gillespie, former chair of the republican national committee. >> we are supposed to be a democratic republic. that doesn't mean you get to win every debate. it just means you have a fair process. if the folks vote for more flowers and you are a fiscal hawk, you lose. the cia recently released over 2000 pages of previously classified material from the richard nixon and gerald ford administrations. the documents were part of the daily briefings, documents seen only by the president and a few others, that discuss national security threats and issues. next, a discussion with cia director john's brennan and james clapper. the nixon foundation hosted the event. it is an hour and a half.

>> good afternoon, everyone. on behalf of all my colleagues, i want to welcome you to today's event, the president's daily brief, delivering intelligence to presidents nixon and ford. my name is joe lambert. i'm the director of information management at eia. events like this take a lot of work and i want to acknowledge the efforts of the cia officers who reviewed and declassified these 28,000 pages over the last year. they are assisted by a number of agencies, but the work of one in particular deserves special thanks, the national security agency. today's event marks the cia's 25th major declassification and 2007.e event since we are very fortunate once again

to have two people with us who probably know more about the daily brief than anybody i can think of. that is the director of the cia, torn brennan, and dinnerec of national intelligence, jim clyburn. director clapper has instituted intelligence transparency council. it fits nicely with the goals of that counsel. events like today would not happen without the support of director brennan. for those in attendance today, you should have a document like this on your chair with an agenda. the introductions will be brief. the agenda has all of the bios in it. for those of you watching at home, you can see all the documents on the cia website. i want to thank the nixon foundation, the nixon library, for making this wonderful venue

available. introduceuld like to the director of the richard nixon presidential library and museum to offer some remarks. mike? [applause] >> good afternoon, everybody. on behalf of the archivist of the united states and the richard nixon foundation, good afternoon and welcome to the richard nixon presidential library and museum in yorba linda, california. -- who like to welcome has joined us today. on behalf of the national archives and the nixon foundation, allow me to welcome directors clapper and brennan. i would also like to welcome bill, president and ceo of the nixon foundation, board member larry it be, elected representatives from yorba linda

, and from around the region, guests,emed panelists, and members of our community. members of community soon to be informed on the value and place in history of the president's daily brief. and the importance of this daily briefing process to the security of our nation. i would like to recognize stacy davis, representing the gerald ford presidential library and institutional partner in today's release. i'm the federal director of the nixon library and i'm privileged to represent one of 13 presidential libraries administered by the national archives and records administration. presidential libraries and museums from overthrew bush 43 promote an understanding of the american experience. we preserve and provide access to historical materials, support

research, and create interactive programs and exhibits that educate and inspire. today's program is a perfect example of the presidential library system fulfilling its mission. similarly, in an overwhelming parallel, the mission of the national archives and records administration is to drive openness, cultivate public participation, and strengthen our nation s democracy through public access to government records. how are we doing on that one? today's conference addresses that mission directly and represents clearly the relationship between the intelligence community and the national archives. when the time is right, the shared mission is openness and transparency of america's records. today, the time is right. finally, because we've gathered at the nixon library, i would

like to offer a brief note. as you will note from the conference materials, author john halverson tells the story of a sometimes difficult relationship between richard nixon and the intelligence community. nixon's exposure to the u.s. intelligence community heightened during his eight years as dwight eisenhower's vice president in the 1950's. nixon's familiarity with the breeding program served candidate, nominee, and president-elect nixon very well nearly a decade later in 1968, and formed the basis for his national security advisor, henry kissinger, and contributed to the tools richard nixon aggregated in becoming arguably the most well-prepared nation to assume the nations highest office. stay tuned. we are going to learn more about the relationship between the intelligence community and presidents ford and nixon throughout the day.

welcome to the nixon library and today's program. i'm going to turn it back over to joe lambert. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, mike. let's get to the program. i would like to invite director brendan to the stage, please. [applause] mr. brennan: good afternoon, everyone. it is wonderful to be here this afternoon. it is an honor to be part of what i know will be a fascinating and enlightening event for all of us. thank you, joe, for all your hard work on this project. this is the culmination of many months of effort by you and your team. thank you, mike, for your terrific work, and for opening the doors to us today.

also in the grand tradition of our political processors, it is a pleasure to escape washington, d.c. in the month of august. maybe more this year than previous years. i would normally say that it feels great to be out of washington, but i see that we are all in the east room. it is a bit surreal. remarkable library. i'm looking forward to the opening of the library on october 14. as i have often said, being cia director is the absolute greatest job in the world. one of the most rewarding elements of my tenure has been the chance to get across the country to give our fellow citizens a fuller understanding of the tremendous work performed by the women and men of cia, from throughout the intelligence community. today is one such opportunity to shed light on our mission and our history for the benefit of

the american people. easy i not often as would hope it would be. by definition, the world of intelligence requires a sufficient degree of secrecy to protect our officers, sources, methods, and nation. the american people demand more of their intelligence services and deserve better than secrecy for secrecy's sake. the unique authorities granted to us through congress are a sacred trust, one that we must learn in part by being as forthcoming as we can. today's occasion is one way in which we seek to earn that trust. when we can be open about what we do, when doing so does not hinder our current operations or hurt national security, we are happy to contribute to the historical record. the president's daily brief represents the best picture of the world that cia and the intelligence community can

furnish to the president. it is the premier intelligence product, culmination of painstaking effort each day so that our nation's leaders have what they need to chart a safe and successful course for our country. it is also one of the most sensitive the u.s. intelligence community produces. pdb provides an unvarnished and often difficult truth. so the release of these historical pdb's reveal a crucial and until now missing dimension of the historical narrative. most importantly, they give us a better understanding of the challenges facing president's next and and ford. last year, i had the opportunity of speaking in texas, at the first substantial release of pdb 's from the kennedy and johnson administrations. that collection contains some 2500 documents and 19,000 pages.

