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颱瞭，蒂姆•韋納將難辭其咎！

 《紐約時報》資深記者

 1988年及2002年度普利策奬得主

 國際暢銷書作傢

蒂姆•韋納鑽研美國情報20多年，曾因對五角大樓神秘經費的報道而榮獲普利策奬，也為調查CIA秘密作戰行動遍訪阿富汗、伊拉剋等國，因對阿富汗戰爭的報道再次獲得該奬。

《中情局罪與罰》是他的第三本著作。本書在寫作過程中即備受關注，齣版後被《紐約時報》、《華爾街日報》、《華盛頓郵報》、《洛杉磯時報》、《波士頓環球》等主流媒體廣為報道，好評如潮，美國政府有關部門對本書“愛恨交加”。