They were assisted by a number of agencies, but the work of one deserves special thanks and that is the work of the and National Security agency. 25thvent marks the cias major declassification event since 2007 and our second. Who we are fortunate once again to have people with us to know more about the president s daily brief than anybody else i can think of and thats john brennan and jim clapper. Both have been very supportive of intelligence transparency efforts. Director clapper has instituted a transparency counsel and the event today is the result of that counsel. An event would not happen without the support of director brennan. Have a document like this on your chair with an agenda. The introduction will be very brief because the agenda has all of the biographies in it. For those of you watching home, you can see that what on the cia. Gov website. Ant to thank the mexican Nixon Library for this space. Director ofrect the the museum. [applause] nixonlzey welcome to the library and museum. I would like to welcome those who have joined us today. On behalf of the National Archives, let me extend a warm welcome to directors clapper and brennan. President welcome the of the nixon foundation, board member larry higbee and elected officials including Janine Hernandez and 16 esteemed panelists. The importance of this Daily Briefing process to the security of our nation. I would like to recognize stacy davis, who represents the gerald ford president ial library in todays release. The the federal director of next in library and i am privileged to represent one of 13 president ial libraries administered by the National Archives and records and restoration. They promote an understanding of the presidency in the american experience. We provide access to historical materials, support research and create interactive programs and exhibits that educated inspire. Example of the president ial Library System fulfilling its mission. In an overriding and overwhelming parallel, the mission of the National Archives and Records Administration is to drive openness, Cultivate Public participation, and strengthen our democracy through Public Access to highvalue government records. How are we doing on that one . Todays conference addresses in andssion directly represents the relationship between the Intelligence Community and the National Archives area when the time is right, the shared mission is openness and transparency of americas records. Today the time is right. Finally, because we have gathered at the Nixon Library, i would like to offer a brief note about president in. As you will note from the a story of aere is difficult relationship between Richard Nixon and the Intelligence Community. Nixons exposure to the Intelligence Community heightened during his years as Vice President in the 1950s. His familiarity with the intelligence Briefing Program served the president elect very well. Form the basis for an active role in his National Security advisor Henry Kissinger and contributed to the tools Richard Nixon aggregated in becoming the most wellprepared president to assume the nations highest office. We are going to learn so much more about the important relationship between the Intelligence Community and president for the nixon throughout the day. To the Nixon Library and to todays program. I will turn it back over to joe lambert. Thank you. [applause] mr. Lambert lets get right to the program. I would like to invite director brennan up to the stage plays. Please. [applause] mr. Brennan its wonderful to be here this afternoon. Its an honor to be part of what i know will be a fascinating and enlightening event for all of us. Thank you for all of your hard work on this project. This is the common nation of many months of effort from you and your team. Thank you so much. Thank you for your terrific work and open your doors to us today so we can have this venue of these documents. It is always a pleasure to escape washington, d. C. In the month of august. Maybe more than sheer than previous years. It feels great to be out of washington. I see that we are all in the east room. Its a bit surreal. This is a remarkable library and we had a tour earlier. I am looking to the library reopening. , this is often said the greatest job in the world and i mean it. One of the most rewarding elements has been the chance to get across the country and give our citizens and understanding of the tremendous work performed by the cia. Today is one such opportunity. We shed light on our mission for the american people. Easy as it often as hoped it would be. Sufficient degree of secrecy to protect our officers and sources. American people demand more of their Intelligence Services and deserve that are thin secrecy for the sake of secrecy. The unique authority granted to us through the Representatives Congress are a secret sacred trust. Todays occasion is one way in which we seek to earn that trust. Do,an be open about what we it does not and are Current Operations or hurt our National Security. We are happy to contribute to the historical record. The presence daily brief represents the best picture of the world. Intelligencemier product. Our nations leaders have what they need to chart a safe and successful course for our country. It is one of the most sensitive and tightly held documents the Intelligence Community produces. Its tailored for the president. It is an unvarnished and difficult truth about the changing and complex world. The release of these historical briefs provide a missing dimension of the historical narrative. Most importantly, it gives us a better understanding of the International Challenges facing mexican and ford. Last year, i had the honor of speaking in austin, texas. That collection contained 2500 documents and