It was no cure for a chronic American weakness: secrecy and deception were not our strengths.

But the blueprint for the agency was a hasty sketch. The CIA was supposed to become that system. It never has had and does not now have a coordinated intelligence system.' Tragically, it still does not have one. 'Prior to the present war, the United States had no foreign secret intelligence service. Donovan, the commander of the wartime Office of Strategic Services, warned President Truman in August 1945. 'All major powers except the United States have had for a long time past permanent worldwide intelligence services, reporting directly to the highest echelons of their Government,' General William J. A mad rush to demobilize left behind a few hundred men who had a few years' experience in the world of secrets and the will to go on fighting a new enemy. The United States had no intelligence to speak of when World War II began, and next to none a few weeks after the war ended. The one crime of lasting consequence has been the CIA's inability to carry out its central mission: informing the president of what is happening in the world. They have proved fatal for legions of American soldiers and foreign agents some three thousand Americans who died in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania on Septemand three thousand more who have died since then in Iraq and Afghanistan. The agency's triumphs have saved some blood and treasure. They are marked by political battles and power struggles at home. They are replete with fleeting successes and long–lasting failures abroad. History, Edward Gibbon wrote in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, is 'little more than the register of crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.' The annals of the Central Intelligence Agency are filled with folly and misfortune, along with acts of bravery and cunning. But throughout its history as a superpower, the United States has not had such a service. Without a strong, smart, sharp intelligence service, presidents and generals alike can become blind and crippled. Eisenhower called it 'a distasteful but vital necessity.' A nation that wants to project its power beyond its borders needs to see over the horizon, to know what is coming, to prevent attacks against its people. Intelligence is secret action aimed at understanding or changing what goes on abroad. That failure constitutes a danger to the national security of the United States.

It describes how the most powerful country in the history of Western civilization has failed to create a first-rate spy service. Legacy of Ashes is the record of the first sixty years of the Central Intelligence Agency. Read more about this selection and other winners. The following is an excerpt from the winner of the 2007 National Book Award for nonfiction.

Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner