
Legacy of Ashes
The History of the CIA
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Narrated by:
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Stefan Rudnicki
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By:
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Tim Weiner
About this listen
National Book Award Winner, Nonfiction, 2007
This is the book the CIA does not want you to read. For the last 60 years, the CIA has maintained a formidable reputation in spite of its terrible record, never disclosing its blunders to the American public. It spun its own truth to the nation while reality lay buried in classified archives. Now, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Tim Weiner offers a stunning indictment of the CIA, a deeply flawed organization that has never deserved America's confidence.
Legacy of Ashes is based on more than 50,000 documents, primarily from the archives of the CIA. Everything is on the record. There are no anonymous sources, no blind quotations. With shocking revelations that will make headlines, Tim Weiner gets at the truth and tells us how the CIA's failures have profoundly jeopardized our national security.
©2007 Tim Weiner (P)2007 Blackstone Audio Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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"A timely, immensely readable, and highly critical history of the CIA, culminating with the most recent catastrophic failures in Iraq." (Mark Bowden, author of Blackhawk Down)
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A landmark collaboration between a thirty-year veteran of the CIA and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, The Main Enemy is the inside story of the CIA-KGB spy wars, told through the actions of the men who fought them. Based on hundreds of interviews with operatives from both sides, The Main Enemy puts us inside the heads of CIA officers as they dodge surveillance and walk into violent ambushes in Moscow. This is the story of the generation of spies who came of age in the shadow of the Cuban missile crisis and rose to run the CIA and KGB in the last days of the Cold War.
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A masterpiece of espionage history
- By kucherv on 08-21-18
By: Milton Bearden, and others
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Black Ops
- The Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior
- By: Ric Prado
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Enrique Prado found himself in his first firefight at age seven. The son of a middle-class Cuban family caught in the midst of the Castro Revolution, his family fled their war-torn home for the hope of a better life in America. Fifty years later, the Cuban refugee retired from the Central Intelligence Agency as the CIA equivalent of a two-star general. Black Ops is the story of Ric’s legendary career that spanned two eras, the Cold War and the Age of Terrorism.
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Impressive and Inspiring!
- By medardo on 03-12-22
By: Ric Prado
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War Is a Racket
- By: Major General Smedley D. Butler USMC Retired
- Narrated by: Jack Eddelman
- Length: 1 hr
- Unabridged
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A report on how the greed of a privileged few, subsidized by public funding, creates substantial profits for themselves from mass human suffering.This was a speech given by General Butler during a nationwide tour in the early 1930's, but it applies even more today! Listen as he frankly discusses, from his experience as a career military officer, how business interests commercially benefit from warfare. He then suggests several practical solutions for reducing the pillage.
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We all need to hear it
- By L. C. Pinkerton on 02-28-15
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The Ghost
- The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton
- By: Jefferson Morley
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Ghost, investigative reporter Jefferson Morley tells Angleton's dramatic story, from his friendship with the poet Ezra Pound through the underground gay milieu of mid-century Washington to the Kennedy assassination to the Watergate scandal. From the agency's MKULTRA mind-control experiments to the wars of the Mideast, Angleton wielded far more power than anyone knew.
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Flawed Superpatriot
- By Bubblehog on 11-23-17
By: Jefferson Morley
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The Agency: A History of the CIA
- By: Hugh Wilford, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Hugh Wilford
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Original Recording
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There’s a fundamental tension buried within the heart of the CIA’s mission to protect the American people: between democratic accountability and the inherent need for secrecy. Ultimately, it’s US citizens who bear the responsibility of staying informed about what the CIA has done and continues to do. In these 24 engrossing lectures, explore the roles the CIA has played in recent American history, from the eve of the Cold War against communism to the 21st-century War on Terror.
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Axe to Grind
- By MissBouquet on 05-26-19
By: Hugh Wilford, and others
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Operation Paperclip
- The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America
- By: Annie Jacobsen
- Narrated by: Annie Jacobsen
- Length: 19 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In the chaos following World War II, the US government faced many difficult decisions, including what to do with the Third Reich's scientific minds. These were the brains behind the Nazis' once-indomitable war machine. So began Operation Paperclip, a decades-long, covert project to bring Hitler's scientists and their families to the United States. Many of these men were accused of war crimes, and others had stood trial at Nuremberg; one was convicted of mass murder and slavery.