over 1900 pages. Todays release is no less extensive. This will delight those phd students out there looking for dissertation topics. It is 28,000 pages. Far more important than the bulk, they provide us with a survey of the world as it was presented to our nations leaders at the time. Release,g through this you can envision yourself in the this paved the way for formal agreements on nuclear and biological pleura for asian. The vietnam war to the point when the flag of the viet congs revolutionary government was foisted over the president ial palace, marking the end of 30 years of war in vietnam. Detailed coverage of the coup against the chilean president. All that barely scratches the surface of what this service entails. By scrolling through these documents, we are reminded that the daily realities have always been more difficult in hindsight. ,s these documents illuminate they also offer a window on how the cia provided support to the oval office. It was during the nixon and Ford Administration that it grew in sophistication. Synthesized intelligence from clandestine reporting, overhead industry, intercepted communications, and open sources. A 24 7 process. The pdb would feature estimates. They represented not only the views of cia, but also the Intelligence Community. Despite the historical value, the record only goes so far. All too often, there are key anecdotes that did not quite make it to the written page. That is one of the reasons we have been so fortunate today to be joined by jim clapper. I am certain there is no one more qualified or wellversed to talk about the evolution of the pdb edit support to the president and president. In the 1960s, jim was a briefer for general west moreland in vietnam. Some reports indicate that he was general pattons aid in world war ii. As well as a classmate of john j pershing. Those reports remain uncorroborated until now. Under his leadership as the director of national intelligence, it has become a product of the Intelligence Community, marshaling the extent of its knowledge and expertise. He is an officer who walks the talk when it comes to fostering the openness about our intelligence activities. He rose to the rank of and now oureneral, much beloved director of national intelligence, he has agreed to join us today for a discussion about the pdbs. I would ask you to join me on the stage so we can talk shop. [applause] mr. Brennan thanks for joining us today. You are better posture did anybody else to talk about how the pdb has changed since the early years. The will talk about it during the nixon and Ford Administration. I thought it might be worthwhile to reflect upon how the product has changed. It was a hard copy delivered with to the president and the process for support has changed. Your perspective since you are now the one who goes into the oval office to meet with the president and talk about the pdb. Do you believe its as in terms of the president thinking on these issues . For theper thanks honor of being on stage with you. This is the second time since i was invited to participate in the rollout at the johnson library. With myhonor to be close friend and great professional colleague john brennan. He will go down as one of the handful of outstanding directors of the cia in history. On these two events, i did two tours in southeast asia. We were flying reconnaissance laos and cambodia. In both occasions, i did not know there was a pdb. Reading through the contemporary pdbs, i understood what a very small car i was in a large war today, what this will be after its been renovated is going to be spectacular. It wedded our curiosity to come back here when its open. I had a bar graph, a line graph on the number of troops deployed to southeast asia. That was a reminder in 1971 that people in,000 southeast asia. I was one of those. That puts in perspective where i fit in the larger scheme of things. Question, i think the major change of course as john mentioned is instead of it in exclusively a cia product which it was during the time in question here, it represents now entirety of the Intelligence Community. To be clear, the cia is still the engine for the pdb. Always regardless of who throughoutoordinated the Intelligence Community. , you wontpriate find dissents in the pdbs that were rolled out in september or those here. It was done by one agency. , toink thats a strength register dissent and the president has said to us that he , he was surprised there was not the sent. We reflect that. Are more changes occasioned by the technology. I may be a little biased. I think they are richer today because of the sources of information we draw on and the timeliness of the availability of those sources of information which werent available because the technology was not available. To an ipad. President obama is very i. T. Smart. We went to this a couple of years ago. That was a hard transition for some people. Others did not want to give up their precious hard copy. Now the ipad is the standard. To dumb them money down because they cant be interactive or wireless. Someday we will figure out how to do that. It does allow for much more agility id say in the presentation of material to include graphics, videos, references to previous articles that can be done with the pointing of a finger. I think from the standpoint of the sources of the pdb, the technology that is involved in producing it and the fact that its more broad and representing the capabilities of the representand it does the major changes. Vietnam was mentioned in two thirds of the documents being released today. Todays event is about history. General west moreland was a historical figure. Opportunity to bring him intelligence about the war. Maybe we can take advantage of this opportunity and hear your views on what it was like to brief general west moreland and how he received the information. Mr. Clapper i had been in the air force about 2. 