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The President's Book of Secrets: The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America's Presidents
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PublicAffairs 2016
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Description
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.
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Street Date:
03/01/2016
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781610395960
ASIN:
B00PSSCUCA
Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

David Priess. (2016). The President's Book of Secrets: The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America's Presidents. 1 PublicAffairs.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

David Priess. 2016. The President's Book of Secrets: The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America's Presidents. PublicAffairs.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

David Priess, The President's Book of Secrets: The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America's Presidents. PublicAffairs, 2016.

MLA Citation (style guide)

David Priess. The President's Book of Secrets: The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America's Presidents. 1 PublicAffairs, 2016.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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The President's Book of Secrets
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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.
reviews
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        January 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.

      • premium: True
      • source: Kirkus
      • content:

        December 1, 2015
        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.

        COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        Starred review from February 1, 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

        Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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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.
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