num_pages: 702
description: For the last sixty 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 the first 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 September 11th, 2001.Tim Weiner’s past work on the CIA and American intelligence was hailed as “impressively reported” and “immensely entertaining” in The New York Times.The Wall Street Journal called it “truly extraordinary . . . the best book ever written on a case of espionage.” 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.
language: English
title: Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
titlecomplete: Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
characters: George Carver, James Monnier Simon, Christopher Montague Woodhouse, Duane Clarridge, General Manuel Noriega, Michael Forrestal, Haji Abdul Qadir, J. Edgar Hoover, Bob Martens, Red Raborn, Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Norman Schwarzkopf, Allen Dulles, Adolf Tolkachev, Nobusuke Kishi, Porter J. Goss, Ronald Reagan, William Jefferson 'Bill' Clinton, General Vang Pao, Carlos Enrique Diaz, Thomas R. Hall, Bill Clinton, Hussein of Jordan, Sherman Kent, L. Patrick Gray, Dick Lehman, Hanson Baldwin, Elfego Monzon, Lyndon B. Johnson, Thomas L. Hughes, General Rene Schneider, Nestor Sanchez, Peter Sichel, Mc Cone, Tom Polgar, Richard Nixon, William E. Colby, James Q. Reber, Don Winters, Jimmy Carter, Don Gregg, George H.W. Bush, Bill Bundy, William J. Daugherty, General Hussein Kamal, Ed Lansdale, Lucien Conein, James McCargar, Robert Amory, John McLaughlin, Ira C. Hamilton, Jack Kubisch, James R. Killian, Rufus Phillips, James Forrestal, Joseph P. O'Neill, John Deutch, Desmond FitzGerald, Yuri Nosenko, William Pawley, Red White, Jack Peurifoy, Gerald Ford, William Rountree, General Reinhard Gehlen, Joseph Mobutu, Clyde McAvoy, Al Cox, General William J. Donovan, Rene Barrientos, John McCloy, Harry S. Truman, Big Minh, Tony Poe, Bob Gates, Richard Bissell, Marilyn McAfee, George W. Bush, John Tilton, Albert R. Haney, Mikola Lebed, Tony Lake, Chiang Kai-shek, General Colin Powell, Agustín Edwards, General Camilo Valenzuela, John Whitten, Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, William Webster, Luke Battle, Bill Buckley, Carlos Castillo Armas, General Alexander Haig, David K. E. Bruce, Ed Howard, James J. Angleton, General Charles Pearre Cabell, John McMahon, Robert Ames, George W. Allen
genres: Historical, War, Politics, The United States Of America, Nonfiction, Audiobook, American History, Military Fiction, Espionage, History
ratings_count: 12951
places: The United States of America
awards: awardedAt: 1167638400000
name: National Book Award
category: Non-Fiction, awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: Lionel Gelber Prize, awardedAt: 1167638400000
name: Los Angeles Times Book Prize
category: History, awardedAt: 1167638400000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: General Nonfiction
publisher: Doubleday