A Brief Explanation of the President’s Daily Brief

For more than six decades, the President of the United States has received, in some form, a daily report on national intelligence. Through the twentieth century, the Central Intelligence Agency delivered the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) to the president six days a week. Though the name and format of the newsletter have gone through revisions to suit any given president’s preferences, the PDB has effectively served to get the president the information he needs to fulfill his executive duties. The PDB contains incredibly sensitive information and is delivered to recipients under security measures that justifiably border on paranoia.

The practice of giving the president a newsletter dedicated to a holistic collection of intelligence began during the Truman Administration. This newsletter made its first appearance when “President Harry S. Truman received his inaugural Daily Summary on February 15, 1946. Although that first summary was crude by modern standards, it marked the start of a fundamentally new mission for US intelligence; providing strategic warning to the nation’s highest leaders.”  Other officials than the president (though selected by the president) receive the briefing as well. The circulation of the PDB is usually in the “‘[l]ow tens,’ roughly around 20, mostly Cabinet-level officials, senior White House officials, and intelligence and military officials. In the Clinton administration, the number was 32, but that was cut back in the Bush administration.”  With such low readership, the PDB can be regarded as the world’s most exclusive newspaper. Considering all the sensitive information it contains and the vast expanse of responsibilities the United States government carries, “[t]here are different versions of the PDB, depending on the recipient and his or her interests and responsibilities.”  Other recipients include advisors, vice presidents, and the highest-ranking military officials.

The President’s Daily Brief is adjusted to the specifications of the president in command. The PDB even started out at the request of the president. In late January 1946, President Harry Truman took issue with the manner in which information came from so many different directions “with no one outside the White House evaluating the range of information collected by the US government. He wanted order imposed on the situation.”  PDBs have been made to suit particular styles, formats, and mediums, even going so far as to address questions and topics as directed by the president the previous day. In 1961, the method evolved further when the Kennedy Administration asked for a more ergonomic presentation, “something small enough to fit in the president’s jacket pocket. Three days later, the President’s Intelligence Checklist (PICL) was delivered to President Kennedy, who liked it immediately.”  Pronounced “pickle”, the format did not last long. After the end of the Kennedy presidency, the newsletter received its current name as “the President’s Daily Brief (PDB), crafted to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s specifications, replaced it in 1964.”  Very recently, President Barack Obama requested that the CIA explore electronic mediums, and on February 15, 2014, “68 years after the first Daily Summary was published – the final hard copy edition of the PDB was printed. President Obama and other key national security policymakers now receive the PDB, six days a week, in a tablet format.”  As a centralized intelligence summary has been the standard for presidents, the format has varied and evolved considerably from the colorless, graphic-less document as which Truman first saw it.

The method by which this summary is produced has remained relatively unchanged compared to the technology that services it. When Truman first requested its production, “Director of Central Intelligence Sidney Souers assembled a team, obtained cables and reports from the various departments, and forwarded the first Daily Summary within weeks of the President’s tasking. The first Daily Summary was a two-page mimeographed sheet with six items.”  The process is one of refining the intelligence coming in from so many different vines into a simple, concise, and ergonomic document. Just as had been done during the Truman Administration, during the Reagan Administration, Peter Dixon Davis, who held several positions in the Directorate of Intelligence, “directed the production process in Washington – selecting items for the book, sharpening the judgments, and getting the supporting information that was needed to understand complicated issues that might end up being treated in a paragraph in the PDB.”  It is a high-pressure job, entailing the ability to comprehend and synthesize a large amount of data on many divergent subjects within a very short space of time, as the deadline is always the next morning.

The President’s Daily Brief is host to a wide variety of highly sensitive information. As such, it is treated with extreme care to keep it away from prying eyes. These documents are so jealously guarded that copies of any PDB are “[r]etained at the CIA, not at the White House or anywhere else.”  Every recipient of the PDB has his or her own carefully selected briefer. All briefers are “[h]igh-ranking analysts from the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence. There are two presidential briefers who rotate in the job, currently a man and a woman. Each of the other officials who receive the PDB has his or her own briefer. The president’s briefers all have at least a decade of experience in the CIA.”  The production of a PDB is a highly time-intensive task. Six days a week, from Monday to Saturday, “the president’s briefer arrives at the CIA at midnight to begin his or her preparation for the next morning’s brief. During the day, the support staff has been preparing ‘articles’ for the PDB, in many cases responding to questions posed by the president or other recipients.”  When all the data has been properly compressed the next morning, the PDB is carried by hand to the home of each recipient. The recipient reads the PDB in the presence of a CIA officer, and afterward “[s]ecure electronic means are used to transmit the PDB when recipients are traveling.”  Such importance is put on this security that President Obama reads his daily briefing on an electronic tablet with its wireless functions disabled.

The world’s most informed newspaper is ironically the most exclusive. With the United States Government having its ear against so many different doors, it receives secret information from all over the world. The President’s Daily Brief could include things from intelligence on Soviet expansion or military action, dangerous terrorist movements, or top-secret military developments and technology within American borders. Even if the PDBs have the truth behind the Roswell, New Mexico incident or the Kennedy assassination, these missals are currently locked away with the CIA, laying in a mausoleum of national secrets read-only by some of the most powerful men and women in the world. 

Bibliography

Kerr, Richard J. and Davis, Peter Dixon. “Ronald Reagan and the President’s Daily Brief.” cia.gov. Accessed March 14, 2014. https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol42no5/pdf/v42i5a04p.pdf 

Windrem, Robert. “What is a PDB?” NBCnews.com. Accessed March 14, 2014. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/4724611/ns/us_news-security/t/what-pdb/#.UyNRDVFdWwk 

Central Intelligence Agency. “A Look Back… The President’s First Daily Brief.” cia.gov. Accessed March 14, 2014. https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2008-featured-story-archive/the-presidents-first-daily-brief.html 

Central Intelligence Agency. “The Evolution of the President’s Daily Brief.” Accessed March 14, 2014. https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2014-featured-story-archive/the-evolution-of-the-presidents-daily-brief.html