today's release is no less extensive. i'm sure it will delight students looking for a dissertation topic. it tips the scales at about 2500 documents and 28,000 pages. provide us with a survey of the world as it was presented to our nation's leaders at the time. by reading through this release, you can envision yourself in the oval office, confronting these challenges. of can trace the evolution cold war tensions with the soviet union that paved the way for agreements on nuclear and biological proliferation. you can follow the course of the vietnam war to the point as the april 30, 1975, when the flag of the viet cong government was wasted over the presidential palace, marking the end of 30 years of war in vietnam.

there's also coverage of the coup against the president of chile, the postcolonial 1973icts in angola, the arab-israeli war, and the emergence of modern international terrorism. all that barely scratches the surface of what this collection entails. by perhaps scrolling through that pdb's we are reminded the challenges facing our policymakers have always been more difficult than hindsight lets on. as these documents eliminate also -- illuminate history, they also offer a window to the oval office. it was during the nixon and ford administrations that the pdb al- continued to grow in sophistication. the pdb synthesized intelligence and clandestine reporting, overhead imagery, intercepted communications, and open sources.

publishing the pdb was truly a 24/7 process. perhaps foreshadowing the greater role the intelligence community would play in the process, the pdb under president nixon would often feature intelligence estimates. those products that represented not only the views of cia but also the entire intelligence community. intelligence support to the white house was a collective effort. despite the historical value, the documentary record only goes so far. all too often, there are key memories and anecdotes that did not make it to the written page. that is one of the reasons we are so fortunate to be joined by director of national intelligence jim clapper. i'm certain there is no one more of a fight -- more qualified than jim to speak about the pdb. jim has had a long and distinguished career, that

extends even further back than the period covered in today's release. in the 1960's, jim was a briefer for general westmoreland in vietnam. some reports indicate that jim was general patton's a discount in world war ii as well as a classmate of john j purging, but those reports remain uncorroborated. under jim's outstanding leadership as director of national intelligence, the pdb has become a product of the intelligence community, marshaling its knowledge and expertise. i have seen firsthand that jim walks the talk when it comes to fostering the appropriate level of openness about our intelligence activities. rose to the rank of lieutenant general, director of the national imagery and mapping agency, undersecretary for defense and intelligence, and now director of national

intelligence, jim clapper has agreed to join us today for a discussion about the pdb's. jim, i would ask you to join me on the stage so we can talk a bit of shop. [applause] mr. clapper: hello? ok. mr. brennan: jim, thanks so much for joining us. you are better postured than anybody else to talk about how the pdb has changed since the early years. we will talk about the pdb's during the nixon and ford administrations, but i thought that it might be worthwhile to reflect on how the product has changed. back then, there was a hard copy delivered to the president, and the process has changed.

i want to get your perspective, since you are now the one that goes into the oval office to meet with the president and talk about the pdb, if you believe the pdb is still as influential, if not more influential, in terms of the president's thinking. mr. clapper: thanks, john. thanks for the honor of being on stage with you for the second time since i was invited to participate as well in the rollout at the johnson library. so it is a real honor to be with my close friend and great professional colleague, john brennan. who i believe is going to go down as one of a hand all, and don't use all your fingers, of the most outstanding directors of cia in its history. personal note on these two ended, they actually book

my tors in southeast asia, with the vietnam in 1955-66, and 1970-71, flying reconnaissance missions over cambodia. in both occasions, i didn't know there was a pdb. reading through the contemporary pdb's, i understood what a very small cog i was in a large war effort. --ing the course of the tour is going to be spectacular, i think. i had a bar graph, a line graph, on the number of troops deployed on southeast asia. that was a reminder.

people in00,000 southeast asia, and i was one of those. that is to put in perspective where i sit in the larger scheme of things. as to how pdb has changed, i think the major change, as john mentioned, is that instead of it ,eing exclusively a cia product , thew represents the input views and assessments, of the entire u.s. intelligence community. cia is still the engine for the pdb, but in all cases, it is always, regardless of who drafted, cia or any component of the intelligence committee, it is always coordinated throughout the intelligence community. and importantly, where appropriate and where someone wants to, dissents are

reflected. you won't find dissents in the pdb's that were rolled out in the university of texas, because it was done by one agency. i think that is a strength, ,rankly, to register dissent president obama has won more than one occasion said that he welcomes that, would be surprised that there weren't dissent within the intelligence community, so we reflect that. the other changes are more occasioned by the technology. i may be a little biased, but i think our pdb's today are richer because of the many more sources of information we draw on and the timeliness of the availability of those sources of information, which weren't available then, because of the technology in the pdb's that will be rolled out today. we have gone to an ipad.

