Tim Weiner; Legacy of Ashes

HBS rating: Interesting, but not a must

who should read:

• History lovers looking for another angle at what happened in the last 60 years
• Those who can stand 400 pages or so of one man’s very opinionated opinion (he does claim it’s based on fact)
• The complexity of keeping a democracy democratic

On a recent visit to San Francisco I found myself responsible for my own entertainment.  Being deeply in jet-leg zone after a long 10 hour flight, and a very early wakeup call (colleague from the UK was kind enough to phone me during his business hours, my very early hours of the morning) I didn’t want to wonder too far.

Driving safety is a key part of my life, so I take drowsy driving very seriously.  I felt awake and energetic as the sun finally rose up, but didn’t want to risk driving back tired at the end of the day.  A quick session of browsing on the internet pointed me at the direction of Sausalito.  This small and picturesque town is located just opposite the Golden Gate Bridge and sounded like a fun day out. 

It was Saturday.  The pleasant weather drew out numerous people.  Walking, jogging, cycling or just driving along the sea front of this very beautiful small town with the roofs of their cars pulled off.  As I was wondering along one of the back streets of the town I stumbled across a small book shop, with a friendly and chatty owner.  Me being me, I couldn’t resist making a few purchases.

It must have been the perfect atmosphere of the day that led me to pick out a very specific book out of the top book shelf located at the back of the store.  This perfect scenery, the clean streets, the fashionable people, the new and shining cars.. Is this for real, or is there a parallel reality hidden from the eye can see?  Ever since I watched “Twin Peaks”, like many others, I am sure you just cannot look at a beautifully groomed American town and not wonder what is happening on the inside of all of those beautiful houses.

These thoughts about what we see, and what may actually happened in reality, I am sure, were one of the causes I left this small bookshop with Tim Winer’s “Legacy of Ashes, the history of the CIA”.  It was also a perfect continuation to the book I have just finished, “Charlie Wilsons War”.  Both books discuss the CIA and let’s just say, neither books holds a very high view of this secret intelligence organization.

As far as intelligence organizations go, their secrecy causes such a stir of interest.  What are these guys up to? Are they protecting us or conspiring against us?  Well.. after reading the “Legacy of Ashes” you are probably right if you answer a third option “all of the above”.

Intelligence organizations, it turns out, can do one of two things.  Either learn about the world (gathering intelligence) or setting to change the world (covert operations).  Executing one or both of these tasks, requires secrecy.  A side from having to worry about gathering valuable information and running operations to influence how other countries are being run, you also need to protect yourself from enemy organizations trying to penetrate yours.  You need to verify that the information provided by sources turned friendly on the other side of the fence can be trusted.  This need usually grows a third arm for any active intelligence organization, the counter intelligence arm.

All of this of course is bread and butter in tyrannies, but very problematic in democracies.  How can a democracy fund an organization involved in secrecy? What checks and balances can be put in place to ensure these very powerful and secretive organizations do not only spy on the enemy but also used to spy on their own countries?

Enter Tim Weiner’s view of the CIA.  According to Tim, the CIA was essentially set up to provide the president with a steady and reliable source of daily information about what was going on in the world.  As history has it, CNN does a better job. Director after director in the CIA found it ever more difficult to acquire quality human based information (i.e. creating spies on the other side of the fence), relied more and more on technology (planes, satellites and the like) and failed to provide the president with valuable information.  Again following Tim’s view of the world, not only did this organization not provide the right information, it felt quite comfortable inventing it when needed.  Latest occurrence – Colin Powell using bogus information to convince the UN Iraq does have mobile chemical labs.

But there are many historical examples.  I reviewed in one of my earlier blogs Paul Dickson’s “Sputnik”.  It turns out the CIA failed to warn the president the Russians are about to shoot a satellite into orbit.  Not too long ago I finished Woodward’s and Bernstein’s “All the presidents’ man”.  Yet another example, in which this famous organization was put into ill use.  And of course there is the whole issue of the assassination of JFK, and the Russian missile crisis, the actions and South America, Irangate and what not.

So supposedly it’s easy enough to launch an attack on such an organization, after all being secretive, it just cannot publish its own response and list their version of successes they had in the past.  Being a part of the free world, I would like to think that it’s not just failures, but also successes that have been made (not an easy argument to hold after completing “Legacy of Ashes”.. according to this book, it has been one failure after the other).

The challenge remains.  A true democracy cannot afford to have a secret service organization – it goes against everything democracy stands for; having said that, any true democracy in its right mind has got to have such an organization to protect it.  Without it, our enemies will have a ball.

So how exactly does one balance security and democracy? Not an easy act that’s for sure.  Tim Weiner’s book relies heavily on archives opened in 2005 and revealing what has happened 30 years ago.  I guess we need to wait an additional 30 years to have some insight into how well this balancing act took place during our lives.

HBS rating: Must Read

Who should read? 

• Politics, current affairs, US politics and its consequences lovers 
• Recent history, first person account
• Adventurers and rebelles willing to fight, loose and win for their believes
• Those who read the news, and yet, somehow felt there is a different story that needs to be told.

