Brennan speaks at the LBJ Library as the agency releases to the public September 16, 2015 classified copies of the President’s Daily Briefings from the Kennedy and Johnson years of 1961-1969. Some briefs dispensed with traditional intelligence-sharing and struck an entirely human chord.
The documents contain intelligence appreciations from the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis through to the Vietnam War, and are considered by historians to be an invaluable tool for evaluating how presidents like Kennedy actually made decisions.
The brief for August 21, the day after the invasion, describes how “Soviet and other Eastern European forces have now occupied Prague”. “The release of these documents affirms that the world’s greatest democracy does not keep secrets merely for secrecy’s sake”.
As presidents change, so does the brief. “More SAM sites along the north coast”. At least one page in the briefing remains classified.
Two days later Oswald was shot and killed by a Dallas nightclub owner, Jack Ruby.
The Times reported in a November . 25, 1963, briefing that Oswald, a former Marine who defected to the Soviet Union in 1959, visited both the Cuban and Soviet embassies on September 28. “For students of history, the declassified briefs will lend insight into why a president chooses one path over another when it comes to statecraft”.
Press stories to the effect that Lee Harvey Oswald recently visited Mexico City are true, according to our information. The briefings, { intended to | supposed to }fill in gaps in the president’s knowledge, rather than providing a comprehensive and redundant summary of events, were often written colloquially.
The CIA’s bulk release of the President’s Daily Briefs (PDB’s) from the 1960s is noteworthy because the agency had previously been opposed to the release of any of the documents. He said President Kennedy wanted a better way to stay informed after he was caught off guard by several developments on the intelligence front with the Bay of Pigs in April 1961.
“When we’re reading these, it’s a mirror image of what the president’s concerns were.”
“Johnson may have harbored a built-in bias against the checklist since it had been deliberately held from him when he was Vice President”, said Brennan.
A large number of the documents are marked “eyes only” for President Kennedy, implying that Johnson would not have received a copy. The full collection of briefs from the Kennedy and Johnson era are posted on the CIA’s website.
The P.D.B. was created for President Kennedy who was getting bogged down with paperwork.
The briefing went through a makeover and became the PDB on December . 1, 1964.