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The Osenberg list
- By Jean on 08-07-14
By: Annie Jacobsen
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The Fourth Man
- The Hunt for a KGB Spy at the Top of the CIA and the Rise of Putin's Russia
- By: Robert Baer
- Narrated by: Robert Baer, Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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In the aftermath of the Cold War, American intelligence caught three high-profile Russian spies: Aldrich Ames, Edward Lee Howard, and Robert Hanssen. However, rumors have long swirled of another mole, one perhaps more damaging than all the others combined. Perhaps the greatest traitor in American history, perhaps a Russian ruse to tear the CIA apart, or perhaps nothing more than a bogeyman, he is often referred to as the Fourth Man.
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A Who Done it without The Who Did it
- By Amazon Customer on 05-25-22
By: Robert Baer
What listeners say about Legacy of Ashes
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Overall
- Douglas
- 08-04-07
Frightening
This is a wonderfully written disturbing history of the CIA. I finished this book wondering if the CIA represents the inevitable malfunction of all government bureaucracies, or specific to an American spy agency. I fear the former, and am left with grave concern that intelligence can act intelligently.
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42 people found this helpful
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- Saint Sinner
- 06-28-13
Like being told Santa isn't real
What did you like best about Legacy of Ashes? What did you like least?
This book is hard to read for someone who doesn't know about some of the times and eras that the book uses as a backdrop. I really didn't get into the book until I got to the Kennedy era.
Any additional comments?
The title says it all. With all the movies, tv series, and even history books it hard to think of the CIA as something other than all powerful and all knowing. Tim Weiner does a great job explaning events in such a way that there's little question to the validity that we are living with a "Legacy of Ashes".
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2 people found this helpful
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- Gare
- 07-06-09
Informative but not insightul
An excellent summary of recently released secret documents...but not much more.
gare.henderson@gmail.com
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- andrew w.
- 11-03-07
slow
It was hard to stay interested. The first half was especially boring.
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1 person found this helpful
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- ArcaneCode
- 04-30-15
Outstanding history of the CIA
Would you listen to Legacy of Ashes again? Why?
Absolutely. Gripping story that never gets boring.
What does Stefan Rudnicki bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
His voice just sucked me right into the story. He did a great job.
Any additional comments?
After listening to John C. Dvorak constantly talk about this book on the No Agenda Show, I broke down and got it, and boy am I glad I did. It is an excellent story of an organization misused by the powers that be for their own purposes.
It is one of the few books I just could not stop listening too, I had my earbuds in non stop for the 3 days it took me to consume it.
This ranks as one of my top 10 Audible favorites, and should be a must read for everyone.
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1 person found this helpful
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- nursekatie24
- 06-20-22
Stellar info
This was an eye opening book about the successes and failures of the CIA. Sadly, the failures far outweigh the successes because there are too many arrogant leaders in the US government, the CIA and the military. It’s also because the CIA has too many newbies (at the books publication date) and the private intelligence companies are recruiting away the best talent.
We need to do better and be better or America will go the way of all the other arrogant countries in history.
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-17-16
Very interesting
Information that is not know to the general public. Ineptitude to the fullest by people we are supposed to trust.
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- Travis
- 12-01-16
Fantastic Read
I've done a whole lot of reading on the IC from a number of authors, and this one has made its way to the top of my list. A fantastic read on the history of the intelligence service, covert action programs, and American foreign policy. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in these subjects.
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- Anonymous User
- 07-04-20
You’re Out if Your Element
A fascinating and richly detailed story of American espionage and intelligence. Makes one ponder an intelligence apparatus more befitting of America’s strengths.
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- Zachary
- 07-20-24
Time gives perspective, and is a luxury we are afforded by the author’s hard work.
The author attempts to condense 60 years of history of a widely misunderstood organization into about 21 hours of listening time. There are many topics that you wish you could jump back in time to witness to see how these figures made their decisions, and in my opinion the author does a good job of giving you a look at these figures and their decisions through the shade of the intelligence agency. While it seems like a simple history book, the nature of it’s topic is quite alluring to those who want to gain perspective on the modern world and the position we find ourselves at in the 21st century.
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