On a recent business trip I ended up in Washington D.C.  My schedule was pretty packed with meetings and presentations, but I did manage to have a look around.  Being a first time tourist there, I ended up in most of the usual spots.  White house, space museum, Washington’s monument.. From all the places I have seen three grabbed me the most: on top of the list is the room in which President Lincoln died.  I will refer to this more when I will review James L. Swanson’s book “Man hunt: the 12 day chase for Lincoln’s killer”. 

The other two were the second world war memorial, and with a very strong contrast, the Vietnam war memorial.  Looking at both you have got to appreciate the perceptive difference between the two.  I spent my university years as an industrial design student.  I am happily married to Tsofit, an architect I have met while in school.  Our background has taught us that shape and form tell a story.  You look at a painting, sculpture, building or car and they all tell you a story by the way they are outlined, shaped, the materials they are made out of.  This of course is even more expressive in monuments whose sole purpose in life is to commemorate and honor historical events.

The second world war memorial, is very impersonal.   Its an all in all mixed menu.  All the states are represented there, powerful motto’s are inscribed in stone, huge pillars surround an inner pool and fountains.  At night mystical lights intensify the impact of the structure.  At least for me, walking through the mega structure, I missed something on the personal level.  Something that will link me to those who fought and gave their lives for the cause dramatized by this monument.  Maybe the way this monument was designed has to do with the outcome of the war and the time when it was designed.  Sitting in the axis of Lincoln’s memorial and Washington’s pillar, it kind of fits in size.

A short walk away is situated the Vietnam memorial.  A completely different expression to war and its outcome.  The famous marble walls with the names of the soldiers who fought and died away from home, takes any visitor to the most intimate and personal level possible.  Walking through the  Second World War memorial, you almost get a sense of a glorified war.  None of that exists in the Vietnam memorial.  Over here the harsh reality of war, the bottom line, end result of war, tragedy, is very well expressed.

Kevin Site’s book “In the hot zone” leans much closer to the Vietnam war memorial experience then the WWII structure. 

A bit of background:  Kevin was working as a freelance correspondent for NBC in Iraq.  Probably because of his urge to be where the action is he ended up shooting his own stories.  Other reports or camera man refused to join him in the line of fire.  At one point he videotaped five Iraqi insurgents captured alive and kept in a masque in the city of Fallujah.  The next day, returning to the same mosque, he videotaped a Marine soldier shooting the captives.  Read the book for more details on how this  TRUE STORY unfolds.

For Kevin this incident was a life changing event.  Instead of backing him up, NBC seemed to shy away from the uncomfortable truth his video revealed.  Through mutual friends Kevin made contact with Yahoo! And became their first real reporter.  It turns out that all the news we read at Yahoo! Is basically collected elsewhere; no original news work.  The idea Kevin pitched was to travel to all of the current conflict zones around the world and report live from there.  A kind of a war blog/video web site.  You can actually log on to http://hotzone.yahoo.com/   to see his work. 

Kevin spent more then a year traveling to spots none of us have on their vacation wish list: Somalia, Congo, Uganda, Kashmir, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iraq, Iran and more..  This of course made his work even more challenging.  Forget the stress and fatigue of so much travel (Last year I took 60 flights and stayed at relatively comfortable hotels.  Kevin did the same, but where ever he landed he was getting shot at).  The challenge Kevin set to himself was to reveal the personal intimate story behind each conflict, and not the generic plastic typical story other news networks tell us.

His approach to revealing these stories is quite interesting.  Using his team in the US he got in touch with non profit, volunteer organizations working in each zone.  These people, to which he refers as his “fixers” where able to quickly get him in front of the people behind the news.  Soldiers, victims, children, aggressors  and innocent everyday people who got caught in the conflict.

And the stories are hard.  Actually, it seems that if you were to categorize the atrocities of war, what nations do to themselves would top the list.  Two separate countries fighting, it seems, would never have the nerve to hurt one another in the same way people of the same nation do.

Going back to the WWII memorial VS the Vietnam memorial, I think what Kevin has done in his book is the equivalent of  etching the names of the Vietnam dead on stone.  Out of big and basically meaningless names such as Somalia, Chechnya or Afghanistan he pulls out personal stories that tell the truth about war—its evil. 

Think of all the countries you travelled to.  How many have war memorial and museums and how many have peace museums or memorials?

As long as we keep glorifying war and shying away from telling the real stories of what war is all about let us not be surprised if we find ourselves mobilizing our troops again and again.

Kevin’s book scores must read on my charts because it is very well written, and because  it fills an important knowledge gap for many of us.  Kevin refers to this as the “Wealth of information and poverty  of knowledge”.   We all have access to what ever bit of information we desire, but actually do no spend the time, or lack the motivation to know.

If it wasn’t such a life threatening task I would have urged Kevin to keep on traveling to hot zones and write his second book.  Assuming he will not, I urge you all to read his book.