director john brennan and james clapper about the newly released documents. the richard nixon presidential library in nexen foundation hosted this event. it is an hour and a half. >> good afternoon, everyone. on behalf of all of my colleagues, i want to welcome you to today's event titled the president's daily brief. my name is joe lambert and i am the director at the cia and i'll be your agency for today's event. events like this take a lot of work, and i want to take a second technology efforts of the cia officers who reviewed and declassified these 28,000 pages over the last year. they were assisted by a number of intelligence agencies. but one in particular deserves

to go thanks and that is the national security agency. we are very fortunate once again to have two people with us who know more about the president's daily brief and that is the director of the cia john brennan are and john clapper. . both the been supportive of intelligence transparency efforts. director clapper has instituted an intelligence transparency council. is like today would not happen without the support of director brendan. today,se in attendance you should have a document like this on your chair with an agenda. the introductions will be very brief because the agenda has all of the bios and it.

for those of you watching at home, you can see all of the same booklet on the cia.gov website. i want to thank the nixon foundation for making this wonderful venue available. introduceuld like to the director of the richard nixon presidential library and museum to offer some welcoming remarks. mike? [applause] mike: good afternoon, everybody. inbehalf of the archivist the richard nixon foundation, good afternoon and welcome to the richard nixon residential library and museum here in california. before begin started, i would like to welcome markets who has joined us today. on behalf of the national archives in the nixon

foundation, allow me to extend a welcome to directors clapper and brennan. i would like to welcome the president and ceo of the nixon foundation. elected representatives from yorba linda including jean hernandez. guess,eemed panelists, and members of our community. soon to be informed on the value in place of history the president's daily brief has on the relationship between the intelligence community and the commander-in-chief. and the importance of the daily briefing process to the security of our nation. i would also like to recognize stacy davis, who is representing the gerald ford presidential library and institutional partner in today's release. my name is mike and i and the federal director of the nixon library and i am privileged represent one of 13 presidential libraries, soon to be 14 and ministered by the national archives and records

administration. presidential libraries and museums from whoever until bush promotes an understanding of the presidency and the american experience. 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. , a parallel, the mission of the national archives and records administration is to drive open to us, cultivate participation and strengthen our nation's democracy through public access to high-value government records. how are we doing on that one? today's conference, the president's daily brief, delivering information to nixon and ford, represents the interrelationship between the intelligence community and the

national archives. when the time is right, a shared andion is openness transparency of america's records. today, the time is right. finally, because we have gathered at the nixon library, i would like to offer a brief note. as you will note from the conference materials, the congressman tells a story of a difficult relationship and the intelligence community -- difficult relationship between nixon and the intelligence community. served familiarity president-elect nexen very well maybe a decade later in 1968. it formed the basis of an active role for his national security advisor henry kissinger.

stay tuned. we will learn so much more about the important relationship between the intelligence community and presidents sported nixon throughout the day. again, welcome to the nexen library and to today's programming. thank you. [applause] theet's get right to program. i would like to ask director brendan to come up onto the stage, please. [applause] mr. brenner: good afternoon, everyone. it is wonderful to be here in yorba linda. be an a to what in-line event for all of us. and thank you, joe, for all of your hard work on this project.

this is a culmination of effort from you and your team. mike for your terrific work and for opening the doors today so we can have this venue for the release of these documents. it is always a pleasure to escape washington d.c. in the month of august. [laughter] maybe more this year than in previous years. but it feels great to be out of washington. when i look around, i see we are all in the east room, so it is a bit surreal. remarkable, remarkable library. i had a tour earlier on. as i have often said, being cia director is the absolute greatest job in the world, and i mean that. one of the most rewarding elements of my tenure as director has been a chance to get out across the country to give our fellow citizens and

understanding of the tremendous work performed by the women and men of the cia. today is one such opportunity. an opportunity to shed light on our mission and our history for the benefit of the american people. naturally, this is not often as easy as i would hope it would be. by definition, the world of intelligence, the business of sufficient degree of secrecy to protect our officers, sources, methods, and our nation. but we all know the american people demand more and deserve than secrecy for secrecy's sake. the unique authority that has been granted to us are a sacred trust. one that we must earn by being as forthcoming as he possibly can. today's occasion is where we seek that trust. although we cannot be open with

what we do, when doing so does -- hinder the daily breeze represents the best picture of the world conference of the president. it is the premier intelligence product, the culmination of painstaking effort each day so our nation's leaders have what they need to turn a successful course for our country. it is also one of the most sensitive and tightly held documents the u.s. intelligence community produces. payment for the president, it provides an unvarnished and difficult truth about it never changing and very complex world. and so the release of these historical documents reveal a crucial and missing dimension of the historical narrative. most importantly, it gives us a better understanding of the challenges facing both presidents nixon and ford.

last year, i had the honor of inaking and often, texas -- austin, texas. containsdy collection thousands of documents and over 19,000 pages. today's release is no less extensive. all caps it, it could the scale of about 2500 documents and 20,000 pages. far more important than their sure ball, the provide us with invaluable 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 complex challenges. -- can trace the evolution you can follow the deteriorating course of the vietnam war.

there is also detailed coverage of the prince in chile. war arab or slash israeli and modern terrorism. all that barely scratches the surface of what this collection entails. by scrolling through these, we -- reminded the daily as these documents illuminate a wide swath of international oftory, they offer a window how cia provided support to deal office. it was during the nixon/40

administration that they grew and this dictation. emphasized intelligence from clandestine reporting, overhead imagery, intercepted communications, and open sources. as it is today, it was truly a 24-7 process. for shattering the greater role the intelligence community would play, the pdb under president nixon would feature national security as defense. they represented not only the views of cia, but of the entire intelligence community. intelligent support to the white house was a collective effort. despite the historical value of the pdbs, the documents only go too far. anecdotes that did not make it to the written page. that is one of the reasons we are so fortunate to be joined by

my close friend and good calendar -- my close friend and good college -- my close friend and good colleague, john clapper. he has had a long career as an intelligence officer. in the 1960's, he was a briefer in vietnam. some reports indicate that jim was general patton's -- in world war ii. [laughter] those reports remain uncorroborated until now. leadership, the pdb has become a product of the intelligence community. marshaling the full extent of its expertise. i have seen firsthand that jim is an officer who walks the talk when it comes to fostering appropriate level of openness.

officer, air force number rose to the rank of lieutenant general, director of andnse, national imagery mapping agency, and now are greatly respected and much beloved director of national intelligence, jim clapper has agreed to join us for discussion about pdb's. with that, i would like for you to join me on stage so we can talk a bit of shop. [applause] mr. clapper: hello. mr. brenner: thank you so much for joining us today. you are better posture than anybody else to talk about how the pdb exchange since the early years. we will talk about the pdb's or

the nixon and ford administrations, but i thought it might be worthwhile for you to spend a few comments reflecting upon how the product has changed? back then, it was a hard copy delivered to the president. in the process in terms of support for that product has changed. i want to get your perspectives since you are the one who goes into the oval office to meet with the president and to talk about the pdb. if you believe the pdb is still enters theial president's thinking on these issues? mr. clapper: thanks, john, and thanks for the honor of being on stage with you. as i wasecond time invited to participate in the roll out at the johnson library. honor to bereal with my close friend and great professional colleague, john brennan, who i believe go down handful, and don't

use all of your fingers, as a most outstanding directors in cia history. on these two events, the one today and the previous one, book ended my two towards and twoheast asia -- ended my tours in southeast asia, flying reconnaissance missions over cambodia. occasions, i did not know there was a pdb. in reading through the understoody pdb's, i what a very small cog i was in a very large war effort. during the course of the tour, the next in library will be renovated will be spectacular, i think. it wedded our

curiosity for when it opens. that was a reminder of 1971. as for the question of how the pdbs changed? as johnr change mentioned, and set of it being exclusively a cia product, which it was of course, it represents and puts the assessments of the entire intelligence community. to be clear, cia is still the engine for the pdb. but in all cases, regardless of who dress it, whether it is cia