president obama, who is very i.t. smart, we went through this a couple years ago. that was a very hard transition for some people, not for him, but for others who didn't want to give up their precious hard copy. now, ipads have become the standard. they are dumb ipads, i should say. we have paid money to dumb them down because they can't be wireless, of course. for much more agility in the presentation of material, to include graphics, videos, and references to previous articles, which can be done with the pointing of a finger. i think, from the standpoint of the sources of the pdb, the technology involved in producing it, the fact that it is more inad gays in -- broad gaze

representing the views of the entire intelligence community, id does reflect dissent, think are the major changes. mr. brennan: vietnam was mentioned in more than two thirds of the pdb documents that are being released today. today's event is about history. general westmoreland was a historical figure. you had the opportunity to bring him intelligence about the war. maybe we can take advantage of this opportunity to hear your views about what it was like to brief general westmoreland, how he received the information, and your techniques. mr. clapper: i had been in the air force about 2.5 years when i went to vietnam. 100 air forceirst intelligence officers sent on a permanent change of station basis. point, late 1965,

all u.s. forces deployed there were on a temporary basis. i had been there about three or four months and was sort of plucked out of the sea of anonymous lieutenants, and i was told, next saturday, you are going to headquarters to help be part of a briefing team for general westmoreland, who was the commander of u.s. military systems command in vietnam. i had never even seen a four- star general in my life, let alone talked to one. this was a very daunting experience and i was very nervous the first time i did it. my specific reading topic -- toedifing topic was

synthesize intelligence reflections of airstrikes over north vietnam. board, sorter a map of what we call icon boxes, and i took my briefing boards down every saturday to brief him. to be quite honest, i'm not sure what he made of it. he always seemed very interested, asked questions about the significance or reflections of a particular intercept, which i struggled to answer. i did wonder sometimes about -- he had a great affinity for statistics and numbers, and i did wonder sometimes whether we maybe bored into the weeds and awful lot at the expense of what

i came to regard as the bigger picture, which to be candid, reflected my own growing disillusionment with the war ining my year there in 1965 1966. it was an interesting experience. learn some things about how to try to present things to senior people, which i trust helped me later on. towas a humbling experience zero. -- experience too. i appreciate that command can be a very lonely thing, particularly when you are responsible for the lives of soldiers, and were watching a lot of them be killed and wounded. that had a wearing effect on general westmoreland. mr. brennan: speaking about the weeds and the big picture, the pdb's being released today

chronicle that war. there were daily developments. a lot of the pieces were focusing on the tactical developments on the ground. how do you see the balance between that tactical and strategic picture being manifest in the pdb, and how do you do that today in terms of making sure that as we look at the situation in syria, iraq, other places, that we have a broader perspective in terms of the overall trends? mr. clapper: john, you put your finger on one of the challenges that the current generation of people who put together the pdb have. how do you balance the high level of generality that you have to keep in perspective, and at the same time, present enough detail that the reader, in this

case policymaker number one, currently is getting enough of the flavor and the nuance and the subtleties and the atmospherics that prevail in whatever given situation you are trying to describe. that is something we constantly wrestle with today. to try to strike that balance. it was very interesting to go back, and i did read through a lot of the pdb's that are being rolled out, during the period of my second tour, 1970 to 1971. just to see what was presented to the president at the time versus what i saw in the engine room. i actually thought the pdb articles were a pretty good recall from what i my vantage on the ground, when i

was in vietnam at the same time. well, because of the global perspective, the global responsibilities of the u.s. president, vietnam dominated as a topic, those pdb's. thee were many other issues president had to deal with as well, which the pdb had to treat. the cold war, access to berlin, the ever present middle east. there's haunting similarity between situations in the middle east then versus now. many of the same concerns and conditions. -- and we always have that challenge of how to and the broadtail picture.

we spent a lot of time agonizing over what topics to pick. word in theer every interest of doing the best we can to be as objective and responsible, but at the same time, mindful of the president's time. this president devotes a lot of time to intelligence, but he has a whole lot of other issues, as you all can appreciate, on his platter, and we have to be mindful of that, that we not inundate him with too much intelligence, which is possible. it is in the end for us today as it was historically, a balancing act. mr. brennan: the pdb is not the only access the intelligence community has to the president. we spend time in the situation room and security council meetings when you can look at things strategically. mr. clapper: exactly right.

john and i spent a lot of time bonding in the situation room. a reflection of the fact that, in the national security apparatus, intelligence drives everything. john and i don't get a pass when we go to these meetings. we always have to present the intelligence picture. they all start with that. that kind of drives the agenda for the meetings. specific form that the president is involved in, national security council meetings, very much driven by intelligence. there will be intelligence material that the president will read, and i think our observation has been, in our time, the president is always

eminently prepared. he has always done his homework before these meetings. president, the that, so pdb, he reads we don't actually brief the pdb per se. we do have meetings, though, where we will brief other items, either that supplement or augment or update what is in the pdb, or on other issues cia is very much a part of that process as well. mr. brennan: the pdb will frequently bring to the president, news that is not always that pleasing in terms of policy course and options and choice. i was struck by looking at some of the pdb's in the early days of the nixon administration.

this was in february 14, 1969 in 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 president the billy challenges the presidency? mr. clapper: yes. [laughter] mr. clapper: first of all, the quote that you read from the pdb way back then was accurate. that was one of the great personal dissolution months i had-- disillusionments i

when i got to vietnam and found that with united states were propping up a series of dictators that were interested in preserving their own positions and lesser interest in leading their country in a very, very difficult time. both john and i have had the experience of being the bearer of bad news to the president. worst chastisement i ever got was a comment about, sometimes the intelligence community has a very elegant sense of timing. i remember that. i have to say as well, president obama has insisted, has insisted that we always tell it straight,

we be as objective as we not coloran, and to things, politicize things, not know things, letting them what the truth is. we always try to do that. that is certainly always been the objective. i can certainly recall some oval,sant visits to the which i will not go into, but it is a part of the deal. inis almost a writ intelligence to always tell the truth to a par. it is something i have the occasion to do with general westmore were in airstrikes did not go so well, or airstrikes

