Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

The legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, is a novel written by Tim Weiner which the author discusses how the CIA had started and how the CIA have managed to hide all the horrific failures from the world’s knowledge. I thought that this novel was going to be jaw dropping and catching your attention at every page, but unfortunately that was not the case. Tim Weiner had provided a decent amount of information about how the CIA had failed the citizens of America as well as destroy the reputation and left the agency in worse shape than when each leader had obtained it in.
The first downfall of the CIA was the fact that the leaders that were appointed the directors of the CIA were very weak leaders. They could not handle the pressure of taking control of the CIA and they did not have a lot of experience with counter intelligence to run the agency in the first place. The CIA had a lot of different leaders in a very short period of time. In the beginning the first director resigned after nine months in the position. After the first director, the CIA had four directors within the span of four years. The first real leader that Tim Weiner had discussed in The legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA was General Walter Bedell Smith. Even under General Walter Bedell Smith, whom had planned a lot of undercover attacks against the Soviet Union and other places, a lot of men were killed as a result. General Walter Bedell Smith had only two victorious attacks, which is a lot compared to the previous leaders who had attacked but resulted in the deaths of thousands of workers.
The CIA had turned around a little when President Eisenhower had appointed Allen Dulles the new director of the CIA. Allen Dulles had made cover operations the secret ...

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...that had helped the United States to be one of the greatest counties that it is today. Within the agency, there was no communications where they kept information from each other. The CIA agency had no idea what they were doing in regards to central intelligence and they were compromised where the enemies knew about the attack before the attack was fully implemented. These examples prove that some leaders had some positive outcomes for the United States, but the agency from within could not stay united as well as keeping communications about what was going on in the world. I agree with Tim Weiner’s thesis that the United States is one of the greatest countries in the world, but we cannot seem to create a great and efficient spy service to benefit the United States.

Works Cited

Weiner, Tim. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. New York: Doubleday, 2007. Print.