Prepping the President for the Helsinki Summit

The Kremlin and a statue of Abraham Lincoln

By David Priess

David Priess served during the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations as an intelligence officer, manager of analysts, and daily intelligence briefer at CIA and as a desk officer at the State Department. After September 11, 2001, he delivered the President’s Daily Brief directly to some of the few senior national officials allowed to see it, including FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General John Ashcroft. Priess wrote The President’s Book of Secrets: The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America’s Presidents, the inside history of the President’s Daily Brief—which included information from interviews with all of the living former presidents and vice presidents as well as dozens of other national security and intelligence leaders. He obtained his PhD in political science from Duke University and has taught classes at Duke, George Mason University, and the George Washington University. Priess now shares insights on national security, intelligence, and presidential politics frequently on broadcast media, in writing, and via presentations nationwide.

By John Sipher

John Sipher worked for the CIA’s clandestine service for 28 years. He is now a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a co-founder of Spycraft Entertainment. John served multiple overseas tours as Chief of Station and Deputy Chief of Station in Europe, Asia, and in high-threat environments. He is the recipient of CIA’s Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal.

For decades, former secretary of state and White House chief of staff James Baker has touted his version of a salty military catchphrase as a good-government mantra: “Prior preparation prevents poor performance.”

That doesn’t necessarily apply to intelligence; even exquisite inputs from the CIA and other spy agencies cannot guarantee that policymakers will perform well at high-stakes events like summits. A whispered maxim in CIA is, “You can lead a policymaker to intelligence but you can’t make him think.”

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