missed the target. that, but iot like learned early on that is one of the, i think, fundamental obligations of professional intelligence officers. mr. brennan: jim is famous for saying, there are only two conditions of washington. do you want to point that out. mr. clapper: you learned there are only two conditions in life, policy success, intelligence failure. no other conditions in life. [laughter] mr. brennan: as you point other some of the analysis looks like impression as to what actually happens. a lot of times policymakers are surprised. sometimes it can be without foundation, but a lot of times with good reason. this pdb release covered the 1973 israeli war, which broke out in october 6 of 1973. on october 5 of 1973, the pdb

says the military exercises in egypt seem to be on a larger scale and conducted more realistically but they do not appear to be preparation against israel. [laughter] mr. clapper: just kidding, you know? [laughter] mr. clapper: i think the serious is there is intelligence about distinguishing between mysteries and secrets. that, ifre normal fax you have the access, you can clean them -- gleen them. mysteries are unknown. i think a lot of times, and this may sound defensive but i will say it anyway, i think too often the intelligence community is held to the same standard for

mysteries and secrets and being clairvoyant. in this case, and there are many others, but we did not make the right coal. all for every one of those, there are ten calls that we made that were correct that never get publicized and where the intelligence community saved ,ives because of our ability our foresight, are anticipatory abilities, and it is to the great and if it and safety of these people. i say that over a span of 53 years, whatever years it has been, and i have been in the intelligence business. mr. brennan: we just watched the olympics in rio de janeiro. these pdb's covered a time when

we had the tragic attacks in munich that led to the deaths of israeli athletes, which had only briefed treatment in the pdb's. today, terrorism is much more of a prominent feature of the landscape. how do you see the pdb being the vehicle for making sure the president is kept up-to-date on what might be coming down the pike is worst terrorist are concerned? mr. clapper: we focused a great deal of effort across the intelligence community and certainly in the cia on terrorism and our efforts to .ounter it this is usually complicated dimensions in our intelligence community. manifested in the intelligence

in 2004 which created the position of dni. it also, importantly, represented the marriage, if you will, of both foreign and domestic intelligences, something which having grown up in the intelligence community i have learned the firewall, it always prevails for foreign and domestic intelligences. now we have to marry those two up the best weekend. foreignbeen at the intelligence a lot wonder, it is more mature, but i think we have made great progress in linking our foreign intelligence capabilities with responsibilities to support local, tribal, state, private sector. imposes a perhaps greater burden on the

pdb given the time constraints the president has in the responsibility that is incumbent upon us to bs a saint -- inct as we possibly can but to keep the insights that we have on individual plots and how they affect this country. regrettably, you know, pdb articles on terrorism began to appear during this period. i found it frankly chillingly haunting to read those articles which talked about the same forces we were contending with. , also regrettably we will be in the business with suppressing terrorists for some time to come. that points out, highlights,

emphasizes the importance of that portrayed as accurately and completely as possible in the president's daily briefing. mr. brennan: the coup that to the austrian death was a prominent event during this time. at that time, we had stark separation inside the cia between analyst in operation officers. the analysts were writing pdb at the time were unaware of all of the covert action. as you know, right now, we have an effort to better integrate the capabilities, so that our collectors and analysts and technologies are able to work together more effectively and efficiently. do you worry at all about analytic objectivity and integrity as a result of this process? mr. clapper: no, i do not, at all. in fact, one of the features of the provision is a requirement have anoffice

analytic integrity office whose omission is to assess and monitor analytic integrity throughout the intelligence community. we do that through a number of mechanisms including surveys and analysts which are anonymous. every year, thousands of analysts respond to these questionnaires about objectivity and whether or not they feel pressured. important question is whether they had an outlet or did they achieve a satisfactory outcome when they saw help from management? with specific respect to what john has mentioned with the transformation of modernization which basically calls for the

amalgamation of analysts and collectors in the same organization, which i strongly support, only because it has a huge impact on strengthening the agency, but it has a tremendous spillover and influence on the best of the intelligence community. my mantra during my six years has been "integration. " that is what the 9/11 commission said was needed and that has found its way into the law through the irotpa. the fact that analysts and collectors worked together does integrityhat analytic is in any way compromised. i would comment that what john

has done at the headquarters of the cia is simply congruent with the way things operate in the field. today, just about any embassy you go to, you will have of course a cia contingent but representatives from many of the components of the intelligence community are there and they operate as an integrated team, capitalizing on the talents and capabilities in contributions of everybody who is represented there. always under the leadership of a chief that wears a second hat for me as the dni presented of who reinforces the chief of station's role as the intelligence leader and promote integration, and that is what is happening at the cia. other components of the intelligence community are doing the same. are in the throes of organization and

reconstruction -- restructuring the greater theme of integration. to be sure, to be clear, we do have to safeguard and required by law to oversee analytic integrity. as well, each agency has an independent arm somewhere in its organization, those producing --elligence products also who also watch for safeguarding analytic integrity. mr. brennan: i want to open up questions from the audience. the pdb was a unique product during president ford and nixon. intelligences. agency is the gold standard worldwide. a lot of foreign intelligence services seek to emulate what the u.s. intelligence community is doing it, how we do our work, how we collect, how we analyzed but also how we provide the head

of state and government. we have had a number of conversations with her government counterparts. -- with our government counterparts. do you know of any other similar type of products or services to their head of state that comes anywhere close to the pdb? mr. clapper: no. there is no other country on the planet that it goes to the leg as we do. serious endeavor. it is seven by 24. it takes the effort of a lot of people. is reflected than here because it involves the entire intelligence community. my view is it is a great strength of our system.

