Tim Weiner - Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, Library Edition

This comprehensive history of the Central Intelligence Agency, from the Cold War through the War on Terror, is written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the New York Times, who interviewed hundreds of former CIA employees (including several directors), and who pored through " the Company's " archives. Tim Weiner tells how the CIA grew out of the OSS under the legendary spymaster " Wild Bill " Donovan and how the fortunes of the agency, for better or worse, most often lay with whoever served as its director. The great revelations in Weiner's book are the accounts of how CIA resources were diverted towards politically motivated ends, including domestic surveillance of Americans. These forays, under presidents from both parties, were in direct violation of the agency's charter and, in Weiner's view, they undermined the role of the agency, diverting it from its main mission: to obtain the best intelligence abroad on America's enemies. Weiner's well-told if somewhat critical account includes many fascinating