The book received a polarized reception depending on the audience:
Tim Weiner's Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA is a National Book Award-winning chronicle that portrays the agency’s 60-year history as a series of profound failures that have jeopardized American national security. Legacy of ashes : the history of the CIA
The book posits that the agency became obsessed with "secret warfare" (coups, assassinations, and sabotage) at the expense of patient espionage and analysis. The book received a polarized reception depending on
Weiner argues the CIA has consistently failed its primary mission: informing the President about the world. He highlights major intelligence misses, including the Soviet atomic bomb (1949), the invasion of South Korea (1950), and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union (1989).