents the CIA's history - saying it's not really this dismal and here's why. Maybe that book is out there and I should look for it, but meanwhile I'll never think very highly of the CIA after reading this one.
Book Review: Interesting!
Summary: 4 Stars
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.