or any other component of the intelligence community, it is always coordinated throughout the intelligence community and importantly, we -- where appropriate, dissents are reflected. you will not find the scent in the pdb ever rolled out in september. because it was done by one agency. strength to is a register dissent and 70 president obama has on more than one occasion said to us that he welcomes that i would be surprised that there were not dissent within the intelligence community. areourse, the other changes occasioned by technology. rpv's todaysed, but 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 were not available because of the technology. to an ipad. president obama, who is very i.t.-smart. we went to this a couple of years ago. that was a hard transition for some people, not for him, but for others, who did not want to give up their precious hard copy. now, i have become a fan of the standard. down thempay money to down because they cannot be wireless. figure out howl to do that. for much morelow agility in the presentation to include graphics, videos, and references to previous articles, which can be done at the

pointing of a finger. so from the standpoint of the sources of the pdb, the technology that is involved in producing it, the fact that it is more broad gauged in representative of the views and capabilities of the entire intelligence community, and on occasion, it does reflect dissent. those of the major changes. mr. brenner: vietnam was mentioned in more than two thirds of the pdb documents being released today. today's event is about history, and general westmoreland was the figure. you had the opportunity to bring him intelligence about the war. maybe we can take event of this opportunity to hear your views about what it was like how he received the information and your techniques and briefing him? mr. clapper: i had been in the air force 2.5 years when i went

to vietnam. i was in the first 100 air force officers called a permanent change basis. up untilthat point, late 1965, all u.s. forces that were deployed over there were on a temporary duty bases, meaning 90 to 120 days. i had been there about three or four months and was plucked out of the group of anonymous lieutenants. i was told that next saturday, you are going down, and be part of a briefing team for general westmoreland, who was the of u.s. systems. i had never seen our 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. waspecific briefing topic together up and correlate and synthesize any signal intelligence reflections of airstrikes over north vietnam. and so, i put together a map. sort of what we called icon boxes. and i took my briefing boards down every saturday to brief him. to be quite honest, i am not sure what he made of it. interested and asked questions about the significance reflections of a particular intercept. which i struggled to answer. aboutdid wonder sometimes

--he had a great affinity for statistics and numbers. and i did wonder sometimes whether keyboard 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 during my years but to in 1965 and 1966. it was an interesting experience. of presentthings things to senior people, which helped me later on. it was a humbling experience, too, because it also appreciated that command could be a very lonely thing, particularly when you are responsible for the and we areldiers,

watching a lot of them being killed and wounded. and that had a very, i could tell, a weary effect on general westmoreland. mr. brenner: speaking about the weeds and the big picture, chronicled the course of the war during the daily developments, a lot of the pdb pieces are focusing on the tactical developments on the ground. how do you see the balance between the tactical and strategic picture being manifest in the pdb and the pdb process? how do you do that in -- how do you do that today as we look at syria and raqqa, that we don't focus on the tactical developments, but we have a broader perspective of the overall trend? mr. clapper: john, you put your finger on one of the challenges. the current generation of people who put together the pdb have, as well as the earlier generations have.

you know, how do you balance the high level of generality that you have to keep in perspective, and at the same time, present the reader,l that in this case, policymaker number one currently is getting enough of a flavor and a nuance and the subtleties and atmospheric that prevail in whatever given situation you are trying to describe? and that is something we constantly wrestle with today. to try to strike that balance. was very interesting to me to go back, and i did read through are beinghe pdbs that rolled out during the period of my second tour of june of 1970 two june of 1971. and just to see what was presented to the president to

what i saw we down in the engine room. i actually thought that the pdb articles were a pretty good recall from what i my vantage on the ground when i was in the anonymous at the same time. because of the global perspective, the global responsibilities of the u.s. dominated asetnam pdbs -- therese were many other issues a president had to deal with as well which the pdb had to treat. of course, the cold war, access to berlin, the ever present mideast. there is a haunting similarity between the situation in the mideast then versus now. many of the same concerns and conditions.

