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Dec 31, 2022 • 12 tweets • 12 min read
THREAD: As each year ends, I look back at the books I’ve read/re-read or listened to across 12 months.

I’ve read a lot this year—and thought I’d share my list in categories, alphabetically by author within each.

I recommend every one of these books and thank all authors.

1/12
Books I read in 2022 (history, part 1):

Lincoln and the Fight for Peace by @JohnAvlon

SPQR by @wmarybeard

Grant by Ron Chernow

Washington by Ron Chernow

The Cabinet by @lmchervinsky

Behold, America by @sarahchurchwell

The Wrath To Come by @sarahchurchwell

2/12
Books I read in 2022 (history, part 2):

The Craft: How Freemasons Made the Modern World by @JohnDickie1

Lincoln by David Herbert Donald

The Future History of the Arctic by @charlesemmerson

Adams vs. Jefferson by John Ferling

The Field of Blood by @jbf1755

3/12
Books I read in 2022 (history, part 3):

Watergate by @vermontgmg

Reagan’s War Stories by @bengriffin06

Destination Casablanca by @CapitolClio

The Peacemaker by Will Inboden

Imperfect Union by @NPRinskeep

Hokkaido: A History by Ibrahim Jalal

4/12
Books I read in 2022 (history, part 4):

Plagues and Their Aftermath by @BrianMJenkins

Ancient Rome by Thomas Martin

True or False by Cindy Otis

A Man of Iron by @troy_senik

Terrorism in American Memory by Marita Sturken

Misinformation Nation by @PubliusorPerish

5/12
Books I read in 2022 (intelligence/natsec/politics, part 1):

Why We Fight by @cblatts

Analyzing Intelligence ed. by Roger George & James Bruce

Intelligence and the State by Jonathan House

MBS by @NYTBen

Truth to Power, ed. by Robert Hutchings & Gregory Treverton

6/12
Books I read in 2022 (intelligence/natsec/politics, part 2):

A Question of Standing by Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones

The Devil Never Sleeps by @juliettekayyem

The Peaceful Transfer of Power by @DavidMarchick

The Oil Wars Myth by @EMeierding

Why We Did It by @Timodc

7/12
Books I read in 2022 (intelligence/natsec/politics, part 3):

Black Ops by @RicPrado2

Challenges in Intelligence Analysis by Timothy Walton

The Spymasters by @ccwhip

Spies, Lies, and Algorithms by @AmyZegart

8/12
Books I read in 2022 (science):

A Taste of Poison by Neil Bradbury

A Furious Sky by @EricJayDolin

How We Know What Isn’t So by Thomas Gilovich

Fire and Flood by Eugene Linden

The Moon by @Eaterofsun

The Loop by @byjacobward

9/12
Books I read in 2022 (other nonfiction):

Spies on the Sidelines by @kevbryantauthor

Not Dead Yet by @PhilCollinsFeed

The Games by @Davidsgoldblatt

Bigfoot … It’s Complicated by @RepRiggleman

A Different Way to Win by Jim Rooney

10/12
Books I read in 2022 (fiction):

Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke

Victor in Trouble by @alexzfinley

Damascus Station by @mccloskeybooks

Black Ice by @BradThor

Rising Tiger by @BradThor

The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson

11/12
In 2023, I hope to read/listen to just as many great books.

I also hope that, after a challenging couple of years, I’ll make progress on research and start writing my own next book.

Stay tuned.

#HappyNewYear

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More from @DavidPriess

David Priess Profile picture
Oct 5, 2022
Hi. It’s the President’s Daily Brief guy again.

I’m here to explain how Mark Meadows’s newly reported remark about presidents and the PDB is woefully wrong—and reveals why he never should’ve been chief of staff in the first place.

Grab a drink. Let’s take a PDB journey.

1/13 Image
First, the remark. In her new book “Confidence Man,” @maggieNYT writes that during the transition Mark Meadows asked Ron Klein, “How many days a week is Vice President Biden gonna want this daily brief?”

Klain was "dumbstruck by the question.”

2/13
penguinrandomhouse.com/books/668293/c…
After Klain said Biden wanted to be briefed every day—saying that was how Biden had done it as vice president—Meadows countered,
"No president ever does that. That’s never happened.”

