Friday, September 18, 2015

Releasing Classified Information: The Presidential Daily Briefs and Our Understanding of Cold War Decision Making

On Wednesday, September 16, 2015 the Central Intelligence Agency released 2,500 President's Daily Briefings (PDB).1 While this happened rather quietly for most Americans, it holds an amazing opportunity for those who are interested in presidential intellectual, political, military, intelligence, and institutional history (to name a few of the segments of historians). How can 2,500 redacted documents provide opportunity for so many researchers? To understand, one needs to have a primer about the documents themselves, as well as how intellectual historians work.

The President's Daily Briefing