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CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates
CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates
John L. Helgerson
CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates
Table of Contents
CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates.. .......................................................................................................1
John L. Helgerson. ...................................................................................................................................1
Foreword: Getting To Know the President. ............................................................................................1
Preface. .....................................................................................................................................................3
Introduction. .............................................................................................................................................3
Chapter 1. Briefing Governor Clinton in Little Rock. ............................................................................6
Chapter 2. Truman and Eisenhower: Launching the Process. ..............................................................17
Chapter 3. Into Politics With Kennedy and Johnson. ...........................................................................31
Chapter 4. Nixon and Ford: Uneven Access. ........................................................................................50
Chapter 5. In−Depth Discussions With Carter. ....................................................................................65
Chapter 6. Reagan and Bush: A Study in Contrasts. ............................................................................80
Chapter 7. Concluding Observations. ....................................................................................................91
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CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates
John L. Helgerson
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
· Preface
·
Foreword: Getting To Know the President
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
CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates
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CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates
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 Carter? 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.
CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates
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CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates
Christopher Andrew
Corpus Christi College
Cambridge
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).
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
Preface
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