Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (2007)

Just looked this over

This is a book worth reading if you are interested in understanding the misguided foreign policy of the United States since WWII and the major role the CIA played in it.

The book starts at the end of WWII and ends around 2007. Although many of the events described would be known to people that follow politics and foreign affairs, the book is based on documents that have been declassified up to 2007 and on personal interviews with CIA officers still alive. For those old enough to have lived through many of these events, the book reveals that actually things were much worse than we thought at the time. The incompetence, idiocy, illegality and fanatical obsession, with communism of those who run the CIA and their bosses (i.e., the various presidents) is so infuriating that I could not read more than 10 pages at the time.

It is really ironic that the country that acts as the world leader and promoter of democracy and its ideals would operate agencies that act in a totally undemocratic way not only against the citizens of other countries, if their decisions are seen as threatening to mostly fictional American interests, but also against its own citizens and their elected representatives. ( )

Solid readable history about the good and bad of the CIA. Mostly the bad and stupid moves they have made over the years. ( )

Interesting and fairly clear and easy to follow. ( )

Interesting and fairly clear and easy to follow. ( )