The President's Book of Secrets: The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America's Presidents

by David Priess, George H. W. Bush (Foreword by)

Overview

Every president has had a unique and complicated relationship with the intelligence community. While some have been coolly distant, even adversarial, others have found their intelligence agencies to be among the most valuable instruments of policy and power.

Since John F. Kennedy's presidency, this relationship has been distilled into a personalized daily report: a short summary of what the intelligence apparatus considers the most crucial information for the president to know that day about global threats and opportunities. This top-secret document is known as the President's Daily Brief, or, within national security circles, simply "the Book." Presidents have spent anywhere from a few moments (Richard Nixon) to a healthy part of their day (George W. Bush) consumed by its contents; some (Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush) consider it far and away the most important document they saw on a regular basis while commander in chief.

The details of most PDBs are highly classified, and will remain so for many years. But the process by which the intelligence community develops and presents the Book is a fascinating look into the operation of power at the highest levels. David Priess, a former intelligence officer and daily briefer, has interviewed every living president and vice president as well as more than one hundred others intimately involved with the production and delivery of the president's book of secrets. He offers an unprecedented window into the decision making of every president from Kennedy to Obama, with many character-rich stories revealed here for the first time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610397698
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	02/28/2017
Edition description:	First Trade Paper Edition
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	120,923
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Dr. David Priess is Publisher of Lawfare, Chief Operating Officer of the Lawfare Institute, and co-host of the Chatter podcast. He concurrently works as a visiting professor at George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government and a senior fellow at the Schar School's Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security. Priess, who has a PhD in political science from Duke University, served at the CIA as an intelligence officer, a manager, and a daily intelligence briefer during the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. He is the author of two books, The President’s Book of Secrets and How to Get Rid of a President. He has appeared often in national media like CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and NPR to discuss the presidency, national security, and intelligence issues and has written on the same topics for many national publications.

Table of Contents

Foreword George H. W. Bush vii

Preface Top Secret Delivery xi

Chapter 1 Before the Book 1

Chapter 2 For the President's Eyes Only 15

Chapter 3 The Birth of the Book 37

Chapter 4 Out in the Cold 59

Chapter 5 Face-to-Face 85

Chapter 6 Plains and Simple 105

Chapter 7 Write One for the Gipper 129

Chapter 8 The Spymaster President 165

Chapter 9 Ebb and Flow 191

Chapter 10 "The Good Stuff" 223

Chapter 11 Under Investigation 253

Chapter 12 The PDB, Today and Tomorrow 273

Acknowledgments 291

Notes 295

Index 369

Editorial Reviews

"In The President's Book of Secrets, David Priess succeeds in lifting up the curtain on the personalities behind national security and how the government's leading analysts bend to those characters to fulfill their duty."—Charged Affair

"[Priess] deftly sketches the evolution of this daily intelligence digest, along with the twists and turns of policy, personalities and power plays...Anyone interested in how decisions get made by the most powerful person in the most powerful country in the world will relish the details in The President's Book of Secrets."—Wall Street Journal

"David Priess, a CIA officer who served as a daily intelligence briefer during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, has written a thoroughly engaging account of how 'The Book,' as it is known in Agency parlance, came into existence, and how presidents used (or ignored) it."—The Washington Times

"David Priess, a former CIA officer, has lifted the veil on the process and substance of creating the PDB in his readable and well-researched volume, The President's Book of Secrets...providing insights not only into modern American presidents and their approaches to working with intelligence products but also the attitudes of senior officials to the products. Those insights are an interesting addition to the historical record on U.S. foreign policy."—Jack Caravelli, The Washington Free Beacon

"An important addition to the body of academic works on national security. It offers a unique look into the people and processes that impacted and continue to shape the course of history. In lifting the veil, Priess gives readers not just a close look at a key product that influences the choices of those in the White House, but the inner workings of government itself."—Proceedings

"An authoritative yet easily read book about an important part of the president's daily routine. [Priess] has successfully enlivened the work with myriad first-person accounts from former presidents down to the folks who have written the PDB articles. A CIA review of the manuscript ensured that classified material was not included, but Priess gives the reader plenty of substance to go with details of the process. As a result, The President's Book of Secrets offers a previously untold story about one of those closely guarded, 'eyes-only' facets of the intelligence world."—Michael K. Bohn, Tribune News Service

"A welcome change of pace from the traditional spy yarn or tell-all books that dominate the intelligence literature today. Priess' work makes an invaluable contribution to the study of intelligence, which no library on national security is complete without...Priess's prose is highly readable, fast paced, more interesting and even suspenseful than many readers might expect when given a story about analysts doing their work. Priess is an exceptional raconteur, and his style makes characters come alive on the page."—The Cipher Brief