others have looked at it and i think made some effort to have some system for informing their head of state, but i know no one engths wes to the l do. mr. brennan: let's open it up. we are going to get right into questions. i am going to do one quick commercial. this is cia week at the nixon library. not only do we have these two great gentleman on stage, but tomorrow evening we have david preece who will talk his book "the president's book of secrets" which chronicles the daily briefings from kennedy all the way up to obama. please go online and go ahead and sign up and we hope to see you back here tomorrow night. the first question, i would like to ask.

can you tell us about the presidential daily briefings regarding resident nixon's trip to china and the influence it had? mr. clapper: well, actually i cannot say much about it because ati say, i was a young pup the nsa at the time. run-up toe pdb in the the, it is my understanding there were a lot of discussions about interests outside the pdb because it was certainly a tremendously historic event as we were reminded during our tour today. the relationship with china, and the legacy continues today. theink pdb treatment in

run-up served as a tutorial, if you will, but i also believe that the president was receiving ,nputs from other sources national security advisor, secretary of state, beyond what was in the pdb. >> differently was a seminal event that continues to resonate to this day. mr. brennan: president obama is leaving for china next wednesday attending the g 20 summit out that. ixon's to go to china was significant and it is a good example of how to keep secrets before something takes place. this is part of the lexicon, something that will reference unexpected and needing to have someone who has taken such a

strong line on an issue to try to resolve the problems and overcome the obstacles. unless we had the opening band, i think the course of events -- opening then, i think the course of events would have been much different. president nixon deserves a lot of credit to recognize china as a global presence, global pow er, and we needed to have the dialogue that can sometimes be tense but incredibly important for national intelligence. >> the next question, back of the room to your right, gentlemen. california, clay baxter. >> thank you, sir. thank you gentlemen for your service to our country. one of the questions i have is, what contribution to the presidential daily briefing

comes from the military? today, the, well, as i indicated, one of the major changes that is occasioned by the terrorism prevention act was the involvement of the entire intelligence community. military is the defense agency and intelligence agency which will serve as a drafter, particularly on articles, as you would expect, direct military reference. draw on thecan entirety of the military and intelligence community which includes the intelligence arms and arms serving the command. partary plays a prominent of the process, and that is one of the benefits of opening it

up, the preparation of the pdb to the entirety of the intelligence committee. mr. brennan: most of that falls within the department of defense in terms of all of the agencies, national security agency, others in the intelligent services of the various services. there is regular input from all of them. they share reporting. obviously the united states military is actively engaged in places like afghanistan, iraq, so we get relative -- so begin regular reports. >> back to the right, gentlemen. >> you mentioned general westmoreland, sometimes seeming to get lost in the weeds, and the influence of president nixon . we also know president kennedy had hired secretary of defense from before company to streamline the military, etc.

my question, do you think the combination of the two balanced 's view?nixon mr. clapper: well, that is probably a take-home question. [laughter] mr. clapper: i really cannot say whether, how much that influenced the president at the time. moore ofem to me, and a contemporary observation, that fadid get awfully deep into cts and stats, body count, how many viet cong, north vietnamese were killed, how many were flown, hyundai bombs were dropped -- how many bombs were dropped? general westmore

thought was important at the time. thennot say to what extent preoccupation with details, numbers, statistics had a vary on the president. i guess it did, but i cannot answer that specifically. mr. brennan: many times jim and i found ourselves in the white house room and were pummeled with questions about the situation. we would look back-and-forth at each other, who has the answer and who takes this is a take-home answer. mr. clapper: just like we are doing now. [laughter] mr. brennan: the intelligence community is a repository for those facts. policymakers trying to figure out and making sense of very confusing, complex situations want to have as much input as possible and they do look at the intelligence community to provide them that inside. mr. clapper: i do think, something john said that i will key in on, while intelligence

is, we think, it is quite important and we try to tee it up for policymakers, they have the option of accepting or rejecting it or biting into some of it or not of it or drawing other sources. that is their option. extent aauging to what given piece of intelligence will -- moste policymakers of them are drawing on many sources for influence into their decision calculating. >> the patent focus on details --patton focus on details? mr. clapper: he did. yes, john. >> thank you very much for this event. this is a question for ca director mr. brennan -- cia

director mr. brennan. they were reports that they had infiltrated dianne feinstein's e-mails. there was also a cia report that stated such application did occur. can you please clarify this for us? mr. brennan: i am trying to understand that in the pdb released today, quite frankly. i have talked about this. we carried out our responsibilities and we had an obligation to make sure they were secure and we found out there was some vulnerability, we carried out our responsibilities to investigate that, and it was fully informing the senate about it, and some believe it or not, there are some things that come out from the press that are not exactly a reflection of reality, and so i stand behind with the cia did during that time, and i

have no problems in terms of explaining our work at the time with what we get it to the congress in them a full report, so i can sleep comfortably, very comfortably at night. mr. clapper: i stand behind the. at. >> the center section just to your left, gentlemen. >> my question is, how do you communicate with each other in members of the administration? do you use e-mails? that is the first question. the second part of that, when you send an e-mail or received an e-mail do you know whether it is classified or not t? the last part of it, if you think it is important enough for national security and it is linked intentionally --leaked intentionally or by accident, do think that will harm security

and therefore illegal? [laughter] mr. brennan: jim and i can to mitigate regularly in a number of ways, phone calls, we spent a daysf time in the vietnam talking as buddies. we do communicate in different faction -- fashions. u.s. intelligence officials are different means in terms of e-mails, unclassified e-mails that we send to one another and then there are classified networks that the intelligence community really relies upon to do its work, to maintain the data and rick taine -- and retain seekers. when information comes out for the public, a lot of times it is done with various purposes and agendas. all of the hackings that have

taken place whether they be government e-mails, personal e-mails. i have had my personal e-mails hacked and personal e-mails put out publicly. this is one of the real challenges of our country, to be able to deal with the tremendous capabilities, unfortunately of those that want to do us harm. whenever jim and i communicate, we try to make sure we put on the high side and on the low side, unclassified information. we all have an obligation to do that. , my wifeer: one of the is not wilde about it, --wild about it, but we do have small areas in her home with the ability to comedic is securely either at home or on the road. it is actually very important.

