legacy of ashes - that history of cia book by the guy who wrote the ames book - who else read(ing) this?

starts off hilarious then turns disgusting and then sad and by the point i'm at now (reagan) it's been a loop of minor successes punctuating one big fuckup, w/ even those successes eventually leading to failure. who else read this - soto? tombot?

anyhow impressions - truman comes off well, ike and lbj i'm sympathetic to even if they facilitate bungles as big as any, kennedy and reagan are disturbingly similar - guys who are more enthusiastic about the cia and in particular covert ops basically cuz they've seen too many movies/read too many james bond books (kennedy does come off better than reagan, much indeed most of the wickedness there, and on into lbj since alot of lbj's actions were rooted in paranoia about being outflanked, can be laid at rfk's feet)(also any notion that the cia knocked off jfk is kinda insanely hilarious on motivation alone - they LOVED each other), nixon/kissinger have some sort of weird 'so evil they go around and end up good again' thing with the cia - weirdly, deeply unintentional reformist, carter comes off shockingly well even if after several hundred pages of ugly cloak and dagger it's total WHAT when his not completely naive idealism comes in - let's use the cia to...fight apartheid! o and he kinda won the cold war - who knew?

anyhow who else read this? having read a few other post-wwii histories lately this provides a weird counterpoint of 'o so that's why this happened'.

I started to read this, but didn't finish it before it was due.

the author does make one pointed note that during the long long long planning for what eventually becomes bay of pigs they never think to seriously consult, be honest with, listen to, or even solicit the advice of ike, who, nevermind being their boss, did know a thing or two about yknow planning a secret invasion.

i just started reading this! no real thoughts yet but it's pretty readable.