>>> Tim Weiner's "Legacy of Ashes". Have you read that?
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>It's currently on The Pile. I found these lines from the Washington Post revue rather germane, though.
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>"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."
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>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.
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>As to Weiner being a "NY Times Pulitzer prize" yadayada I have two words ... Walter Duranty <s>
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>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.
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>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.


I agree that histories should be fact-based and not have agendas. (The same can be said of book reviews, of course <g>). I will keep an eye out for that when I get to the book. These days I am on a big fiction kick. Next up is Richard Price's latest, which is a rare treat. You may know him better from his movie scripts or his work on "The Wire" but he has been one of our best novelists as well.