proud of thery trust and confidence iand the bond between the cia and my office. next question, very back of the room, center section. >> hi. you spoke earlier about the defense intelligence agency, and what i want to know, what kind percentage come are using their information, 10%, 30%, 50% of the daily briefings? mr. clapper: to be quite honest, we do not keep statistics like that. it is actually pretty hard to do that. i would not want to wager a guess on what percentage that we draw on any one of the

is we willnly occurs use several sources to portray one-story. it isn't a question of it being an exclusively a cia article or exclusively in nga article one we try to do is put them together so we draw on .eospatial intelligence their tremendous capabilities in graphics and imagery. -- attachesjames and the nsa for intelligence which we try to fuse together sort of product so we don't try to do that anymore kind of a is statistically tough thing to do

and i am not sure it has a lot .f merit thank you very much for coming today. i happen to be a part of the nixon administration. can you give us an overview of how the baby fits into the overall schedule for the day. tpp fits into the overall schedule for the day. when i see press shots today it looks tpphow does it like presis more people there every morning. work yo? >> eight varies depending on the president's travel schedule and commitments but the typical time 10:00 but as iis

said in his case we do not go in and brief the articles because he has already read them so we use that time which he and his advisers ascribe a lot of it fromce to to update the time it was cut off and that includes i am getting updated as i am going to the white house to present the intelligence briefing and then of course the white house has its own organic watch function in the white house situation room as well as advisers who are very competent themselves in intelligence issues, one of whom was john. to president is attended quite well weather during the period of briefing over throughout the day when they are breaking situations.

>> a lot of it depends upon the wishes of the individual president. i was a briefer for president .linton app it was something that we started at 10:00 in the morning. the first part of the session would be the briefing. the president would ask questions or i would augmented with additional information and to talkould leave about, what are we going to do about these intelligence issues? the same thing happens today. the presidents advisers say around. take copious notes when jim would be talking and we would discuss what we need to do , what types of phone calls we have to make overseas. db serves as --

>> i think john makes a good point if i could just -- and that is, many many presidents , verying this one rigorous about separating intelligence from the policy process and so when we go into brief the president, we have done, we are leaf before policy deliberations and i personally think that >> it is the right formula. >>we avoid advocating for policy courses because if we were to do that i think it really would, to question the integrity of our analysis and over and assessments because we could be tailoring things in support of a certain policy course and so we -- either in the oval session or the white house situation room. >> good afternoon.

i have a question after giving intelligence briefings myself in iraq and we had some inaccuracies. did you discover later that that was not too accurate? doug has, i have not. >> absolutely. -- 100% represented right on the time. we are not. i have made errors in the course of my briefings in the oval office and i was quick to correct them. that isuse i just think important from the credibility standpoint. sometimes you didn't have the facts. there are lots of reasons that can happen. you are doing this on a fairly and you arechedule trying your best to make sure

you are complete and accurate -- but weare going to occur weren't always i think conscientious about making sure that we corrected them. >> the next question is from jean hernandez. >> thank you for coming to yorba linda. politics, ia linda am sure you are in a political situation. i convinced somewhere along the line, some staffer will try to say, you do not want to brief the president on that. when that occurs, do you say, thanks, but no thanks? to say thatsed doesn't happen. case whereink of a

for a substantive .eason, that is bad news i do not recall an occasion for that. is a holy writ for the professional of intelligence , knowing truth in power no matter how unwelcome or that truth may be. i have been a participant in some intense discussions as a briefer where there are questions about the assessment over the intelligence and maybe thosemes the reader -- arguments are very healthy areuse whether or not you assisting the president, you

want to make sure the president gets the best intelligence possible and so sometimes those discussions that take place really help to refine and make the briefing that are. >> next question, back of the room. >> thank you for coming today. very pleased to have you. i spoke to admiral rogers previously and the person in charge of cyber defense and he often talks about the idea of a cyber pearl harbor and now we need to pay attention to that as well as the kinetic issues that confront us as well. this past week, we appeared to have a cyber pearl harbor in which the nsa was hacked and all of its information that shows everybody on the internet how to

get into the back door of the nsa or the tools with which they use to find that information about our enemies and/or our friends -- how big an issue is this? how monumental hack is this? if you are giving the president the briefing, to what extent do you cover this issue? >> this is a bothersome development. i do not know if i would call it a cyber pearl harbor. before admiral rogers have spoken to this possibility. ,he former secretary of defense mike mcconnell, have all spoken about the notion of a cyber pearl harbor. when i think of that, i think of a massive cyber attack on the country that would affect our

infrastructure and financial --tor, electrical system this is what comes up as a so-called cyber pearl harbor. the case that you bring up is a serious one. we are still sorting this out. inglis of the nsa said it best when he said, we have to march on and recover from this. contemporary period of these tools that were the in of3, as a result presidential group that was assembled after the edwards , we have aations

better process for making decisions about informing deficiency, a potentially exploitable versus the national security implications of doing that. that is a difficult process but that has changed since the contemporary -- the time in question that is at least indicated in the hack and it is still under investigation. we do not know exactly the extent of or the understanding of what happened. to answer your question, yes, the president is aware of those kinds of happenings. >> in terms of the vulnerability these typestry, to of attacks or expectations, i think it is probably the most

