>> Tim Weiner's "Legacy of Ashes". Have you read that?
It's currently on The Pile. I found these lines from the Washington Post revue rather germane, though.
"If there is a flaw in Legacy of Ashes, it is that Weiner's scorn for the old boys who ran the place is so unrelenting and pervasive that it tends to detract from his overall argument. He is unwilling to concede that the agency's leaders may have acted from patriotic motives or that the CIA ever did anything right."
And that is the point that I think gets lost. History written with a political agenda tends to muddy the picture, even when otherwise factual.
As to Weiner being a "NY Times Pulitzer prize" yadayada I have two words ... Walter Duranty <s>
But I think a lot of his main points are probably right on ( though not previously unknown ) especially in regard to the failure to grab - and properly analyze - intelligence.
I am currently reading "The Main Enemy" by Milt Bearden ( with James Risen ) Very good read by people with a lot of first hand knowledge. You might want to put that next on your list. After we've both read both we can discuss them at book club.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
