Skip to main content

Intelligence Analytical Products: The President's Daily Brief (PDB)

Left uncertain are responsibilities for preparing the written brief on current
intelligence that is prepared daily for the President and a very few other senior officials.
The President’s Daily Brief (PDB), along with the Senior Executive Intelligence Brief
(SEIB) that has a somewhat wider distribution, have been prepared by CIA’s Directorate
of Intelligence (DI) and are considered that directorate’s “flagship products.”
Nonetheless, should the DNI be responsible for daily substantive briefings at the White
House rather than the CIA Director, it might be considered appropriate that the DNI staff
draft the PDB and the SEIB, based on input from the CIA and other agencies. The
number of analysts who actually prepare the PBD/SEIB is not large, but their work
reflects ongoing analysis in the CIA and other parts of the Intelligence Community. Some
might argue, moreover, that close and important links between CIA desk-level analysts
and the PDB would be jeopardized should the briefs be prepared outside of the CIA.

In addition, there are myriads of other analytical products: reports, memoranda,
briefings, etc. that are prepared on a routine basis. The Intelligence Reform Act does not
transfer extensive analytical efforts to the NID; leaving such duties to existing agencies;
the NIC will be responsible for assessments that set forth the judgments of the Intelligence
Community as a whole.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

MKULTRA Proposal - Subproject 133

Proposal entitled [redacted] Submitted on behalf of [redacted] June 1962 DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY June 14, 1962 Purpose of Study: The purpose of this proposal is a request for financial support to continue an investigation of microbial action on marine manganese nodules and terrigenous mineral sulfides, which the principal investigator has been pursuing since 1958. Very intensive work on these materials is being carried on by him, with fruitful results, during the current year, 1961-62, under a grant from the [...] of Stanford University, California. Since relatively little is known about microbial mineral transformation, and in view of current academic and practical interest of microbiologists, geologists, mining engineers, soil scientists, oceanographers, etc., in the subject, this research should make a valuable contribution to science. Summary of Past Work: a. Bacteriology of mineral sulfides. Attempts were made to evaluate the microbial flora isolable from unsterilized, crushed sulfi...

Further Reading: CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties

For readers wanting to dive into topics covered in the fascinating CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties by Tom O'Neill with Dan Piepenbring, here is a compendium of books used as sources as part of this 20-year investigative effort. It makes for a great reading list for those interested in the 1960s, FBI, CIA, the counter-culture and the history of the United States of the past century. Choose a topic (organized here by the CHAOS's chapters and each book's first appearance therein) and dive in further down the rabbit hole. CHAPTER 1: The Crime of the Century Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders   by   Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry, 1974 Will You Die For Me? The Man Who Killed For Charles Manson Tells His Own Story  by Tex Watson as told to Chaplain Ray, 1978 My Life with Charles Manson   by Paul Watkins with Guillermo Soledad, 1979 CHAPTER 2: An Aura of Danger Heroes And Villains: The True Story O...

The Darker Bioweapons Future

3 November 2003 A panel of life science experts convened for the Strategic Assessments Group by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that advances in biotechnology, coupled with the difficulty in detecting nefarious biological activity, have the potential to create a much more dangerous biological warfare (BW) threat. The panel noted: The effects of some of these engineered biological agents could be worse than any disease known to man. The genomic revolution is pushing biotechnology into an explosive growth phase. Panelists asserted that the resulting wave front of knowledge will evolve rapidly and be so broad, complex, and widely available to the public that traditional intelligence means for monitoring WMD development could prove inadequate to deal with the treat from these advanced biological weapons. Detection of related activities, particularly the development of novel bioengineered pathogens, will depend increasingly on more specific human intelligence and, argued panelist...