serious issue that we face as a country looking forward because this environment is the new domain that most human interaction takes place in and i do not think we have come to terms with what is the appropriate role of government in one is mainly a private sector environment and how are we going to ensure that we can safeguard the prosperity of this nation when things are happening in that environment and that the government does not even have the authority at this point to do certain things in order to protect our infrastructure, or privacy, over civil liberties? there have been a number of issues in terms of what is the role of government and how can technology help or hurt that governments ability to take care --what it is this administration, the

intelligence community is focused on this in the next administration needs to take as the mosty on important issue that they will grapple with. .> gentleman on the right wall >> thank you for being here. my question is similar. i hear that cyber terrorism is our biggest threat and how it can affect our infrastructure. would you agree with that? i am always reluctant to grade threats. which one is the most serious and prioritize them. the reason for that is, we do not get a pass on any of them. the scenario you suggest is a scary one and i think i can

probably conjure other scary scenarios in the biological warfare realm. maintaino attempt to anticipate any of isse scary scenarios so that istainly a bad one and that kind of fitting the definition to a certain extent of what was previously referred to as a cyber pearl harbor. i completely agree with what about the whole nature of cyber which the classic technology of having a two-edged sword. our lives are completely dependent on it. at the same time, it poses a threat to our society and our of the waysand one

that specific ways that threat could manifest itself is exactly .long the lines you suggest >> as a move toward having the internet of things when everything is going to be connected to that environment, there is a national dependence on the vitality and reliability of that environment and i do not mean to imply -- there are other uses of it that are on phone to this country. the power grid, transportation rely on medical centers having that reliable connectivity in that cyber domain and so, what i'm saying is that we now are experiencing more of attending logical revolution, a lot of our practices and processes which

were developed in the 20th century have not kept up and cyber is something unlike anything else. we know the responsibility of .he police on the streets we know what the responsibility of the government is. what theot figured out role of government is to optimize civil liberties while optimizing security whether it , adversaries,s terrorist groups, or individuals that want to hack into something and destroy it -- this is something that we as a nation understand the potential vulnerability unless we take the steps necessary -- it is going to require an unprecedented partnership between the public sector in the private sector and i believe that the national

commission news to be established to look at what we need to do as a country and cyber doesn't respect boundaries, either, so it is also been a we can do think that this is the issue that we are going to have to deal with the future aside from all the other ones -- terrorism, proliferation. thank you for your service. who ultimately decides what is going to be in the data briefing? when the president refused to briefing and he is looking at the intelligence, does he know that intelligence comes from the cia or some other intelligence agency? does the president need to have somebody personally briefed him on the daily briefings or visit his prerogative to read them without -- he does know the sources of

every article, who the drafter or drafters were will often have more than one component to write where he wasd drawn on, what i do components. that is reflected at the bottom of every article. process for selecting articles is a collective one. we have a dedicated staff of people who do this on a 24-hour basis. we have seasoned professionals who make these decisions which gets a light touch from me. i tried to stay out of it. we are always careful about the managethat we pick to

this activity. in this case, i know president bush did have his process was to pdb and have somebody to ask questions. that is the process that president obama uses. we know he reads it because of comments and questions he has when we are in the either -- he, we may ask a question or give us a task from an article that he has we will supplement what was in there with updates since there is a production process so you have to cut it off at a certain time or other

items that perhaps do not make the threshold that which we think he should know about. as i indicated earlier there are others who participate in this. we are not the exclusive source of intelligence for the president which is a good thing. this is a crucial role that john played in the white house and was great because of his service in the intelligence community and he played an important role in supporting the president. the important thing is that this is clearly a team sport. there is the engine represented by the intelligence community to turn this out day after day but that is not to say that that is the exclusive source of input for the president. >> frequently, they will be generated by experts that are

watching the situation develop and think that the president is to be updated on something but issue andmay see an tell our folks we need to make sure the president is aware of the changing dynamics as well as the recipients themselves. we will say, we need to make sure that the president is updated on this. a lot of times, articles are drafted to coincide with meetings or travel, so he is going to china next week. we try to make sure that he is as fully informed as possible. >> another feature was what we .all expert briefs the process is to bring in a pair of experts from across the community to brief the president on a particular topic common

either he is going on a trip or some other issue that we think he needs to be up to speed on so we will bring in the exports and we had some wonderful talent to do that. the president invariably engages with him. the bottom line is that this is a team effort and we use many different methods for conveying the intelligence. >> thank you for being here today. piggybacking on the previous question. is there any backstop in the plans or an elevated concern for private companies that are facing an advanced threat from these government state and nation's -- can you speak to that? do we try ton,

warn them, the answer is absolutely yes. the department of homeland security has an important role in engaging with the private -- if we as we learn do learn of potential for rims -- attacks in whatever form it may take and of course the first challenge then is if you can is attribution -- is it from a foreign source? and then, what is it we can share on a timely basis without compromising sources or methods and there is a mechanism for attempting to warn -- four and the entirey commercial sector of a potential threat. we have a collaborative relationship in terms of making sure to share information with putting the pieces

together and has these threats emerge and if private sector companies are under threat, the appropriate offices will be in touch. >> our next question is in the back row, to your left. >> you mentioned earlier about getting the intentions of the egyptian army wrong. can you give us some examples or anecdotes and the other side of the coin where you see that the daily briefing was particularly think there are any number of plots which are we getst plots which onto, get some insight into -- i

