What Does the President Need to Know?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 6 October 2015
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The CIA has just released 2,500 top secret presidential briefings from the 1960s. The President’s Daily Brief – or PDB – is the US intelligence agencies’ best assessment of global threats, delivered directly to the president every morning. The CIA’s director, John Brennan, has described the PDB as “among the most sensitive and classified documents in all of our government”.
The decision to release some PDBs, even documents relating to events many decades ago, was not taken lightly. And, the briefings highlight an almost impossible dilemma – one still faced today by every Director of National Intelligence - what should, and should not, be said? The president cannot absorb everything - there has to be a choice. We explore the relationship between the intelligence, the advisers and the president. What does the president need to know?
(Photo: President Lyndon B. Johnson (seated, foreground) working with (background L-R): Marvin Watson, J. Edgar Hoover, Sec. Robert McNamara, Gen. Harold Johnson, Joe Califano, Sec. of the Army Stanley Resor. Credit: LBJ Library)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC World Service, this is Helena Merriman with the inquiry. |
| 0:07.0 | This week, what does the President need to know. |
| 0:14.0 | Early this morning a document was hand delivered to the President of the United States. |
| 0:20.0 | On the front page, two words, top secret. |
| 0:25.0 | It's the President's Daily Brief, the latest intelligence on threats, coups and |
| 0:30.6 | insurgencies from all over the world distilled into just a few pages. |
| 0:36.4 | It's a daily ritual that began on the 17th of June 1961 and 20,000 briefs later still goes on today. |
| 0:46.4 | They've been called the family jewels of the intelligence community |
| 0:50.0 | and a few weeks ago, to the surprise of many, two and a half thousand of them from the |
| 0:54.9 | 1960s were made public. |
| 0:59.6 | They offer a glimpse into an area that we know little about, the hidden process of presidential decision |
| 1:05.7 | making. |
| 1:06.7 | So this week we've decided to burrow into it with the help of some of the most senior |
| 1:11.4 | advisors to former presidents, including an ex director of national intelligence and a former chief of staff. |
| 1:18.0 | They're going to bring you into the National Security Council, the Oval Office, and even the President's bedroom, as they help answer this question. |
| 1:28.0 | What does the President need to know? Part 1, the DNI on the PDB. |
| 1:37.0 | I had a small classified fax machine in the basement of my house with a guard standing over it. |
| 1:50.0 | Meet John Negroponte, the first director of National Intelligence in the US. |
| 1:58.0 | He served under George W Bush for two years at the height of the war in Iraq. And in that role he was the last pair of eyes on every |
| 2:06.3 | daily brief before it reached the president. It's kind of an intriguing process. |
| 2:12.3 | A process that starts every evening. |
| 2:15.0 | There's a so-called presidential daily briefing staff that works around the clock who come |
... |
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