THE PRESIDENT'S BOOK OF SECRETS: THE UNTOLD STORY OF INTELLIGENCE BRIEFINGS TO AMERICA'S PRESIDENTS

he forward by George H.W. Bush. He said the CIA was his favorite job, after POTUS of course. A really interesting history of the presidency and the CIA as seen through the narrow lens of the President’s daily briefing. Priess was able to provide totally different stories and tidbits about the presidents when looked at from this angle. This aspect of how the CIA works was really interesting too. We’ve heard so much in recent years about what did the president know and when did he know it, and this explains a lot about the process that makes sure that happens as well as possible. A good book from an author who understands the process personally and has done his research very well.

Having written a few PDB items during my time as a CIA analyst in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I found this account of how the book came into being and how it was used by the various presidents to be very interesting and readable. It would be good as reading material for a course on iintelligence or national security policy.

This fabulous book is not only a history of the PDB, but a window into the personalities of the presidents it serves and the almost intimate relationship between the officers of the CIA and their Commander in Chief. In his book "Burn Before Reading," former Agency director Stansfield Turner wrote, "Intelligence services get their light and air from the chief executive." Priess does an excellent job of describing the impact of each president's personality on the process of streamlining massive volume of daily intelligence down to a manageable size. The real heroes in this story are the CIA's analysts, that unknown and unseen army working around the clock to reduce a firehose of information to something the President can read while eating his breakfast. Priess has taken an inanimate object and created a real page-turner for students of intelligence, consumers of presidential biographies, and anyone who enjoys a good read.

This book has interesting glimpses of how presidents have organized their schedules, their priorities and their offices. It's also a little study of how some very famous people like to absorb information. Although the book touches on several of the CIA's notable failures, it is not about strategy or policy. It is about the nuts and bolts of getting a briefing book in front of the president every day. It's not big. It's little but it's interesting and worth some time.

well worth the read, especially in light of what is going on today