[This is where your narrator takes a deep breath. And another one. And another one.]

3/13
Read 13 tweets
David Priess Profile picture
Sep 2, 2022
Hey, everyone hyperventilating about #EmptyFolders—

Slow down. Breathe.

Yes, the inventory lists empty folders with “CLASSIFIED” banners or marked "Return to Staff Secretary/Military Aide.”

This almost certainly doesn’t mean what you think.

Here’s a sanity check.

1/6
Classified documents, and most unclassified docs that are nevertheless sensitive, are usually carried between offices in places like the White House *in folders*.

Why? In large part, to keep prying eyes (or enterprising press photographers) from seeing them during transit.

2/6
So it is natural that boxes containing hundreds of classified/sensitive documents would also have the very folders that the docs had once been carried in and left in on a principal’s desk.

You need not list which folder each doc was in, if was in a folder at all when found.

3/6
Read 6 tweets
David Priess Profile picture
Dec 20, 2021
THREAD: Intelligence and the presidency, a reading list.

Some students in my just-completed intel and the presidency graduate seminar urged me to share its core content with a wider audience.

You miss the discussions, sure—but here are my main texts and other sources.

1/16
The first book: “For the President’s Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency From Washington to Bush.”

It ends 30 years ago, but Christopher Andrew’s book is the best single history of intel and presidents up until that point.

harpercollins.com/products/for-t…

2/16
Next one: “Getting To Know the President: Intelligence Briefings of Presidential Candidates,” by John Helgerson—an extraordinary window into how candidates and presidents-elect since the 1950s have interacted with intel.

It’s free at this link:

cia.gov/static/dff0ca6…

3/16
Read 16 tweets
David Priess Profile picture
Nov 29, 2021
THREAD: A wealth of new information about the intelligence briefings for Donald Trump and those around him as a presidential candidate in 2016, as president-elect in 2016-17, and as president has just hit the CIA’s public website.

Here are the most newsworthy details:

1/16
Context: The info is in a new chapter of John Helgerson’s book GETTING TO KNOW THE PRESIDENT—a useful source for my book THE PRESIDENT’S BOOK OF SECRETS—written for the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence.

It’s on the CIA website here:
cia.gov/static/9c2a893…

2/16
Helgerson tellingly links the IC’s experience of briefing Trump to predecessors’ experiences with his chapter title:

“Donald J. Trump—A Unique Challenge”

What follows are assertions made in the this new chapter, often based on classified info not yet available otherwise.

3/16
Read 16 tweets
David Priess Profile picture
Aug 6, 2021
THREAD: 20 years ago today, the best known daily intelligence item in history—the article "Bin Laden is Determined to Strike"—appeared in George W. Bush’s President’s Daily Brief.

Here’s the story of its creation, based on my interviews with its author and intel leaders:

1/12
During the summer of 2001, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet was telling everyone who would listen that “the system was blinking red.”

The CIA-based Counterterrorist Center (CTC) had been warning for months that al-Qaida seemed primed for a major attack.

2/12
From January 20 to September 10, more than forty pieces in the PDB alone related to Bin Ladin.

In response to such analysis, the president several times asked @MichaelJMorell, his CIA daily intel briefer, about the prospects for an attack in the United States itself.

3/12
Read 12 tweets
David Priess Profile picture
Jul 1, 2021
THREAD: Don Rumsfeld, who has died at 88, played many important roles during his long career.

Among the fascinating but lesser known of those roles: his contact points with the President’s Daily Brief—in two administrations, 25 years apart.

Here are just a few stories.

1/13
Rumsfeld first came across the PDB as Gerald Ford’s chief of staff early in Ford’s brief presidency.

He was the one who informed National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft that Ford, after one year on the job, no longer needed daily in-person briefings from a CIA officer.

2/13
Rummy told Scowcroft Ford wanted the PDB on his Oval Office desk before he got there. “He will not need you or Dave Peterson [the CIA briefer] to sit in with him,” his memo said. “If Dave wishes to bring it over, he can sit in the outer office while the President reads it.”

3/13
Read 13 tweets

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