Readers in this space know of my esteem for Edward Jay Epstein , a quirky but big intelligence eager to grasp the details of some long-forgotten tales. He has made himself an expert on American intelligence and so has an instinct for what is true and false in and about the CIA. But, of course, his views are not simply molded out of instinct. He is an obsessed and resilient researcher, more obsessed and resilient than others who specialize in these often shadowy stories. I've never known anyone who has the history of the CIA (and the OSS before it, plus the FBI besides)so clearly in his head. Here is Epsein's review of Tim Weiner's Legacy of Ashes. He disagrees strongly with Weiner about the most persistent and dogged man in the CIA, James Jesus Angleton, poet, raiser of orchids (see Aaron Latham's fascinating but wrong-headed novel, Orchids for Mother, not available at Powell's but at Amazon), fisherman, and spook. I, too, disagree with Weiner about Angleton, and I have yet to tell anyone about my encounters with Angleton over what he called "a Soviet plant at The New Republic." Weiner's book is, as I found out, really quite masterful. But, then, Epstein knows more about the Agency than I do. Trust him.