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In Review

21 November 2008 21:39 BST

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner

Published by Allen Lane, Penguin, out August 2nd, hardback, 704 pages, £25.

In a nutshell…

Critical, exposing, scary, failure.

What's it all about?

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA tells the story of how the CIA failed to develop into an effective espionage service, castigating the myth that the agency has provided an effective and vital secret hand in US foreign policy affairs.

Instead, Weiner's account equates the actions of the CIA with a startling catalogue of failed foreign policy operations, seeking to highlight a serious weakness in America's current leadership role in the so-called "war on terror".

Based primarily on more than 50,000 documents from the agency's archives in 20 years of historical research, Weiner reveals how the CIA's failings uncover a secret world of calamitous mistakes in leadership and espionage.

The CIA's failure to foresee the Soviet Union's acquisition of the atomic bomb in 1950, the inability to predict the events of 9/11 and its inaccurate assessment of Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction all feature in Weiner's history of failure.

Who's it by?

As a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the New York Times, Weiner has first-hand experience of visiting nations such as Afghanistan and Sudan.

Specialising in American intelligence, Weiner's previous works include his study of the US military in Blank Check: The Pentagon's Black Budget and Betrayal: The Story of Aldrich Ames, an American Spy.

As an example…

"They [the CIA] spread the word that the ambassador was a lesbian … The CIA station transmitted this piece of intelligence – later known as 'the Murphy memo' to Washington, where it was widely distributed ... She was not sleeping with her secretary. 'Murphy' was the name of her two-year-old black standard poodle. The bug in her bedroom had recorded her petting her dog."

Likelihood of becoming a Hollywood blockbuster…

While such a critical tail of blunders and misjudgement among the top echelons of the American political establishment may struggle to get the backing of Hollywood's patriotic stars, there is ample material here for a future Michael Moore instalment.

What the others say

"A timely and vital contribution to one of the most fraught debates now roiling our bitterly divided capital [Washington DC]: the most correct role of the intelligence agencies and their proper relationship not only to the executive and legislative branches but also to the rule of law itself." – Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times.

So is it any good?

Despite its intimidating size and academic focus, Legacy of Ashes is both absorbing and easy for the British reader to either be startled or scared by the subject of American failings.

After kicking off with the fact that President Harry Truman wanted a global newspaper rather than an espionage service, the book relays a tumultuous relationship between the intelligence demands from US presidents and the covert James Bond-type fantasies of CIA leaders.

Weiner produces an illuminating history of the CIA's escapades abroad, such as its chaotic role in toppling governments in Guatemala and Iran, while noting the overall failure of the agency to gain accurate information on the nature of the Soviet Union, even as it began to collapse.

Legacy of Ashes may evoke allegations of being sensationalist, based on muckraking and severely lacking in its consideration for the Cold War context the CIA was working in. However, one must not negate that Weiner's critical focus flows directly from the long-term study of archival research and interviews from ex-officials, not out of a political pamphlet.

9/10

John Tompson

"Weiner's book does not stand up to scrutiny. See the reviews on the web by Jeffrey Richelson, Christopher Andrew, and Nicholas Dujmovic." – Dr Charles Lathrop