President's Daily Brief
Encyclopedia
Classified information in the United States
The United States government classification system is currently established under Executive Order 13526, the latest in a long series of executive orders on the topic. Issued by President Barack Obama in 2009, Executive Order 13526 replaced earlier executive orders on the topic and modified the...
document
Document
The term document has multiple meanings in ordinary language and in scholarship. WordNet 3.1. lists four meanings :* document, written document, papers...
produced each morning for the President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Responsibility for producing the PDB — which was traditionally held by the director
Director of Central Intelligence
The Office of United States Director of Central Intelligence was the head of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, the principal intelligence advisor to the President and the National Security Council, and the coordinator of intelligence activities among and between the various United...
of the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
— was transferred to the Director of National Intelligence
United States Director of National Intelligence
The Director of National Intelligence , is the United States government official subject to the authority, direction and control of the President, who is responsible under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 for:...
on April 21, 2005, upon the confirmation of John Negroponte
John Negroponte
John Dimitri Negroponte is an American diplomat. He is currently a research fellow and lecturer in international affairs at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs...
by the Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
. The PDB is now delivered by the current (2010) Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper
James R. Clapper
James R. Clapper, Jr. is a retired lieutenant general in the United States Air Force and is currently the Director of National Intelligence. He was previously dual-hatted as the first Director of Defense Intelligence within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence alongside the position...
.
Purpose and history
The PDB is intended to provide the president of the United States with new international intelligenceIntelligence (information gathering)
Intelligence assessment is the development of forecasts of behaviour or recommended courses of action to the leadership of an organization, based on a wide range of available information sources both overt and covert. Assessments are developed in response to requirements declared by the leadership...
warranting attention and analysis of sensitive international situations. The prototype of the PDB was called the President's Intelligence Check List; the first was produced by Richard Lehman
Richard Lehman (CIA officer)
Richard "Dick" Lehman joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1949 and served for 33 years before retiring. As a junior analyst, he worked in the General Division of the Office of Reports and Estimates using SIGINT to puzzle out the organization and output of various Soviet industrial ministries...
at the direction of Huntington D. Sheldon
Huntington D. Sheldon
Huntington Denton "Ting" Sheldon served as the Director of the Office of Current Intelligence of the US Central Intelligence Agency from 1951 to 1961, serving under Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy. Sheldon was the second Director of the OCI, and developed it into a major Office...
on June 17, 1961. The CIA produced the first PDB for President John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
in 1960 and the first issues were trial runs.
Although the production and coordination of the PDB was a CIA responsibility, other members of the U.S. Intelligence Community
United States Intelligence Community
The United States Intelligence Community is a cooperative federation of 16 separate United States government agencies that work separately and together to conduct intelligence activities considered necessary for the conduct of foreign relations and the protection of the national security of the...
reviewed articles (the "coordination" process) and were free to write and submit articles for inclusion.
While the name of the PDB implies exclusivity, it has historically been briefed to other high officials. The distribution list has varied over time, but has always or almost always included the Secretaries of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
and Defense
United States Secretary of Defense
The Secretary of Defense is the head and chief executive officer of the Department of Defense of the United States of America. This position corresponds to what is generally known as a Defense Minister in other countries...
and the National Security Advisor
National Security Advisor (United States)
The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor , serves as the chief advisor to the President of the United States on national security issues...
. Rarely, special editions of the PDB have actually been "for the President's eyes only," with further dissemination of the information contained left to the President's discretion.
Production of the PDB is closely linked to that of another publication, historically called the National Intelligence Daily, that contains many of the same items but is distributed considerably more widely than the PDB. Former Presidents are entitled to receive the PDB, if they so desire, only after the sitting President actually receives his daily briefing.
Political importance
Former Central Intelligence Director George TenetGeorge Tenet
George John Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University....
considered the PDB so sensitive that in July 2000 he took the position with the National Archives and Records Administration
National Archives and Records Administration
The National Archives and Records Administration is an independent agency of the United States government charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records and with increasing public access to those documents, which comprise the National Archives...
that none of them could be released for publication "no matter how old or historically significant it may be."
During a briefing on May 21, 2002, Ari Fleischer
Ari Fleischer
On May 19, 2003, he announced that he would resign during the summer, citing a desire to spend more time with his wife and to work in the private sector...
, former White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
Press Secretary
White House Press Secretary
The White House Press Secretary is a senior White House official whose primary responsibility is to act as spokesperson for the government administration....
, characterized the PDB as "the most highly sensitized classified document in the government
Federal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...
."
Public awareness
The PDB came under increased public awareness during testimonyTestimony
In law and in religion, testimony is a solemn attestation as to the truth of a matter. All testimonies should be well thought out and truthful. It was the custom in Ancient Rome for the men to place their right hand on a Bible when taking an oath...
in front of the 9/11 Commission
9/11 Commission
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks", including preparedness for and the immediate response to...
, which was convened in 2004 to analyze the September 11, 2001 attacks
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
. On April 8, 2004, after a testimony by then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush...
, the Commission renewed calls for the declassification
Declassification
Declassification is the process of documents that formerly were classified as secret ceasing to be so restricted, often under the principle of freedom of information. Procedures for declassification vary by country...
of a PDB from August 6, 2001, entitled Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US. Two days later, the White House complied and released the document with minimal redaction
Redaction
Redaction is a form of editing in which multiple source texts are combined and subjected to minor alteration to make them into a single work. Often this is a method of collecting a series of writings on a similar theme and creating a definitive and coherent work...
s.
External links
- Previously Released President's Daily Briefs at the National Security Archives, George Washington UniversityGeorge Washington UniversityThe George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...
. - August 6, 2001 PDB from CNN, (.PDF)Portable Document FormatPortable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....