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

SpyCast

Education, News, History

4.4 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 12 April 2016

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

SPY Executive Director Peter Earnest sat down with former CIA intelligence officer, manager, and daily intelligence briefer David Priess to discuss his new book centered on the President’s Daily Brief (PDB). Every living former President and Vice President, along with most former CIA Directors, Secretaries of State and Defense, National Security Advisors, White House Chiefs of Staff, and senior intelligence leaders, shared with Priess their personal stories about the PDB. And by digging through both the extensive files of the Presidential libraries and millions of pages of declassified CIA raw intelligence reports, analytic assessments, and memos—Priess emerges with a unique—and fascinating—look into the most tightly controlled document in modern world. Buy The President's Book of Secrets from the Spy Museum Store

Transcript

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1:51.3	So again, it'll be about what's called the Presidential Daily Brief and David will explain
1:56.4	to us exactly what that is, but the Presidential Daily Brief going back to my days in the agency was something you barely talked about.
2:05.8	It was a very secret document that went only to the president and those of us who were in operations and so forth knew very little about it.
2:15.0	And so my first question to you is, what led you to write about a subject so arcane that you might not even be able to see copies of it.
2:24.0	Sure, it struck me as odd that here's this daily document going to the President of the United States
2:30.0	across decades that is talked about in their memoirs that they mention when they give
2:34.5	press conferences and yet within the intelligence community the feeling is
	...

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