Tim Weiner
American journalist
Tim Weiner (born June 20, 1956) is an American reporter and author. He is the author of six books and co-author of a seventh, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award.
Early life and education
Weiner was born June 20, 1956, to a Jewish family in White Plains, New York. His parents, Dora Weiner and Herbert Weiner, were both professors.
Weiner graduated from Columbia University in 1978 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history, and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979.
Career
Weiner was a Washington correspondent for The Philadelphia Inquirer from 1982 to 1992, and then worked for The New York Times, from 1993 to 2009, as a foreign correspondent in Mexico, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan, and as a national security correspondent in Washington, DC.
Weiner won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, as an investigative reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer, for his articles on the hidden "black budget" spending at the Pentagon and the CIA. His book Blank Check: The Pentagon's Black Budget is based on that newspaper series.
He won the National Book Award in Nonfiction for his 2007 book Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.
In 2012, Weiner published Enemies: A History of the FBI, which traces the history of the FBI's secret intelligence operations, from the bureau's creation in the early 20th century through its ongoing role in the war on terrorism.
Weiner's 2020 book, The Folly and the Glory: America, Russia, and Political Warfare, 1945–2020, delves into many aspects, largely covert, of the Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union (and its successor state, Russia). Two episodes given special attention are the CIA's role in the murder of Patrice Lumumba and U.S. support for Joseph Mobutu's kleptocracy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 1960s; and Ronald Reagan's encounter with Pope John Paul II, which led to a covert program to support the Solidarity movement in Poland in the 1980s. The book received largely favorable reviews in both the New York Times and the Washington Post, with reviewer Timothy Naftali noting that "Weiner is especially adept at unearthing and explaining the covert side of it all."
In 2025, Weiner published The Mission: the CIA in the 21st Century.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Tim Weiner” as american journalist. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american journalist. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1239474. VIAF identifies the subject as 79116594. The Library of Congress control number is n90625385. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1956, 1978, 1979 and 1982.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Tim Weiner”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Tim Weiner primary sources, Tim Weiner archive and Weiner research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Tim Weiner”?
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- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Tim Weiner” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.