-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- from; http://www.odci.gov/csi/books/briefing/index.htm Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.odci.gov/csi/books/briefing/index.htm">CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates</A> ----- Author: John L. Helgerson The Center for the Study of Intelligence supports research and publishing on the intelligence profession and its various disciplines and declassifies historical records related to US intelligence analyses and operations during the Cold War. The Center welcomes inquiries from intelligence professionals and scholars about its programs and publications. Foreword Preface Introduction Chapter 1 -- Briefing Governor Clinton in Little Rock Chapter 2 -- Truman and Eisenhower: Launching the Process Chapter 3 -- Into Politics With Kennedy and Johnson Chapter 4 -- Nixon and Ford: Uneven Access Chapter 5 -- In-Depth Discussions With Carter Chapter 6 -- Reagan and Bush: A Study in Contrasts Chapter 7 -- Concluding Observations Center for the Study of Intelligence Central Intelligence Agency Washington, DC 20505 Fax (703) 243-8343 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Central Intelligence Agency CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates 22 May 1996 ===== Foreword Getting To Know the President CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates 1952-1992 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This is an important and original book. How world leaders understand or misunderstand, use or fail to use, the intelligence available to them is an essential but still under-researched aspect both of modern government and of international relations. The making of the American intelligence community has transformed the presidency of the United States. Before the First World War, the idea that the United States might need a foreign intelligence service simply did not occur to most Americans or to their presidents. After the war, Woodrow Wilson publicly poked fun at his own pre-war innocence: "Let me testify to this, my fellow citizens, I not only did not know it until we got into this war, but I did not believe it when I was told that it was true, that Germany was not the only country that maintained a secret service!" Wilson could scarcely have imagined that, less than half a century later, the United States would be an intelligence superpower. Though the intelligence nowadays available to the President is, like all human knowledge, incomplete and fallible, it probably exceeds--at least in quantity--that available to any other world leader past or present. The starting point for the study of relations between presidents and their intelligence communities since the Second World War are the briefings they receive from the CIA before their inauguration. John L. Helgerson is well equipped to write this path-breaking study of these briefings. A political scientist before joining the CIA, he served as the Agency's Deputy Director for Intelligence during the Bush administration and was head of the team that briefed Bill Clinton in Little Rock after the 1992 election. In addition to having access to classified files, Mr. Helgerson has interviewed previous Agency briefers and all surviving former Presidents. Both briefers and former Presidents are agreed on the simple but important fact that each President is different. Presidents differ more widely in their previous knowledge and experience of intelligence than in their grasp of most other areas of government. Harry Truman entered the Oval Office in April 1945 almost wholly ignorant of intelligence matters. His determination that no future president should take office as uninformed as he had been is partly responsible for the intelligence briefing offered to all presidential candidates since 1952. Unlike Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower did not need to be persuaded of the importance of intelligence. Ike was the first President since George Washington already experienced in the use of intelligence when he took the oath of office. He wrote after the Second World War that "intelligence had been of priceless value to me...and, in no small way, contributed to the speed with which the enemy was routed and eventually forced to surrender." Recent presidents have varied almost as greatly in their experience of intelligence as Truman and Eisenhower. Agency briefers found Presidents Reagan and Bush, in Mr. Helgerson's words, "virtual polar opposites." Despite Ronald Reagan's membership in 1975 of the Rockefeller Commission on CIA activities within the United States, he had no previous experience as an intelligence consumer and felt the need for generality. Bush, by contrast, was the first former Director of Central Intelligence, with the arguable exception of George Washington, to be elected president. He had a closer working relationship than any previous president with the CIA. Like Reagan, President Clinton had no previous experience as an intelligence consumer. Mr. Helgerson provides the first detailed account of the way in which Agency briefers have attempted, with varying success, to adapt briefings to the differing experience, priorities, and working patterns of successive presidents. One of the earliest changes in the new administration is usually the format of the President's Daily Brief, probably the world's smallest circulation, most highly classified, and--in some respects--best informed daily newspaper. Some presidents, it appears, like it to include more humor than others. On average, about 60 percent of the items covered in the President's Daily Brief do not appear in the press at all, even in unclassified form. The most important lesson of this book is that, if the CIA is to provide effective intelligence support to policymakers, there is no substitute for direct access to the President. There is the implied lesson also that, if presidents are to make the best use of the CIA, they need to make clear to the Agency at regular intervals what intelligence they do and do not want. As a result of his own experience as DCI, Bush plainly took this lesson to heart. Some presidents, however, have provided little feedback. Most good books leave the reader wanting more. Getting To Know the President is no exception. As well as holding the interest of his readers, Mr. Helgerson will also increase their curiosity. What, for example, were the exotic and closely-held methods or the sensitive human-source and technical collection programs on which DCI George Bush briefed President-elect Jimmy Car ter? Just as it is reasonable for readers to ask questions such as these, so it is also reasonable on some occasions for intelligence agencies to avoid precise replies in order to protect their sources and methods. There is an inevitable tension between the curiosity of readers and scholars on the one hand and the security-consciousness of intelligence agencies on the other. Historians and intelligence