Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.

• Author: Bullington, J. R.
• Position: Book review

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. By Tim Weiner (New York: Doubleday, 2007. $27.95)

Tim Weiner's thesis in this book is conveyed by its title. In 514 pages of text, supported by 154 pages of endnotes, he describes a 60-year record of unremitting failure, not only in specific covert missions gone wrong but also in the Agency's "central mission: informing the president of what is happening in the world." He finds the Agency's annals "replete with fleeting successes and long-lasting failures," and concludes that "the most powerful country in the history of Western civilization has failed to create a first-rate spy service."

As one would expect of a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist for the New York Times who has covered the intelligence beat for 20 years, Weiner writes skillfully and dramatically, frequently marshaling direct quotations in support of his arguments. Interestingly for American Diplomacy readers, he quotes not only CIA officers but also many State Department Foreign Service Officers, drawing extensively on the oral history collection assembled by the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. (See: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/diplomacy/.) Old foreign affairs professionals will find many familiar names in this book.

Weiner claims to be writing serious history, both in the book's sub-title ("The History of the CIA") and in his preface statement that this is "the first history of the CIA compiled entirely from firsthand reporting and primary documents....What I have written here is not the whole truth, but to the best of my ability, it is nothing but the truth."

The book is an entertaining read, with lots of fascinating information and anecdotes; but as a portrayal of historic truth it fails to pass the smell test. It does not "smell" like any of the serious historical works I've read. It does, on the other hand, "smell" very much like a piece of prosecutorial investigative journalism, blended together with large whiffs of a massive op-ed piece, in which the author begins with a conclusion and sets out to assemble all possible evidence to support it.

The first problem is the book's total focus on the negative: misjudgments, duplicity, penetration by enemy agents, and massive incompetence. For Weiner, the Agency has done virtually nothing right. His portrayals are not only one-sided but one-dimensional. Any successes are either ignored or belittled as unimportant and transitory. Principal CIA actors...