Detour - Book Review

For all the Woodville UMC readers out there, I'm going to take a quick detour here from the Mark study to mention a few things about a book I just finished reading. Legacy of Ashes: The Secret History of the CIA is a thrilling, frightening, sobering book. This 514 page volume is a chronicle of the CIA from its inception just after the conclusion of World War II, through the Cold War to 9/11 and ending at the reorganization of national intelligence services in 2004-2005. This book won the Pulitzer Prize and its easy to see why. The scope of his sources is amazing, yes because of who they are (all the living former directors, including fmr. President Bush, scores of assistant directors and field agents) but more amazing because they are all "on the record." He has not a single anonymous source cited in this book. They are all on the record interviews and open archival records released under the US Freedom of Information Act or records that were set to be released in a certain year anyway. A couple of observations:
1- Democracy as we know it in the US is a precious and messy thing. The CIA's mission is essentially to gather and analyze information for use to protect the US and its interests. Under this mission, the CIA has engaged in activities and support of activities that are inspiring in many cases, daring to be sure, and illegal and immoral in others. Many of these directors admit all of this on the record in this book and given some of the events described and verified in the book, I agree.
2- There is lots of gray in the world. Attempts to paint a black and white picture of American moral superiority and the "others" as morally inferior is uninformed, arrogant and sinful. Leaders around the world including our own of every political and ideological stripe, are mixed bags. They make hard, life impacting decisions no doubt. The same leader will at times be quite courageous and in another instance cowardly. In one instance make decisions driven by the morality one would hope for and in another instance authorize some of the most heinous behavior one could think of.
In short, they are like any of us - we are a mix. The major mistake we can make is be either completely cynical about our country and its leaders or in complete denial about our own fallibility.
The book was a real page turner but there were lots of pages to turn. I look forward to reading something shorter next.