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.
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.
An absorbing, informative portrait of an embattled organization that is facing formidable challenges abroad and at home ... Fascinating ... Weiner is good at exploring spying’s psychological toll ... Knowing that they’ll be named, some of his sources speak in bloodless, extremely careful terms. This makes for some sluggish passages, but it’s better than not having those voices in the book at all.
Weiner is clear in his condemnation...but inclined to give the CIA the benefit of the doubt ... The book contains many essential new details ... There are all sorts of...important and fascinating revelations
... This is a journalist’s book, and bears the marks of it. But no one has opened up the CIA to us like Weiner has, and The Mission deserves to win Weiner a second Pulitzer.
A riveting account ... How Weiner persuaded so many people to talk on the record is a journalistic feat that should make this book impossible to dismiss ... If The Mission has a fault, it’s that it is light on prescription.
Weiner captures the mood of dread that gripped Washington in the aftermath of September 11th ... The story of the C.I.A. that Weiner tells in The Mission closely resembles the one he told in Legacy of Ashes.
The Mission is a masterwork of storytelling, giving a human face to a secretive institution and chronicling American foreign policy in a lively, detailed package that is accessible for a wide range of readers.
A singular triumph—an intimate chronicle of the CIA ... This masterful new history should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand the CIA’s place in U.S. foreign policy in the 21st century ... Weiner...describes the CIA’s role, often in astonishing detail ... A balanced and nuanced account.
