This book charts the disastrous course of never-revealed secret operations across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. It shows that the CIA's vaunted victories in the cold war - coups that overthrew constitutional leaders in Iran and Guatemala - were chaotic fights that succeeded only by deadly force. It exposes the buying and selling of the political leaders of world powers. It details how Presidents from Harry Truman to George W. Bush have abused and misused the CIA. It shows how the CIA deteriorated over the decades into an incapable and incoherent service whose deepest secret was its own weakness and ineptitude.

Zusatztext " 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 candidateand 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 Informationen zum Autor Tim Weiner Klappentext NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • With shocking revelations that made headlines all across the country, Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist Tim Weiner gets at the truth behind the CIA and uncovers why nearly every CIA director has left the agency in worse shape than 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 • The precursor to the New York Times bestseller The Mission 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 Prizewinning author Tim Weiner offers a definitive history of the CIAand 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. AUTHOR'S NOTE Legacy of Ashes is 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. Without a strong, smart, sharp intelligence service, presidents and generals alike can become blind and crippled. But throughout its history as a superpower, the United States has not had such a service. History, Edward Gibbon wrote in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , is little more than the register of crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. The annals of the Central Intelligence Agency are filled with folly and misfortune, along with acts of bravery and cunning. They are replete with fleeting successes and longlasting failures abroad. They are marked by political battles and power struggles at home. The agency's triumphs have saved some blood and treasure. Its mistakes have squandered both. They have proved fatal for legions of American soldie...

Autorentext

Tim Weiner

Klappentext

**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • With shocking revelations that made headlines all across the country, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Tim Weiner gets at the truth behind the CIA and uncovers why nearly every CIA director has left the agency in worse shape than he found it, and how these profound failures jeopardize our national security.
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"*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 • The precursor to the New York Times bestseller *The Mission

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.**

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Leseprobe
AUTHOR’S NOTE

Legacy of Ashes is 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. Without a strong, smart, sharp intelligence service, presidents and generals alike can become blind and crippled. But throughout its history as a superpower, the United States has not had such a service.

History, Edward Gibbon wrote in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, is “little more than the register of crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.” The annals of the Central Intelligence Agency are filled with folly and misfortune, along with acts of bravery and cunning. They are replete with fleeting successes and long–lasting failures abroad. They are marked by political battles and power struggles at home. The agency’s triumphs have saved some blood and treasure. Its mistakes have squandered both. They have proved fatal for legions of American soldiers and foreign agents; some three thousand Americans who died in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001; and three thousand more who have died since then in Iraq and Afghanistan. The one crime of lasting cons…