officers are unlikely ever to reach complete agreement on how much of the past record can be declassified without compromising current operations. In recent years, however, the CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence has gone further than most of the world's major intelligence agencies in opening up some of its records to historical research, publishing important volumes of documents on subjects such as the Truman administration, the Cuban missile crisis, Soviet estimates, and spy satellites. All historians will hope that these documents will be followed by many more. It is also to be hoped that Getting To Know the President will set a precedent for intelligence agencies in other countries. Until similar volumes are available on the briefing of, among others, British prime ministers, German chancellors, French and Russian presidents, and leading Asian statesmen, the use made of intelligence by world leaders will continue to be a major gap in our understanding of both modern government and international relations. Christopher Andrew Corpus Christi College Cambridge ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Central Intelligence Agency CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates 22 May 1996 ===== Preface ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This volume was produced while I served a one-year assignment with the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence. I am grateful to the Agency for that opportunity. The resulting study, needless to say, is my work alone; the opinions offered are not those of the Central Intelligence Agency nor the US Government. To the maximum extent feasible, contemporaneous written records have been used to construct the account of developments presented. For the earlier presidential transitions, it has proved possible to declassify all relevant documents. Among the numerous individuals who helped search for source materials, a few were especially helpful and deserve special thanks: CIA officers Janet Platt, Becky Rant, Emma Sullivan, and Michael Warner; Andrea Mehrer at the Library of Congress; and Dwight D. Eisenhower Library archivist David Haight. Interviews with former presidents, CIA directors, and numerous others involved in the nine presidential transitions provided invaluable additional material with which to flesh out the sparse written record. I deeply appreciate the honor and time granted me by Presidents George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, and Gerald Ford in agreeing to be interviewed. Similarly, I am grateful to the CIA directors who were most involved in the transitions--Robert Gates, Stansfield Turner, William Colby, and Richard Helms--for sharing their recollections. Former Agency officer Meredith Davidson provided invaluable assistance in reconstructing the events of the early 1950s. CIA protects carefully the confidentiality of comments made to its officers by serving presidents, and I have continued that tradition in this account. Readers will find neither exposes of our presidents' private moments nor specific descriptions of what they said during briefing sessions, especially regarding sensitive policy issues of continuing relevance and importance. Similarly, it would not be appropriate to use this volume to offer judgments about how well the various presidents used the intelligence they were provided .[1] Nevertheless, I have been able to recount in unclassified form the circumstances under which the Agency established its relationships with successive presidents and to discuss, in general terms, the subjects about which they were briefed. None of those interviewed showed any reservation in speaking about the relationship between the President and the CIA during the period of their personal involvement. I thank David Peterson, Richard Kovar, and Judith Van Roy for their editorial assistance and, most of all, Harriet Malone for her superb work in producing countless drafts of this study. John L. Helgerson ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [1] In the author's judgment, the most comprehensive and objective account of how presidents have used intelligence throughout their terms of office is Christopher Andrew's For the President's Eyes Only (London: Harper Collins, 1995). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Central Intelligence Agency CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates 22 May 1996 ===== Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------ It was President Harry Truman, in whose administration the Central Intelligence Agency was created, who instituted the custom of providing candidates for the Presidency with confidential briefings on foreign developments. In 1952 he authorized the CIA to brief Gen. Dwight Eisenhower and Governor Adlai Stevenson so that the successful candidate would be as well informed as possible on the world situation when he took office. The briefings would also position the CIA to develop a close working relationship with the new president and his advisers. These two objectives have guided the Agency's efforts during presidential transition periods ever since. Thus it was, after Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton won the 1992 election, that the Central Intelligence Agency moved quickly to establish a presence in Little Rock to provide intelligence support to the new President-elect. As CIA's Deputy Director for Intelligence, I was sent to meet with the Governor and his staff to describe the materials the Agency proposed to make available and to elicit the Governor's agreement to receive regular briefings from the CIA. Events unfolded in such a way that I became the head of a team that spent most of the period from November 1992 through January 1993 in Little Rock providing daily intelligence updates to the President-elect. In keeping with President Truman's long-ago initiative, the Agency wanted to help the new President-elect prepare for his foreign policy responsibilities and acquaint him and his staff with CIA's capabilities for collecting, analyzing, and delivering intelligence that would be vital to them when they took office. As we made arrangements for briefing Governor Clinton, we attempted to learn as much as possible from the Agency's experience in previous transition periods. What we discovered was that the CIA had provided pre-inaugural intelligence support to all eight presidents elected since the Agency was founded, but had no systematic records of those efforts. There was no body of organized information to indicate what had worked before and what had not. Such records and memories as we did have, however, made clear that we needed to make decisions quickly on how to proceed in a number of areas that would have an important bearing on whether we met our two primary goals. The key variables that seem to determine whether the Agency is successful in serving a new president fall into four general categories. The