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 Scary what people in power can do. Nov 15, 2009
This book opened my eyes to the kind of power that the CIA wields and how often it was misused in the past. We can only hope that the new regime acts in a more moral manner.
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 Too biased to be a real historical account. Don't bother. Nov 07, 2009
I will spend as much time writing this review as anyone should spend reading this book. From the beginning of the book it is blatantly obvious that the author has an agenda in mind. There is very little context given for the operations and snide comments take away from any scholarly tone the book might have hoped to achieve. There is no doubt that mistakes have been made in the Central Intelligence Agency, but this book is flawed in delivering proper perspective.
Not at all what it promises to be Oct 30, 2009
If Weiner had given this book a title that accurately reflected what is contained within the book, it would have read something like this: The CIA from its birth to the early Johnson years, or something comparable. The problem is that if Weiner had accurately titled his book, it probably would have only sold a fraction of what it has to date. I think he saw an opportunity to release a book at the time when the CIA was deeply unpopular in the eyes of the American public because of the intelligence failures over Iraq and knew that if he made it seem a like a complete and total hit job, he would have a best seller.
The book starts off relatively strong with a lot of details and sources from the late 40s and on into the mid 60s, but after that, the book starts to peter out. The reason of course being because that's when the unclassified and publicly available sources end. Classified government documents don't automatically become unclassified until 30 years after they're produced. In many cases with the intelligence community, there's an even longer waiting period. When the author made the decision to try to write a comprehensive history of the agency up to present day, he had to rely on information in the public domain and what the CIA chose to give to him. So in short, once you get into the Nixon administration and beyond the book ceases to be a real work of 'history,' that is, something drawn from primary sources. The last half of the book is pieced together from what is publicly available and in my opinion, that makes the title of the book misleading at best, and dishonest at worst.
That in an of itself is a serious problem as far as I'm concerned. The other problem is that I got the distinct impression that the author knew what he wanted his conclusion to be before he put pen to paper. I think he wanted to write a book that was critical of the Agency itself, but what he actually describes inside the book is how different administrations didn't really know how to manage or staff the upper levels of the Agency. The problem, again, is that if this is how the book had been titled or marketed, it wouldn't have sold as many copies. To present the content of the book to the public honestly would have failed to tap into the public distrust of the Agency at the time of publishing. What Weiner actually presents in the book is not a criticism of the Agency itself. 90% of the book focuses on how different administrations tried to manage the Agency. This is clear because the book is broken down section by section according to who was in the White House.
I'm not trying to say that the criticisms leveled against the Agency (or rather how Presidents deal with it) are unwarranted; Weiner makes many valid points. I take issue with a hit job parading around as a legitimate work of history. The author never misses a chance to compare Iraq to Vietnam and there are some serious issues that makes me wonder how informed the author is. To take one example...on page 488 of the hardcover edition, Weiner states that Saddam Hussein's son-in-law Hussein Kamal defected to Jordan and confirmed to the authorities that Iraq's weapons had been destroyed. The problem here is that the exact opposite of this is what actually happened. Kamal defected and revealed a wealth of information about Iraqi weapons and programs that the government had been lying to inspectors about. This is a pretty egregious error on the author's part. The details of Kamal's defection are well-known. Seeing a mistake like this makes me wonder what else the author got wrong.
On the plus side, the book is well-written and enjoyable to read on many levels. I'm sure there are some elements of truth in the book, but it's too hard to tell what Weiner got right and what he got wrong. As such, I wouldn't recommend the book to anyone that has a serious desire to learn about the Agency.
It All Comes Out Oct 19, 2009
Weiner has written a well researched work on the history of the CIA. Its mission is to spy -- collect, collate and interpret data on the enemies of the US Republic. Unfortunately it has never realised that mission, and that is the central thesis of Weiner's great, if somewhat journalistic, history. The result, the US has got it wrong on numerous occassions and put the safety of US citizens and soldiers at risk. It is a damning indictment of the intelligence service.
The reasons are manifold. At times it is lack of a strong moral hand on the tiller. Others, a lack of access to the President (Clinton, Reagan, GW Bush), at other times the Agency has become the tool of personal foreign policy agendas (such as Kennedy's attempt to assassinate Castro, or Nixon's penchant for domestic spying). All in all it means that the US was not well served in understanding the actions of the former Soviet Union (the missle gap was a diliberate attempt to increase the US Defence budget), or the threat from international terrorism -- the Agency knew something was up (though exactly what they could not say), but had no access to Bush who was either disinterested or simply distracted by others such as Cheney and Rumsfeldt who had other agendas.
Despite its journalistic flavour -- it read fast, which is good!! -- it is well reasearched with many original interviews of newly declassified documents.
It makes a depressing read and one that I think that not only Americans should be concerned about -- with the largest Army and the largest intelligence gathering potential other western democracies also have a stake the US getting it right in the post 9/11 world. According to Weiner... that may not easily happen.
 Good Storytelling, not Much Analysis Sep 28, 2009
This book by Tim Weiner is a great read. It is packed full of juicy details on many exploits of the early CIA -- and it is heaviest on the early period from 1946-1963 -- likely owing to the declassification of materials from that period. However, this book is guilty of what many books on intelligence are guilty of, namely, that the errors make great storytelling but the successes are likely unknown and that the James Bondish exploits are only a small fraction of what the intelligence community does.
Still, Weiner packs a lot of stories into his pages. The 1950s are a particularly rich time for his history. At the time the seniors at the CIA seemed more interested in following pet projects and helping their friends than in fulfilling the writ of the Agency. But the constant references between this period and today gets old after awhile, particularly with regard to early CIA missteps and Iraq, as if the examples are related in some way.
That said, this is still a worthy read if for nothing else the number of stories of actions gone wrong that can serve as reminders or as lessons learned to future CIA leaders when they are contemplating future actions.
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