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 ... ... middle of paper ... ...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.
?Espionage.? 2000-2004. The War to End All Wars. Michael Duffy. Original Material. Primary Documents Online.
Prados, John. Safe for Democracy The Secret Wars of the CIA. Chicago, IL: Ivan R Dee, Publisher, 2006.
Sulick, Michael J.. Spying in America espionage from the Revolutionary War to the dawn of the Cold War., Georgetown University Press, 2012
The Devil's Chessboard by David Talbot is explosive, headline making portraits of Allen Dulles, the man who changed the CIA to be the most powerful. Dulles decade as director of the CIA that dark time in US politic. Calling himself the secretary of state from countries unfriendly, Dulles sees itself as above the law chosen, manipulate and subvert the US president in the pursuit of personal interest and those of the wealthy elite, Dulles counted as friends and clients. Targeting foreign leader for assassination and over-throwing nationalist government is not in line with their political goal, he worked those same tactics to further his goal at home, the cost of David Talbot, offering a
In the beginning, Jenkins explores the sources of the CIA’s decision to participate with Hollywood from the 1990s and forward. The main reason is a want to counter its essentially negative portrayal in Hollywood programs. The first Chapter summarizes this image by showing how CIA agents have always been interpreted as assassins, dishonest leaders, unprotected by their hierarchy, morally bankrupt, and ineffective. Jenkins asserts nonetheless that other reasons were just as if not more conclusive: ‘...
The CIA’s 50-year history of smuggling drugs into America is generating hatred for the United States throughout the world. Like Pontius Pilate, CIA washes their hands of the human tragedies and the corruption of government offices. They do this by remaining and by refusing to recognize the evidence, supporting corruption. For the past 50 years, the CIA has abused its power by deliberately drugging and corrupting America; and therefore should be prosecuted.
Earley, P. (2014). CIA Traitor Aldrich Ames — The Story — Crime Library. Retrieved April 10, 2014, from http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/spies/ames/1.html
In “Spies: the Rise and fall of the KGB in America”, John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev base their information off of a collection of documents that belonged to the KGB. The archives provide the most complete report of Soviet espionage in America ever written. Along with a general look into espionage strategies and the motives of Americans who spied for Stalin, this book settles specific controversies. “Spies: the Rise and Fall of the KGB in America” reveals numerous American spies who were never even under suspicion and also identifies the last unaccounted for nuclear spies who were American. This source focused greatly on Soviet infiltration of the U.S. government, and Haynes, Harvey, and Vassiliev convey why and how penetration contributed to the success and failure of the KGB throughout the Cold War.
Seymour M. Hersh, “What Went Wrong: The C.I.A. and the Failure of American Intelligence,” New Yorker, October 1, 2001
... Sept. 11th, 2001, terrorist attack on theWorld Trade Center and the unreliability of U.S. intelligence onWeapons of mass Destruction in Iraq have been a focus of intense scrutiny in the U.S. in 2004 particularly in the context of the 9/11 Commision , the continuing armed resistance against U.S. occupation of Iraq, and the widely perceived need for systematic review of the respective roles of the CIA, FBI and the Defense Intelligence Agency. On July 9th, 2004 the Senate report of Pre-war Intelligenceon Iraq of the Senate Intelligence Committe stated that the CIA described the danger presented by Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq in an unreasonable way, largely unsupported by the available intelligence. In a briefing held Sept 15th, 2001 George Tenet presented the Worldwide Attack Matrix, a "top-secret" document describing covert CIA anti-terror operations in 80 countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. The actions, underway or being recommended, would range from "routine propaganda to lethal covert action in preparation for military attacks". The plans, if carried out, "would give the CIA the broadest and most lethal authority in its history".
...ts, which were doing espionage missions, to other countries, which caused a big problem because they were then lacking “power” to “combat” the enemy devil. The KGB and the CIA did operate in similar ways and they never did work together during this time.
Taubman, Philip. “Death of a Spy Satellite Program.” Public Administration: Concepts and Cases. Stillman, Richard Joseph. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010. 361-369.
One of the main failures of law enforcement and intelligence agencies identified by both the authors of “The Cell” and Senator Richard Shelby was that the F.B.I. and C.I.A. acted in competition with one another to produce results, as opposed to in centralized collaboration. Gladwell points out that the intelligence community was structured in this manner in response to the failures of the Bay of Pigs operation, which had been based on highly centralized intelligence gathering. In turn, the structure of intelligence agencies at the time of the Bay of Pigs was in response to the failure of decentralized intelligence to identify the threat of an attack on Pearl Harbor. The iterative cycle of intelligence failures and subsequent reform efforts ignores the premise that the failures do not represent evidence of the limitations of intelligence agencies, but rather the limitations of intelligence itself. As Gladwell states, “in our zeal to correct what we believe to be the problems of the past, we end up creating new problems for the
Conversely, there have also been many failures in which the CIA was responsible for. One of the most notable accomplishments of the CIA was the operation that killed Osama Bin Laden. According to the CIA (2013), the intelligence gathering and analysis which led to the discovery of Bin Laden’s compound was spearheaded by the CIA, with cooperation from other intelligence agencies (n.p). This operation can arguably be one of the most significant accomplishments of the CIA. Unfortunately, a success such as the Bin Laden raid is sometimes overshadowed by historical failures. Ironically, the events that led to the success of the Bin Laden raid stemmed from a failure of behalf of the CIA and others in the intelligence community. In the 1990’s the CIA created a unit focused of Bin Laden and realized he was a great threat to the United States (Friedman, 2012). Even with this information the attacks still
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) consists of personnel who are the human intelligence organization of the United States. They provide national security intelligences to senior US policy makers. This is a very important group of individuals and the information they provide is very vital in the constant monitoring of information. In the past they have had many issues such as insuring that they data they are providing is accurate and reliable when its presented to the upper chain of command.