first of these relates to the level and type of person or persons the Agency puts forward to represent it. In some transitions the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) has been personally and extensively involved, in others the DCI took no active role. Sometimes the Agency has fielded very senior officers as its briefers, but in other instances relied on much more junior representatives. When senior officers do the briefings they generally give the Agency's product and approach greater credibility and access, but their selection also increases the likelihood that the exercise will be seen as political. A second category of key variables concerns other political considerations to which the Agency must be sensitive to ensure that the Intelligence Community and a new president come to work together well. Foremost among these is the background of the president-elect himself, particularly as it relates to his familiarity with the CIA and its products. It is quite a different matter, for example, to establish a relationship with an individual who has moved up from the vice presidency in the way that Presidents Gerald Ford and George Bush did, as contrasted with individuals who have come to the position with no Washington experience in the manner of Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Similarly, the Agency's experience has varied significantly depending on whether or not the new president has come from the same political party as his predecessor. The DCI's own political or career ambitions have sometimes raised delicate political problems. It is not unlikely, for example, that during a transition period the interests of the DCI would not correspond with those of the CIA as an institution. A most important political variable is the attitudes of the outgoing president and the national security adviser. Their support for the Agency's efforts to establish an early and effective relationship with a new administration facilitates matters immensely. The third group of key variables concerns logistic arrangements for the briefings. Should briefings be given prior to the election to both, or even multiple, candidates? Alternatively, should they be postponed until after the vote and provided exclusively to the single president-elect during the transition? How many briefings should be given and with what frequency? Experience shows that it matters, too, where the briefings are given and whether only the candidate is briefed or staff assistants are included as well. Finally, concerning the substance of the information provided, there have been considerable variations in the amount and the type of material made available. All candidates in recent years have valued receiving the President's Daily Brief (PDB), the CIA intelligence summary created exclusively for the President. Some have wanted to receive additional, supplementary intelligence publications during the campaign and the transition period. A few have wanted oral briefings by a number of substantive experts as opposed to hearing from a single Agency briefer each day; others have found multiple briefers confusing or overwhelming. An important issue to be faced by the Agency during each transition concerns how much information derived from sensitive human sources and technical collection efforts and regarding covert action programs should be included in the material given a president-elect, and when. Presidents in office are always informed of such programs, and careful attention is given to the timing, level of detail, and content of the presentation. And finally, concerning the substance of the support provided, there have been dramatic variations in the amount of tailored assistance the Agency has provided presidents-elect to prepare them for pre-inaugural planning and policy deliberations, speeches and press conferences, and, in particular, their meetings and communications with foreign statesmen. Given the importance of these variables in determining whether the CIA will come to work well with a new president during the transition period and beyond, it seemed desirable for the Agency's own purposes to create a record of what we have done in the past, noting what has worked and what has not. Even a cursory examination of the Agency's experience over the past 40 years reveals that it is often not intuitively obvious or self-evident what approaches will translate into success. Not infrequently, moreover, certain actions that have assisted us in realizing one of our goals have undermined achievement of the other. I have also been prompted to pursue this undertaking by observing firsthand the importance of the transition period in informing and preparing an incoming president. I was struck to discover during the 1992-93 transition that the Central Intelligence Agency is virtually alone (with the obvious and distinguished exception of the Secret Service) in providing day-to-day, on-site, direct support to the president-elect during this critical period. This puts a responsibility on the Agency not only to represent the Intelligence Community as a whole but, to the extent feasible, also to make available to the president-elect materials from other executive departments handling national security and foreign policy matters, including the National Security Council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Departments of Defense, State, and Treasury. In preparing this study I have been pleased to discover, or confirm, that certain of the intelligence briefings provided to incoming presidents have turned out to be of genuine and lasting historical importance in their own right. To use one example, the DCI and the Deputy Director for Plans (Operations) provided President-elect Kennedy information on the Agency's plans for what would become the Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba. This occurred at a meeting with only the three of them present. A great deal of what has subsequently been written by others about what Kennedy was told, when he was told it, and what he said in response, is substantially wrong. I hope this account can clarify the circumstances of this and other important briefings provided to presidents over the years. Finally, because the CIA's role during transitions is unique, the Agency seems to me to have an obligation to record what it has done and to make its account as widely available as possible. Perhaps this material will be of use not only to Agency officers charged with meeting our briefing responsibilities in the future, but also to others interested in CIA's contributions during these important chapters of our national history. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Central Intelligence Agency CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates 22 May 1996 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soap-boxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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