Thread by @DavidPriess

THREAD: If Trump, as reported, both doesn’t actually read the President’s Daily Brief and sometimes loses patience for the oral briefings he gets on it 2-3 times a week, how unusual would this be?

Quite.

First, a reminder of why it’s an issue now.

1/16
nytimes.com/2020/06/27/us/…

Here’s some history:

The PDB was founded on the President’s Intelligence Checklist, created for John Kennedy in 1961.

Kennedy didn’t have Intelligence Community (IC) briefers discuss it with him, but he usually read it daily. When busy, he caught up on it every few days.

2/16

The President’s Daily Brief itself started in 1964 for Lyndon Johnson.

Like JFK, he took no in-person PDB briefings from intelligence community officers. Instead he read the book avidly, often late at night while sitting in bed.

Sometimes, as shown here, in the morning.

3/16

Richard Nixon’s experience with the PDB is, like so many things about him, an enigma.

No direct evidence shows he read it while POTUS. He certainly did not read it while president-elect; envelopes with PDB copies delivered to his transition office were returned, unopened.

4/16

NSC memos suggest Nixon didn’t read the PDB when in office but (1) got an NSC/White House SitRoom intel summary, overlapping the PDB’s content; and (2) discussed intel/foreign policy often with National Security Advisor Kissinger. No oral daily intel briefings from the IC.

5/16

Gerald Ford became the first president not only to read his daily book of secrets with interest, but also to take in-person, daily oral briefings about the PDB from an IC officer—though he did the latter part only during his first year in office.

6/16

Jimmy Carter told me in interviews, and provided ample evidence for history, that he read his PDB carefully. He typically marked up his copies, scrawling questions and comments in the margins.

But he didn’t get orally briefed on it each day by intel community officers.

7/16

Contrary to conventional wisdom, Ronald Reagan seems to have read the PDB.

All six of his national security advisors, and others in his White House, told me so. It would fit his pattern of reading what aides gave him, even to Nancy’s annoyance. And his diary cites the PDB.

8/16

And a CIA historian went through the first 1,000 PDB copies that were delivered to Reagan and returned to the Agency for safekeeping.

A significant number of the copies had comments/markings in the president’s own handwriting, indicating careful reading by Reagan himself.

9/16

But Reagan also got material from his President’s Daily Brief through daily briefings with his national security advisor.

Although he didn’t get PDB daily briefings from CIA or other IC officers, Reagan clearly was in the intelligence loop.

10/16

George H.W. Bush read his PDB each working morning in Washington as it was delivered to him by a CIA officer—who answered his questions about its content, highlighted parts that hadn’t grabbed his attention, and noted questions requiring answers in the next day’s book.

11/16

Bill Clinton took in-person briefings from CIA officers irregularly during his two terms. Regardless, he had the book delivered every day for him to read.

He and his advisers told me he read it avidly, even if he did not give feedback about it on an average day.

12/16

George W. Bush read his PDB carefully, giving it more time on his schedule than any previous president.

He also was the first POTUS to take in-person briefings from intelligence officers every working day of his presidency, whether he was in DC or overnighting elsewhere.

13/16

Barack Obama settled into a pattern whereby he read the PDB (for him, on a very special iPad—as seen here) alone and discussed it with senior advisors. And then he invited IC briefers into the White House a few times a week to expand upon its content or walk on new items.

14/16

Ironically given his inclination to reflexively do the opposite of what his predecessor did, Trump seems to have an PDB oral briefing pattern close to Obama—a few in-person briefings a week.

But he’s said he’s not much of a reader, and reports say this applies to the PDB.

15/16

Interested in these stories of presidents and their relationships with daily Top Secret intelligence?

Check out my history of it all, featuring interviews with presidents, vice presidents, CIA directors, and many others

/end
indiebound.org/book/978161039…