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.