For the last sixty years, the CIA has managed to maintain a formidable reputation in spite of its terrible record, burying its blunders in top-secret archives. Its mission was to know the world. When it did not succeed, it set out to change the world. Its failures have handed us, in the words of President Eisenhower, “a legacy of ashes.”

Now Pulitzer Prize–winning author Tim Weiner offers the first definitive history of the CIA—and everything is on the record. LEGACY OF ASHES is based on more than 50,000 documents, primarily from the archives of the CIA itself, and hundreds of interviews with CIA veterans, including ten Directors of Central Intelligence. It takes the CIA from its creation after World War II, through its battles in the cold war and the war on terror, to its near-collapse after 9/ll.

Tim Weiner’s past work on the CIA and American intelligence was hailed as “impressively reported” and “immensely entertaining” in The New York Times.

The Wall Street Journal called it “truly extraordinary . . . the best book ever written on a case of espionage.” Here is the hidden history of the CIA: why eleven presidents and three generations of CIA officers have been unable to understand the world; why nearly every CIA director has left the agency in worse shape than he found it; and how these failures have profoundly jeopardized our national security.

如果有一天中情局倒台了，蒂姆•韦纳将难辞其咎！

 《纽约时报》资深记者

 1988年及2002年度普利策奖得主

 国际畅销书作家

蒂姆•韦纳钻研美国情报20多年，曾因对五角大楼神秘经费的报道而荣获普利策奖，也为调查CIA秘密作战行动遍访阿富汗、伊拉克等国，因对阿富汗战争的报道再次获得该奖。

《中情局罪与罚》是他的第三本著作。本书在写作过程中即备受关注，出版后被《纽约时报》、《华尔街日报》、《华盛顿邮报》、《洛杉矶时报》、《波士顿环球》等主流媒体广为报道，好评如潮，美国政府有关部门对本书“爱恨交加”。