About this item
Every day, the President receives a report revealing the most sensitive intelligence reporting and analysis of world events: the President's Daily Brief, or PDB. The Central Intelligence Agency's spies, the National Security Agency's listening posts, and the nation's reconnaissance satellites steal secrets for it, while America's enemies send undercover agents to try to unearth its classified content. No major foreign policy decisions are made without it.Yet the PDB's stories have gone untold - until now.For 50 years, assessments in what insiders simply call "the book" have prepared the President for national security threats and opportunities. Intelligence leaders from the start have tailored its format, content, and mode of delivery to the current Commander in Chief. This Top Secret daily report, destined only for the eyes of the President and the few others that he allows to see it, provides a window into the personality and character of each President and his Administration.The President's Book of Secrets is the first deep dive into this mysterious world. Its tales are those of the crucial interactions between modern Presidents and their daily briefers, National Security Advisors and CIA Directors, Secretaries of State and Defense and intelligence officers of all ranks - all woven together by David Priess, who served during the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations as an award-winning intelligence officer, manager, and daily intelligence briefer at CIA.Every living former President and Vice President, along with most former CIA Directors, Secretaries of State and Defense, National Security Advisors, White House Chiefs of Staff, and senior intelligence leaders, shared with Priess their personal stories about the PDB. And by digging through both the extensive files of the Presidential libraries and millions of pages of declassified CIA raw intelligence reports, analytic assessments, and memos - Priess emerges with a unique - and fascinating - look into the most tightly controlled document in modern world.
About the Author
David Priess is author of HOW TO GET RID OF A PRESIDENT and THE PRESIDENT'S BOOK OF SECRETS. He has a PhD in political science from Duke University and served at the CIA as an intelligence officer, manager, and daily intelligence briefer and at the State Department during the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Priess writes, speaks, and appears often on broadcast media about the presidency and national security.