The book is amazingly well researched. The detail is overwhelming. The research had to have been exhausting. But the basic issue I have is can it be true that the CIA has been as consistently screwed up as depicted?..that the author couldn't come up with one or two situations where the CIA had a successful outcome? Life tells you that just by chance you succeed at something just because things go your way and you fall into a bed of roses. It's the antithesis to the overachiever that stumbles once in awhile. To hear one shortcoming after another for an agency of the government that has generally been viewed as the leader of the free world over the past 80 years starts to sound a little unbelievable. In my opinion the balance just wasn't there. If no balance, or attempt at balance, it doesn't ring true. The only characters in this book are the guys at the top, mostly the directors. Since they're all white, old, and incompetent, they tend to blend into each other, with a few standouts (Helms, Gates, Deutch, Tenet). Little space is devoted to the gruntwork, or the actual mechanics of CIA clandestine activity.

Allen Dulles, a future head of the CIA, acted as a consultant to the plan and was party to a secret deal that set aside unaccountable cash for political warfare. This led to covert operations becoming the driving force of the agency. A string of unsavoury alliances started with Nazis and fascists hired as "freedom fighters"; a history of disastrous, hushed-up operations followed. Nearly all the agency's cold war and Korean war agents were captured and turned or executed. Of 212 agents dropped into Manchuria in 1952, the Chinese killed 101 and captured 111. YDSTIE: And as you said, Dulles still in control of the agency, the Bay of Pigs occurs and a guy named Richard Bissell was really in charge of that operation. See Jeff Stein, "Celebrated History of the CIA Comes Under Belated Fire," CQ Politics, 15 Mar. 2008. Stein writes: "Weiner’s handling of documents and sources [in Legacy of Ashes], not to mention [the] book's theme that the CIA's record is one of almost abysmal failure,... has come under serious question by a growing cadre of critics.... [E]ven some of Weiner's many admirers think he overreached, and not just with the grandiose subtitle," The History of the CIA [emphasis added]. Weiner "is angry": "'I am not going to sit still and have my integrity insulted or assaulted by people who don’t know me, who have axes to grind.'" A negyvenes évek végén járunk, a világháború véget ért, vagy pontosabban szólva átment melegből hidegbe, egyetlen sokfejű sárkánnyal, a Szovjetunióban székelő kommunizmussal. Ez a kommunizmus egészen pöpec, félelmetes titkosszolgálatot épített ki magának, az USA pedig úgy vélte, hogy ha nem teremti meg ennek tükörképét, akkor vereségre lesz kárhoztatva. A baj az, hogy nem okosabbak, hanem félelmetesebbek akartak lenni ruszki kollégáiknál, úgyhogy telepakolták szervezetüket acéltökű fajankókkal, akik a titkosszolgálatokat a cserkészet boss level-jének képzelték el. Úgy hitték, a szolgálat magasiskolája az operatív munka kell legyen, következésképpen félkatonai szervezetek kiképzésére fókuszáltak, valamint erőszakos kormánybuktatásokra. Még ha jól csinálták volna - de nem. Az általuk kiokosított diverzánsokat ugyanis hiába dobálták le Kínában vagy a szovjet érdekszférában, vagy értelmetlenül elpusztultak, vagy megfordították őket. (Ebben az időben könnyű volt rájönni, ki kettős ügynök azok közül, akik Kínában kémkedtek a CIA-nak: mindenki, aki életben maradt.) A kormánybuktatási mánia pedig még rondább ügy volt. Bár az USA névleg a demokratikus értékrend elterjesztéséért harcolt, de ezt a CIA hidegháború kontextusában úgy fordította a saját nyelvére, hogy "legyen demokrácia, de ha nem a mi jelöltünk nyer, akkor beszántjuk az egész országot"*. Mindezek mellett az olyan apróságokra, mint a hírszerzés és az elemzés, már nem maradt kraft. Ami pont oda vezetett, amire lehetett is számítani: a szolgálat vak Jean-Claude Van Damme-ként csapkodott maga körül a ringben, elveszítette képességét a világ megértésére, a hosszú távú gondolkodás képességét pedig csak azért nem, mert sosem volt neki. Semmit sem értett meg az oroszok szándékaiból, fogalma sem volt, mit fog tenni Hruscsov vagy Gorbacsov, váratlanul érte a rakétaválság éppúgy, mint a