The President’s Book of Secrets: The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America’s Presidents from Kennedy to Obama

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. (Mar.)