CIA Blasts Weiner’s Ashes

By Rachel Deahl -- Publishers Weekly, 8/7/2007 2:31:00 PM

Tim Weiner’s CIA history, Legacy of Ashes, may have just gotten a second coincidental publicity push from the government agency it chronicles and criticizes. After the release date of Weiner’s book, published by Doubleday, was bumped up from June 28 to August 7—to coincide with the CIA’s declassification of numerous secret records—the CIA has, as U.S. News & World Report reported, blasted the book in a press release.

In a detailed document, released Monday (the day before the book’s official on-sale date), that lists a number of so-called inaccuracies, the CIA claimed the book paints, “far too dark a picture of the agency’s past” that “overlooks, minimizes, or distorts agency achievements.”

Nicole Dewey at Doubleday said that while the publisher has no official response to the CIA’s comments, the book speaks for itself. “Leading journalists and historians that cover the CIA, and have for years, have given the book rave reviews,” she said. “It’s the definitive history of the CIA.”