Szovjetunió bukása. Higgadt helyzetértékelés helyett inkább arra fókuszált, hogy saját nélkülözhetetlenségének mítoszát építgesse, ennek érdekében rendesen veszélyesebbnek állította be a kommunizmust, mint amilyen (mert tudta, minél inkább be van parázva mindenki, annál könnyebben kapnak a Kongresszustól pénzt), és ezért süllyesztette el az összes kritikát. Ezzel azonban az önkorrekcióról is lemondott, nem csoda, ha a hidegháború után az új ellenfél, a terrorizmus ellen betűre elkövette ugyanazokat a hibákat és bűnöket**. TIM WEINER: Frank Wisner was not interested in espionage, which is the core mission of the CIA. He was interested in covert action, making kings and breaking them, changing the world instead of knowing the world. And that got the United States into a good deal of trouble.Treasure your family, Malachi. No one is poorer than a man who knows his wealth only when it’s lost.” Just like losing your mother the loss of a dad is a terribly difficult time. We hope these poems can help make the readings at the funeral that extra special. The biggest takeaway from this book is how sad it is that an agency that could have been such a help to our country has been used and abused until it is practically worthless. Instead of data and intelligence being used to better our country, Presidents have simply used it to further their preconceived notions, doctoring intelligence to meet their needs. The CIA is complicit in this, publishing reports to please those in power so that they don't lose their jobs. In the end, the agency is just there to make sure they can keep themselves in a job until they can retire. WEINER: The CIA was a new organization. They didn't really know what they were doing. They had to learn by doing and learn from their mistakes. And during the first 15 years running up to the Bay of Pigs, there were plenty.

Iraq will not invade Kuwait. (A senior CIA official learned of the invasion from his neighbor who had seen it on CNN) I have always defended the agency and assumed that the government (aka CIA)did what it had too do to keep us safe. This book reveals personal agendas by those in power who wanted revenge for the several defeats we as a county have had, even when it is described as less than a defeat.Once I got my head around the setting and the relationships of the characters to one another, though, the story really did draw me in. It’s quite a big book - my preview copy had to be split across two separate volumes! – but it moves at a solid clip. There are some nice twists, and both the plot and the development of the characters often moved in directions I wasn’t necessarily expecting. I very much liked the ending, too, which is always important. I remain skeptical that a large bureaucracy can produce intelligence beyond what a large news organization can organize and analyze. I wonder that we have the hubris to influence events in allied countries, or to organize the defeat of leadership in countries with which we are not allied. I have no argument with obtaining information, as long as that information serves to better prepare us for changes which affect us. I note that the largest changes which are bound to affect us profoundly in immediate years, e.g., climate change, do not seem to have registered a blip on the government radar while we scurry to contain events which will not have as great an impact on us. It looks like a kind of overheated masculine-style delusion predicated on fear rather than the rational measure of risk. urn:lcp:legacyofasheshis0000wein_a4y7:epub:bba278c1-7982-4f15-b08f-9365dabc257e Foldoutcount 0 Identifier legacyofasheshis0000wein_a4y7 Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t1vf9k00r Invoice 1652 Isbn 9781846140464 I’ll start by saying, Legacy of Ash, is the very embodiment of an epic fantasy. There is a quest for freedom, there are legendary knights, characters who can wield magic, ethereal beings, and there is the age old war between light and dark, although this book does give a somewhat fresh perspective on that! I know this book has been compared to Game of Thrones (*ahem*, what fantasy book hasn’t these days?) but I find this misleading. This is not a dark and gritty book, and if I had to compare it to any other series, I would say it’s more akin to The Faithful and the Fallen by John Gwynne.