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September 10, 2015

CIA to Release Declassified President’s Daily Brief Articles

Filed under: Government,Security — Patrick Durusau @ 8:22 pm

CIA to Release Declassified President’s Daily Brief Articles

From the post:

Previously classified President’s Daily Brief (PDB) articles from the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson administrations produced by CIA are scheduled to be released on Wednesday, September 16 at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas, at a public symposium entitled The President’s Daily Brief: Delivering Intelligence to the First Customer. The event will be livestreamed by the LBJ Library via their website http://www.lbjlibrary.org/events/cia-sept16/

CIA Director John O. Brennan will present the event’s keynote speech and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper will deliver closing remarks. In addition, the event will feature a panel discussion and remarks by other leaders from the academic, archivist, and intelligence communities, including William H. McRaven, Chancellor of the University of Texas System, former CIA Director Porter Goss, former CIA Deputy Director Bobby Inman, and others.

The President’s Daily Brief (PDB) contains intelligence analysis on key national security issues for the President and other senior policymakers. Only the President, the Vice President, and a select group of officials designated by the President receive the briefing, which represents the Intelligence Community’s best insights on issues the President must confront when dealing with threats as well as opportunities related to our national security. 

This public release highlights the role of the PDB in foreign and national security policy making. This collection includes the President’s Intelligence Checklists (PICLs) — which preceded the PDB — published from June 1961 to November 1964, and the PDBs published from December 1964 through the end of President Johnson’s term in January 1969. These documents offer insight on intelligence that informed presidential decisions during critical historical events such as: the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 1967 Six-Day War, the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and Vietnam.

The documents will be posted on the CIA website the day of the symposium at http://www.foia.cia.gov. This collection was assembled as part of the CIA’s Historical Review Program, which identifies, reviews, and declassifies documents on historically significant events or topics. Previous releases can be viewed at: http://www.foia.cia.gov/historical-collections.

Only forty-six (46) years too late to hold anyone responsible for decisions made on the basis of “information” withheld from the voting public.

Comparing the “facts as known by the President” and the “facts as reported to the American people” will require a cast of thousands, but will be well worth the effort.

Albeit dated, a comparison of the public and private record should establish that continuing secrecy serves only those who wish to manipulate decisions of a democratic state on the basis of secret information.

Those who insist on the type of secrecy that conceals corruption and incompetency, should be given free transport to any place outside the continental United States, their U.S. passports revoked and left so they can enjoy life under non-democratic governments.

Government secrecy is the antithesis of democracy and should be seen as a grave and direct threat to even an appearance of democratic processes.

PS: How are you going to line up the “facts” in these daily briefings with “facts” as reported by the White House to the public? Needs to be simple, auditable and fast.

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