US News & World Report’s Kevin Whitelaw writes that the The Central Intelligence Agency issued a rare public defense of its record in response to a recently published–and resoundingly harsh – history of the secretive intelligence agency. The statement blasted LEGACY OF ASHES, written by veteran New York Times reporter Tim Weiner, for ignoring the CIA’s successes and containing numerous errors further claiming the book “paints far too dark a picture of the agency’s past.” The statement added, “Backed by selective citations, sweeping assertions, and a fascination with the negative, Weiner overlooks, minimizes, or distorts agency achievements.”
The statement goes on to outline, point by point, some of the book’s perceived inaccuracies (which I can’t help but feel is the CIA being overly nitpicky) and then gets really shrill at the statement’s end: “With a strong range of sources, Tim Weiner had an opportunity to write a balanced history of a complex, important subject. But he did not. His bias overwhelms his scholarship.”
