Miller Center Forum: History of the CIA

Tim Weiner, author of Legacy of Ashes: the History of the CIA spoke at the Uva’s Miller Center on October 12 (video link) (This fifty seven minute video is well worth the time.) Weiner, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the New York Times, has covered the American intelligence community for two decades. In researching his new book, he conducted on-the-record interviews with ten Directors of Central Intelligence, examined more than 50,000 documents (many of them declassified in the past five years), and drew upon more than 2,000 oral histories of American diplomats, spies, and presidential aides.”

He started out by quoting the CIA motto “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” This motto is quoted out of context. Not that I know how the CIA could live up to this biblical quote.

Weiner stated that CIA directors often lied to their presidents, damaging the Kennedy and Reagan in particular. Ethics has to start at the top