CIA: The whole story
CIA: The whole story (in the original: Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA ) is a historical work by Tim Weiner . It covers the history of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from its inception in 1947 to 2007, the year the English edition was published.
content
According to his own statements, Tim Weiner evaluated 50,000 documents within 20 years and interviewed hundreds of people, including employees of secret services, ex-agents, insiders and politicians or diplomats involved in the intelligence services. In the preface he states that he does not use any anonymous sources or quotations without evidence. His book is the first on the CIA to be entirely based on first-hand information and primary documents.
Weiner chronologically describes the development of the CIA. He begins with the establishment of the Agency, which originally had the task of preventing another surprise like the attack on Pearl Harbor . The book deals in detail with the role in the Cold War , especially in Central and South America . The crisis of meaning of the service after the end of the conflict with the Soviet Union is also carried out. Weiner also deals with the developments in the Yugoslav Wars . The final chapters deal with the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and the war on terror that followed .
He describes in great detail the relationship between the respective US presidents and the CIA and the ongoing problems in recruiting capable employees.
Overall, Weiner gives a damning verdict on the intelligence service, which in his opinion was never able to carry out its most basic tasks. A circumstance that the author expressly regrets.
criticism
In an official statement from the CIA, the work was heavily criticized by Nicholas Dujmovic. It is "not the definitive history of the CIA that it purports to be." ("... is not the definitive history of the CIA that it purports to be.") And the work is not as well researched as numerous reviewers claim. In addition, the “central episode in Weiner's book is an invented dialogue ... that never happened.” (“The central episode in Weiner's book is an invented dialogue, a created exchange that never happened.”). The author has evaluated his sources selectively, is fascinated by the negative and overlooks numerous successes of the agency.
Wolfgang Gast from the daily newspaper called the CIA: The whole story was a “book of superlatives” and a “small sensation”, but criticized the author's too small distance from the CIA.
In his review during the time , Bernd Greiner found that the work was “a study that sets standards”, “captivates with illuminating theses and further questions ” and also contains “ remarkable statements about the foreign and security policy of the USA as a whole”.
Awards
CIA: The whole story was the 2007 National Book Award of the National Book Foundation in the category Nonfiction ( nonfiction ). In the same year drew Los Angeles Times the work with the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the field of history ( history of).
output
- Tim Weiner: CIA . The whole story. 6th edition. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2009, ISBN 978-3-596-17865-0 , pp. 864 (English: Legacy of Ashes - The History of the CIA . Translated by Elke Enderwitz, Ulrich Enderwitz, Monika Noll and Rolf Schubert).
Web links
- Review notes on CIA: The full story at perlentaucher.de
- Nicholas Dujmovic: Review of “Legacy of Ashes: The History of CIA”. In: Homepage of the CIA. September 10, 2007, accessed April 15, 2013 (English, official review).
- Harald Biermann: Lots of gamblers and boasters. Tim Weiner points out the major weaknesses of the CIA. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . March 12, 2008, Retrieved April 15, 2013 (review).
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Wolfgang Gast: History of the “Agency”. In: the daily newspaper. September 6, 2008, accessed April 15, 2013 .
- ↑ Nicholas Dujmovic: Review of Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.
- ↑ Bernd Greiner: Catastrophic balance. Tim Weiner has painstakingly researched the failure of the CIA. In: The time. April 6, 2008, accessed April 15, 2013 .
- ^ National Book Awards - 2007. In: National Book Foundation. Retrieved April 15, 2013 .
- ↑ 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winners. (No longer available online.) In: Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on April 24, 2013 ; accessed on April 15, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