"At times as entertaining as it is informative, Priess' book is neither a dry academic exercise nor a sensational tell-all expose, but is instead a thoughtful and revealing peek behind the scenes of what goes on between the President and the keepers of the nation's secrets."—Mark McLaughlin, DC Examiner

"This volume provides greater understanding of how presidents' minds operate and dissect information. It also humanizes their decisions by detailing the intricacies of how the PDB is handled. With the September 2015 release of the Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson PDBs, this publication is timely...Recommended for those interested in a different perspective on the U.S. presidency, political scientists, and historians."—Library Journal, starred review

"Turns the potentially dour history of the president's daily intelligence briefing into a stimulating, if uncritical, account... Readers accustomed to CIA skullduggery will be surprised to find it admiringly portrayed as an organization of experts devoted to delivering unbiased information to a grateful president."—Publisher's Weekly

"A fascinating look into the operation of power at the highest levels with many character-rich stories."—Kentucky Forward

From the Publisher

01/11/2016
Priess, a former CIA intelligence officer, turns the potentially dour history of the president’s daily intelligence briefing into a stimulating, if uncritical, account. Every day, a CIA officer travels to the White House to deliver a top-secret summary of international events. The practice was initiated under President Truman when the CIA first circulated a “Current Intelligence Bulletin.” It wasn’t highly regarded, according to Priess, but Eisenhower would still read it. Kennedy preferred to get his news from the press; in response, CIA officials produced a shorter document that held his attention. Lyndon Johnson ignored it, so it was trimmed further to just a few pages and renamed the president’s daily brief. Johnson approved. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Nixon preferred to learn about the world through Henry Kissinger. Presidential successors from Ford onward have taken the document more or less seriously. Readers accustomed to CIA skullduggery will be surprised to find it admiringly portrayed as an organization of experts devoted to delivering unbiased information to a grateful president. Priess notes with regret that the briefing has failed to predict several crises, but dismisses critics who maintain that some presidents pressured the agency to slant evidence in favor of presidential policies. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 02/01/2016
The U.S. president is tasked with making calculated decisions about international policy. As Priess, a former intelligence officer, divulges here, these decisions are often assisted by consulting the "President's Daily Brief" (PDB). The PDB is a succinct roundup of pressing issues facing American foreign policy. Priess's book is not a history of the material contained within these documents, but rather an investigation into how John F. Kennedy through Barack Obama consumed and disseminated the PDB. This may disappoint those who want to find out about American clandestine operations. However, this volume provides greater understanding of how presidents' minds operate and dissect information. It also humanizes their decisions by detailing the intricacies of how the PDB is handled. With the September 2015 release of the Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson PDBs, this publication is timely. If paired with Ivo H. Daalder and I.M. Destler's In the Shadow of the Oval Office, one may come to recognize how foreign policy is created within the executive branch. VERDICT Recommended for those interested in a different perspective on the U.S. presidency, political scientists, and historians.—Jacob Sherman, John Peace Lib., Univ. of Texas at San Antonio

Library Journal

2015-11-18
A history of the president's secret daily national security summary. Since the John F. Kennedy administration, the CIA has produced a daily summary of news and analysis for review by the president and a handful of senior officials. The President's Daily Brief, known colloquially as "the book," is classified top secret and contains nearly up-to-the-minute intelligence from human agents, electronic intercepts, and other sources. Former CIA intelligence officer Priess interviewed more than 100 former senior U.S. policymakers and intelligence officials to produce this history of the PDB, describing its formats, production process, distribution, and daily presentation to the president over the course of half a century. Presidents have responded to the PDB with varying degrees of enthusiasm; Richard Nixon distrusted the CIA and often ignored it, while George H.W. Bush, a former director of Central Intelligence, devoured it every morning in the company of at least one agency briefer. Barack Obama gets his on an iPad, a change in format that permits near real-time updates and hyperlinks to more thorough analysis. Despite his extensive research and clear prose, Priess is disadvantaged by a serious limitation. Because the contents of the PDB are classified, he can't discuss any of them. As a result, while he lays out in considerable detail how the book has been assembled, who saw it, whether the president preferred an accompanying briefing or read it alone, and so forth, Priess is not permitted to explain how or why the PDB ever made any difference to anyone. Readers hoping to gain insight into how CIA briefings have affected specific national security decisions will be disappointed; the president's book retains its secrets. The author is also loath to criticize any of the book's first customers, even when their overextensive circulation of the book jeopardized its integrity or when they scorned it altogether. The CIA may value this deferential piece of institutional history, but civilian readers will learn little of interest from it.

Kirkus Reviews