can't -- i'm not -- i can't -- i won't stipulate particular examples or how we knew about them but there has been many of those that have been thwarted because of work of the intelligence community at large which i count as a success. is often the case heard where we also do very well is when the president has foreign engagements and in preparing him , what isthe issues are on the mind of his foreign counterpart, that sort of thing. again, do not want to go into specifics but those are two examples where i think it has

worked on the other side of the coin. >> most successes are still secrets because we might have intelligence that a country is going to do something and we get in thesight in advance president will take action or there are certain things we can do to stop something from happening and those are the successes when something does not go off the rails whether it be a terrorist attack or insight ind if that advance of the situations that really the president is looking -- and, wevantage know of many instances over the course of this administration where we were able to bring something not just the president but a lot of other people at the seniormost levels of the government that allow them to requiringforator from a certain type of technology or

frustrating some efforts on the part of terrorism to move finances or material. these are things that we do on a regular basis. sometimes we do not have the same type of success rate on these issues but i am proud of what the intelligence community and the cia has done to keep the country safe. >> our next question comes to us live from twitter. ordination andd intel sharing capabilities from agency to agency to avoid intelligence blind spots? >> i think that is a great question and i think it is a journey, it is not something that we will be through with by next friday. it is the reason why the position i occupy was established.

in my dotage, i can unequivocally say that when i and theck 50 years ago way intelligence was where cia and nsa might as well have been on two different planets and it is much different now. this is an acknowledgment of some hard learned lessons, not the least of which was 9/11 and i think there is a dedication throughout the community to work as a team and to share and collaborate. he mentioned over foreign partners -- i do not know of a time in my professional lifetime where we share as much with foreign partners as we do today. there is an obvious reason for that.

that has induced or stimulated a great deal of sharing. the cause work at that is largely on a bilateral basis -- many countries are pleased to share with us and do willingly and freely. promote is to sharing between other countries and this is particularly true in europe given the challenges they have and they have certain legal and both frees, that prevent sharing as much as they might like. have come a long ways is 9/11 but that is not a say that there is

-- not to say there is a lot we can do. many departments and agencies, many different authorities and responsibilities and be able to move the pull data sets out there so you can move the information in hand in people at the speed of light. something can happen, we can get intelligence in a different part of the world that would have a window. speaking of how do you move that very quickly to the system? yes national, state, local government, the cop on the street. i think americans would be impressed with what the country is done with americans like you that work in different public-sector areas, working around the clock to try to make , thethat if it comes in

data, we are being overwhelmed, not just data secretly but also that data available in open sources. how do you interact together? putting together that system has been a challenge. i will give jim clapper additional credit here for his theestration of intelligence community, making sure we attract is optimally as we can. engineering issue here, you want to make sure you interact as directly as possible. cards with time for two more questions. i want to remind you we have david tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m.. i encourage you to attend. our second to last question. >> i am wondering if there is a difference between the information provided to the presidential nominee, the president-elect, and these sitting president.

ofnot a great deal difference. we are in the throes of that right now. this year was more media attention in controversy van ever. since we started this in 1952. so, the briefings for the candidates are probably a bit more general, more topically in vocus and do not go into operational considerations or covert action or any of those kinds of sensitive issues. after the election, when the president-elect is known, then it is pretty much a parallel so that the oncoming president is essentially getting for the most part, the same as the incumbent president. i think this is a great strength of this country that we do this

and of course the intelligence community, as always, attempts to do this in as a political a fashion as possible. but the objective is to do our part to ensure and smooth the transition and handoff. >> one last question before we turned the microphone back over to joe lambert in closing. >> i am curious, how many nano's does it take to -- man-hours does it take to produce a presidential brief? mr. clapper: i really do not know because it is a situational into article-dependent. many times articles take a great deal of research. we occasionally do what we call stanback features which are longer, take more research. sometimes the coordination process can be painful if we

have descent. we have to accommodate those. ofreally do not keep track how much time it takes and it is not a profit-making saying. -- profit making thing, so there is not a need to. our commitment is to whatever it takes to make these products, as high-quality as possible and spend whatever it takes. it takes less women-hours the end man-hours because women are more efficient. that youuld say is could have a world-class expert putting together a dvd of them might take them six hours to draft something and additional time to working through the system. of the six hours of drafting are the reflection of many years of

investment in understanding the issues and that expertise really tremendous amount of effort, so what we try to give the president is the accumulation of that knowledge, that capability, said that he gains the fruits of that effort at the actual drafting and coordination, that is just a small part of the investment of time that goes into producing quality products. >> please try me in thanking director brennan and director clapper. [applause] time have come up on the for a break. let's take a 20 minute break and when we return, david will take the stage. [indistinct chatter]

announcer: you are watching american history tv. all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. to join the conversation, like his son facebook at the thin history. >> monday on the communicators, jim cicconi, chief lobbyist for at&t talks about the issues he has worked on. the future of telecommunications and why he feels the sec has become more politicized. the editor ofy communications daily. >> compromises now a dirty word. your groups that each extremes that seeks to present in and use compromise as betrayal. ofay compromises the art government and is necessary to solve problems and i think, frankly, that has leached over into communications, the fcc, and that is one reason nursing this of love polarization and

politicization in the fcc. >> watch the communicators monday night at 8:00 he's on c-span2. >> the national museum of african american history and culture opened yesterday on the national mall. we talked with african-american members of congress about these the sony is new is museum. congressman, in your view, what is the importance of the new african-american museum. >> the new museum is so essential to any american identity no matter what color or identity. i mean, you can argue that he revolutionary war, not just the civil war, but the revolutionary war before, had something to do with issues of race. british under lord mansfield, said they were not going to allow slavery anymore on british land. the american said, you might not we are.