5 years when i went to vietnam. 100 officersfirst sent on what was called a permanent change of station acis. Point in late 1965, all forces that were deployed there were on a temporary duty basis. I was among the first to go every year. Months, i wasour plucked out of the sea of an anonymous lieutenant and told you are going to go down to headquarters and offer assistance and help be part of a Briefing Team for general west moreland, who is the commander of the military systems command. Ahad never even seen fourstar general in my life, let alone talk to one. This is a very daunting experience. I was very nervous the first my specifict and briefing talk it topic was to correlate any single intelligence reflection of airstrikes over north vietnam. Board andther a map what we call icon locks is. I took my briefing board down every saturday to the briefing. Sure quite honest, im not what he made of it. He asked questions about the significance of a particular intercept, which i struggled to answer. About der sometimes he had a great affinity for statistics and numbers. I did wonder sometimes whether we poured into the weeds at the expense of what i came to regard as the bigger picture. To be candid, that reflected my disillusionment war during my year there in 1965 and 1966. It was an interesting experience. I learned some things about how to present things to senior people, which i trust helped me later on. It was a humbling experience appreciated that command can be a lonely thing, particularly when you are responsible for the lives of soldiers and are watching a lot killed and wounded. Wearing effect on general west moreland. This really chronicles the course of that war. There were daily developments and a lot of the pieces for focusing on the tactical developments on the ground. How do you see the balance between the strategic richer being manifest in the pdb and the process . How do you do that today in terms of making sure that we dont focus on the tactical developments, but we have a broader perspective in terms of the Overall Development . Mr. Clapper you put your finger on one of the challenges. The current generation of people have. T together the pdb how do you balance the high level generality that you have to keep in perspective and present enough detail that the number one,cymaker is getting enough of a flavor and a nuance and the subtleties in the atmospherics that prevail in whatever given situation youre trying to describe. That is something we constantly wrestle with today. It is very interesting to me to go back. I did have a lot of the pdbs being rolled out during my second tour. Just to see what was presented to the president at the time versus what i saw. I actually thought the pdb articles were a good chronicle what i recall from my vantage on the ground when i was in vietnam at the same time. Well, because of the global perspective, the global responsibilities the president has, vietnam dominated as a topic those pdbs. There were other issues the president had to deal with his well. Course, the cold war, access to berlin, the middle east. Here is haunting similarity these are many of the same concerns and conditions. We always have that challenge andow to balance the detail the broad picture. We spent a lot of time agonizing over what topics to pick. We labor over every word in the interest of doing the best we can to be objective and responsible. At the same time we are mindful of the president s time. This president devotes a lot of time to intelligence. He has a lot of other issues as you can appreciate on his platter. We have to be mindful of that. We dont inundate him with too much intelligence. It is in the end for us today as it was historically a balancing act. Mr. Brennan this is not the only access the Intelligence Community has to the president s. You can take a step back and look strategically. Mr. Clapper that is exactly right. We spent a lot of time bonding in the situation room. Factis a reflection of the that in the National Security apparatus, intelligence drives everything. We dont get a pass when we go to these meetings. We have to present the intelligence richer. They all start with that. That drives the agenda for the meetings. Forum that the president is involved in, its very much driven by intelligence. Be material that the president will read and our observation has been the president is eminently prepared. He has always done his homework before these meetings. President has the ipad, he reads that. Pdbont actually brief the per se. We have meetings where we will brief other items, either that supplement or augment or update what is in the pdb or other that we think he should be familiar with. The cia very much as a part of that process as well. Mr. Brennan it will frequently bring to the president news that is not always pleasing in terms of policy course, challenges. I was struck at looking at some of them from president nixons administration. Less than a month after he 14,med office, february 1969, the pdb said there were only a handful of politicians in South Vietnam with whom a small fraction of the people identified the government is likely to acquire a broader Political Base by bringing new faces in the are the cure is president nixon whose legacy was the vietnam war and he needs to deal with the issue supporting the self the emmys government here is intelligence bringing that news. Bringing information to be the president that really challenges options and courses. Mr. Clapper yes. [laughter] mr. Clapper first of all, the quote that you read from the pdb way back then was accurate. That