Intelligence and the Presidency - WIth John Hedley

SpyCast

Education, News, History

4.4 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 6 April 2021

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Continuing our journey through SpyCast’s greatest hits enroute to our relaunch, we arrive on a topic of perennial interest and great importance: intelligence and the US presidency. Just how is information from the intelligence community (IC) conveyed to the president? How have different administrations incorporated intelligence into the political decision-making process? This blast from the past features John Hedley, former CIA officer and editor of the President’s Daily Brief (PDB), who reviews the relationship between the IC and presidents since World War II, in the course revealing fascinating episodes from his personal experience in dealing with several administrations and multiple presidents.

Transcript

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1:09.0	I guess today is John Headley.
1:11.0	John is a career officer at CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency, spent some 34 years there.
1:18.0	He was a career officer in the Directorate of Intelligence.
1:22.0	That is, they are the analysts that make up the analytical body of the agency.
1:28.0	They are many of them, almost all of them have master's degrees, many have PhDs.
1:34.0	They could easily staff a small university today.
1:37.0	They are a very highly accomplished group of people.
1:40.0	Since the inception of CI in 1947, they have provided what is called or source intelligence
1:47.0	to the policymakers, policymakers being the president, joint chiefs of staff and so forth.
1:52.0	I'm sure John will go into more detail.
1:55.0	Today we want to talk to John, who had a very broad experience in the DI, served overseas,
2:00.0	and was actually the chief of the staff that produces the president's daily brief.
2:07.0	That is sometimes referred to as the PDB.
2:11.0	It is not shared with the public.
2:13.0	I believe there was an excerpt made available to the public at the time of the Iraq War,
	...

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