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|title=Legacy of Ashes

|author=Tim Weiner

|buy=Yes

|borrow=Yes

|pages=704

|publisher=Allen Lane

|isbn=978-1846140464

}}

After the Second World War it became obvious that America was in dire need of an intelligence system which would gather information, analyse it and feed it to government and primarily to the President. The Central Intelligence Agency, founded in 1947 by President Harry S. Truman, was supposed to be that system but in the intervening sixty years it has failed to live up to its purpose.

For another in-depth look at recent American history you might enjoy [[The Brothers]] by David Talbot although you might wonder why the theories advanced in Talbot's book about possible CIA involvement in Jack Kennedy's death don't feature in the Weiner book.

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