• Legacy of Ashes

  • The History of the CIA
  • By: Tim Weiner
  • Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
  • Length: 21 hrs and 37 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (4,492 ratings)

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Legacy of Ashes  By  cover art

Legacy of Ashes

By: Tim Weiner
Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
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Publisher's summary

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.
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

Critic reviews

"Absorbing...a credible and damning indictment of American intelligence policy." ( Publishers Weekly)
"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)

What listeners say about Legacy of Ashes

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

A surpise!

Considering the author's NY Times resume, I was not surprised at the discussion of poor CIA performance under Ike. But when he slammed the Kennedy brothers in a later chapter, I got interested.

It's an even-handed destruction of the CIA, as we thought it existed. It rings true, to my dismay.

"Dilbert's World" exists - with real world problems as a result.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Product of New York Times, Total Rubbish

Narrator is great, one of the best

The book is something that is between truth, opinion, total omissions, and 1/2 truths. Normal NYT readers want to be told what to think, but normal people just want the truth.

Among other things, an example of the bias on this book is the laudatory words on Jimmy Carter's White House. During Jimmie's time Iran, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, and El Salvador, all fell apart with collateral damage still evident today. But Jimmie's CIA was great!

Also the book gets into the make- no-sense category. "Spying on Anericans" is considered the ultimate evil. If you are actually a world traveler or follow radical thought origins...they are American/European exports. Just like Twitter and Facebook today, US radicals are the mouthpiece and origins for global extremists....like climate change clowns, social justice beggars, open border nuts, and income inequality bums.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Correct Subtitle: A History of the CIA's screw-ups

Should be Subtitled "A History of the CIA's screw-ups." Solid look at the mistakes of the past, with a focus on how the CIA was supposed to be one thing and ended up another. Rarely talks about the successes, and spends lots of time on Washington and presidents. Richard Helms is praised in the book, but his time as Director is criticized, this duality is never explained. Wish it was, if he was so good, what was he doing right besides telling everyone else that they're doing it wrong.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Long and Biased

Tim Weiner's VERY LONG history of the CIA is a rather convincing indictment of the CIAs blunders through the years, and according to this book with the exception of 4 times, the CIA has been completely (or if Tim is being charitable mostly) incompetent. This is a very biased book, and should be looked at as an indictment where a prosecutor only displays the failures. If you are inclined to this view, this book is for you.

To be fair the this book did present some interesting revelations regarding how politicians, once elected, continually expected different missions from the CIA, so they were never on steady footing.

Audio-wise, Stephan did a passable job narrating the book, though there isn't a lot of feeling put into the narration.

This book is VERY CHALLENGING because it jumps through history and it can be quite difficult to follow. The author is constantly going back and forth through time and it can be challenging to gain a linear time line.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Non-fiction History of the FBI

Legacy of Ashes goes back more than 8 years in my Audible library. It is a critical history of the FBI from its founding through 2006 written by journalist Tim Weiner. It is an excellent and continuously interesting history if not a great one. Highly recommended.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

They suceeded believe it or not

It is easy to take a select number of anecdotes of failure and paint a big picture that the CIA was a huge waste of resources and that it failed to prevent or predict every big event to happen in the previous 65 years of world history, but I believe that they succeeded. How they succeeded through happenstance was to prevent the cold war from turning hot. They did this by building relationships and communication links with the USSR and with our allies during the Cold War.

The CIA may have missed predicting certain major events in world history over the previous 65 years, but the nature of military and political intelligence is not clairvoyance. An intelligence analyst is not a fortune teller. I'll even bet that within the organization there were people who made adequate and very accurate predictions for the major events that the CIA is accused of missing, but the nature of reporting to U.S. Presidents and other politicians is political. This means that the reporter tells the politician what they want to hear. If you go telling them what they don't want to hear, wrong or right, you will be replaced.

So don't blame this Agency for failures that it is not responsible for. Blame the culture surrounding the Office of the Presidency, and that of the Congress. Therein lies your problem.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Compelling

Excellent history, profoundly important because of the nature of undercover operations. Shows the limits of such activity which seems to ensure blowback and unintended consequences.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Thank you Mr. Weiner...this book is five stars!

This is simply the finest audiobook I have ever listened to about the CIA and the political environment in Washington. The author takes great pains to provide unvarnished and untainted facts about how the CIA has become an emasculated intelligence agency that has lost its sense of purpose and direction.
When I first started listening, I thought Weiner was taking partisan swipes at the republican presidents and politicians; however I quickly discovered he is completely apolitical in his analysis of the mostly inept and certainly ill-conceived presidential orders with which the agency was saddled.
Moreover, Weiner conveys to the reader just how incapable, recalcitrant and uninformed many of the agencies directors were and apparently are. Example after example is cited in the book of rouge agents, dishonest politicians, shoddy congressional oversight and presidential indifference.
This book stunned me, depressed me and frankly scared the hell out of me. It will leave you with so many questions that you will not stop thinking about it for days afterward.
Bravo Mr. Weiner, I hope this book becomes required reading for any Political Science student; for that matter, all students and US Citizens.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Very intresting however a little slanted

I highly recommend anyone to read this book. While it is long and admittedly I stopped listening to it for a long time, it has opened my eyes and explained in detail many historic events. While I won't give anything away in the book, I am quite honestly surprised the CIA didn't start us a war with a few nations due to failed or exposed CIA missions. But who knows, they could have and it could still be classified.

I will say that the author seems to be slanted in his views. He seems to pull out and explain many many failed missions he doesn't go into as much detail in the missions that were a success. Successful missions he lists and explains seem less than what you can count on two hands. I find it hard to believe the CIA has been that ineffective. CIA is no James Bond but if they were truly that unsuccessful then they would have been abolished long ago.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • D
  • 05-06-08

An Amazingly Comprehensive Indictment

This book is a surprisingly refreshing look at the often revered American intelligence community. It's non-partisan and thoughtful insight into the history of the CIA is an must listen for anyone who cares about the future of the United States.

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