Book Report: Legacy of Ashes (Part 1)

I am currently reading Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner. While I usually wait until I have finished the book, I want to comment now lest I lose my thoughts.

First, let me say that the book - a history of the CIA - does move through each event pretty quickly. This means that we often have to trust the author's version of events because the details supporting him are somewhat slim and could be cherry-picked.

I recognize why the author did this - he has a lot of ground to cover. The alternative would be a massive three volume type series - something Robert Caro-esqe. In other words, something I probably wouldn't read.

It also means that to the extent that you want more information on an event (like the Cuban Missile Crisis for example) you should go somewhere just for that (like One Minute to Midnight).

Now, what I really wanted to comment on though is the picture that Wiener is giving us of the early CIA (though it is pretty clear he is setting us up to tell us that things haven't changed). I have only gotten through the Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations (including some info on Kennedy's assassination), but things look really bad so far.

The CIA is portrayed as an organization that is focused on covert operations to impose our will on other governments and prevent the spread of communism at the expense of intelligence gathering. Unfortunately, the CIA is mostly incompetent and mostly because it doesn't actually understand the places it is working on because it doesn't have any good intelligence.

And when it does succeed, the consequences long term are disastrous (i.e. Iran) because the policy was poorly thought through. It is also completely unaccountable; it lies or withholds information from the president (especially when it comes to their failures) and of course is not required to provide much information to Congress. So often it is making foreign policy on its own.

To the extent that this was / is true, it is appalling and terrifying. But I don't think anything can be done about it. There is a general view by the public that the US should have an organization that conducts covert operations and gathers intelligence to "protect our interests" and that we don't need to know about what it does. That is not a good recipe for good outcomes. And Legacy of Ashes shows us this.