La historia de la CIA, del 11-S a la actualidad. El periodista ganador del Pulitzer retoma su investigaci鏮 sobre el servicio de inteligencia m嫳 famoso del mundo. «Escalofriante. Un testimonio documental crucial de la actualidad . --
Publishers Weekly A principios de siglo, la CIA estaba en crisis. Tras el final de la Guerra Fr燰 se hab燰 quedado sin una misi鏮 clara. M嫳 de treinta bases y centros de operaciones en el extranjero hab燰n cerrado, y los que quedaban hab燰n sufrido graves recortes. En los albores de la era de la informaci鏮 y de la revoluci鏮 digital sus oficiales y analistas trabajaban con tecnolog燰 anticuada, esforz嫕dose por distinguir qu?se鎙les eran significativas entre la cacofon燰 causada por el ruido que invad燰 el mundo.
Entonces lleg?el 11 de septiembre de 2001. Tras los atentados, la CIA se transform?en una letal fuerza paramilitar responsable de prisiones secretas, dur疄imos interrogatorios y mort璗eros ataques con aviones no tripulados, todo muy lejos de sus misiones tradicionales de espionaje y contraespionaje. Las consecuencias fueron terribles: la muerte de decenas de agentes, el robo de archivos por esp燰s chinos, la infiltraci鏮 de la inteligencia rusa y de hackers estadounidenses en sus redes inform嫢icas y las tragedias de Afganist嫕 e Irak. Ahora, una nueva generaci鏮 de esp燰s debe afrontar objetivos a m嫳 dif獳iles --Mosc? Pek璯, Teher嫕-- al tiempo que se defiende de un presidente decidido a atacar y acusar de forma persistente a la Agencia: Donald Trump.
Tim Weiner, ganador del Premio Pulitzer y del National Book Award, retoma su apasionante historia de la CIA para contarnos qu?ocurri?durante el primer cuarto del siglo XXI en las entretelas de la lucha interna por reconstruir su identidad despu廥 de varios desastres consecutivos. Este combate ha tenido y tiene consecuencias directas en el destino de Estados Unidos y del mundo entero, y pasa por recobrar el sentido de la misi鏮 original sobre la cual se ciment?la CIA: conocer y radiografiar al enemigo.
La misi鏮 es una obra maestra del reportaje period疄tico, fruto de un riguroso an嫮isis y de entrevistas exclusivas con seis exdirectores de la CIA, trece jefes de base y decenas de esp燰s de alto nivel, testimonios que nunca hab燰n hablado con ning escritor.
ENGLISH DESCRIPTION New York Times Bestseller * A New Yorker Best Book of 2025 * A New York Times Editors' Choice "No one has opened up the CIA to us like Weiner has, and The Mission deserves to win Weiner a second Pulitzer." --The Guardian A masterpiece of reporting based on-the-record interviews with six former CIA directors and scores of spies, station chiefs, and top operations officers: The Mission is a gripping and revelatory history of the modern CIA, reaching from 9/11 through its covert operations in Afghanistan and Iraq to today's secret battles with Russia and China, concluding with the Agency's own fight for survival under the current president of the United States . Tim Weiner's epic successor to Legacy of Ashes, his National Book Award-winning classic about the CIA's first sixty years. At the turn of the century, the Central Intelligence Agency was in crisis. The end of the Cold War had robbed the agency of its mission. More than thirty overseas stations and bases had been shuttered, and scores that remained had been severely cut back. Many countries where surveillance was once deemed crucial went uncovered. Essential intelligence wasn't being collected. At the dawn of the information age, the CIA's officers and analysts worked with outmoded technology, struggling to distinguish the clear signals of significant facts from the cacophony of background noise.
Then came September 11th, 2001. After the attacks, the CIA transformed itself into a lethal paramilitary force, running secret prisons and brutal interrogations, mounting deadly drone attacks, and all but abandoning its core missions of espionage and counterespionage. The consequences were grave: the deaths of scores of its recruited foreign agents, the theft of its personnel files by Chinese spies, the penetration of its computer networks by Russian intelligence and American hackers, and the tragedies of Afghanistan and Iraq. A new generation of spies now must fight the hardest targets--Moscow, Beijing, Tehran--while confronting a president who has attacked the CIA as a subversive force.
From Pulitzer Prize winner Tim Weiner,
The Mission tells the gripping, high-stakes story of the CIA through the first quarter of the twenty-first century, revealing how the agency fought to rebuild the espionage powers it lost during the war on terror--and finally succeeded in penetrating the Kremlin. The struggle has life-and-death consequences for America and its allies. The CIA must reclaim its original mission: know thy enemies. The fate of the free world hangs in the balance.
A masterpiece of reporting,
The Mission includes exclusive on-the-record interviews with six former CIA directors, the top spymaster, thirteen station chiefs, and scores of top operations officers who served undercover for decades and have never spoken to a journalist before.
