The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century
Exhaustive and prodigiously researched, but also curiously ungainly ... For all his book’s breadth and timeliness, Weiner seems to have given scant thought to guiding his readers through the labyrinth. One questionable choice was to tell his tale largely chronologically ... Amid an unending onslaught of new names and situations, the reader is granted few clues as to who or what will prove important later ... One effect of this surfeit of detail is that The Mission begins to feel quite insiderish ... Simultaneously illuminating and saddening ... Poignant ... Weiner’s warnings about the peril facing both the C.I.A. and the United States seem prophetic.
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A better indicator of future events than the words of politicians ... Illuminates the moral and legal grey zone of the United States’s most famous clandestine organisation ... A fascinating account informed by scores of interviews.
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[Weiner's] stories of danger, courage and — not infrequently — pure folly will keep readers turning briskly through these pages ... His portrait of utter dysfunction during President George W. Bush’s administration is particularly powerful ... What Weiner doesn’t do here and elsewhere in the book is step back and give us a wider picture of what was going on at this moment ... Another highlight of Weiner’s work is his description of the negotiations between Trump and the Taliban.
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