so, i think -- and we always have that challenge of how to , the broad detail picture. we spend a lot of time agonizing on what topics to pick. labor over every word in the interest of doing the best we can to be as objective and responsible, but at the same time, be mindful of the president's time. devotes a lot of time to intelligence, but he has a whole lot of other issues on his platter. we have to be mindful of that, that we do not inundate him with too much intelligence, which is possible. for us today, as it

was historically, a balancing act. mr. brenner: it should be noted that the pdb is not the only access that the intelligence community has. we spend a lot of time in the situational room and council meetings where you can look at things strategically. mr. clapper: john is exactly right and john and i spent a lot of time bonding in the white house situation room. i think that is a reflection of that in the national security apparatus, national security drives everything. john and i don't get a pass when we go to these meetings. always present the intelligence picture. they always start with that. that drives the agenda for the meetings. forum that the president is involved in are the national security council meetings, and again, very much driven by intelligence.

and so, there will be intelligence material that the --sident will read, and he and our observation has been, the president is always eminently prepared. he has always done his homework before these meetings. ipad, the pdb the -- he reads that. so we don't actually brief the pdb per se. we do have oval meetings where we will brief other items, either that supplement or augment or update what is in the that weother issues think he should be familiar with. and cia very much a part of that process as well. pdb open to the

president news that is not always pleasing in terms of policy course and options and challenges. i was struck by looking at pdbs in the early days of nixon's administration. it was less than a month after nixon assumed office in february 1969, the pdp says there are a handful of politicians in south , and the government is unlikely to acquire a broader political base by bringing faces into the cabinet. this is president and a trend who has inherited the legacy of the vietnam war, and has to deal with this issue in terms of supporting the south eastern government. that news to him. to bring information to the president that really challenges u.s. policy on different courses. >> yes.

[laughter] >> first of all, the quota that wasread from the pdb exactly accurate. that was one of the great s i hadl disillusionment' when i got to vietnam and about what the united states was essentially propping up for a series of dictators that were mainly interested in preserving their own position and a 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 this comment about sometimes the intelligence

committee has a very inelegant since of timing. i do remember that. presidentave to say obama has insisted, has insisted that we always tell it straight, that we be as objective as we colorly can, and to not things, not politicized things, not shade things. we have always tried to do that. that has certainly always been the objective. i can certainly recall some to the oval,sits which i will not go into, but it is part of the deal.

it is almost a writ in intelligence to always tell the truth to power. it is something i have the occasion to do with general west general -- westmoreland, airstrikes did not go so well, or airstrikes missed the target. and he did not like that, but i 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. you might want to put 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 out, other some of the analysis looks

quite prescient 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 point here is there is intelligence about distinguishing between mysteries and secrets. secrets are noble facts that, if you have the access, you can glean 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 call 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 lives 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 counter 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. we have been at the foreign 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. it actually imposes a perhaps greater burden on the pdb given the time constraints the president has in the responsibility that is incumbent upon us to be as succinct 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 that my office have an 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. an 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 not mean that analytic integrity 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. mponents of the intelligence community are doing the same. the dia, nsa are in the throes of organization and 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 intelligence 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. the entire u.s. intelligence 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 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 lengths as we do. this is a very serious endeavor. it is seven by 24. it takes the effort of a lot of people. now even more than is reflected 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 there goes to the lengths we 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 as i say, i was a young pup at the nsa at the time. i think the pdb in the run-up to 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.

it "reset" the relationship with china, and the legacy continues today. i think pdb treatment in the run-up served as a tutorial, if you will, but i also believe that the president was receiving inputs 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. president nixon'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 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 power, 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. all of southern 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? mr. clapper: well, today, the, as i indicated, one of the major changes that is occasioned by the terrorism prevention act was the involvement of the entire intelligence community. the arm for the military is the defense agency and intelligence agency which will serve as a drafter, particularly on articles, as you would expect, direct military reference. dia in turn can draw on the entirety of the military and

intelligence community which includes the intelligence arms and arms serving the command. military plays a prominent part 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 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 out nixon's view? 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. it did seem to me, and moore of a contemporary observation, that we did get awfully deep into facts and stats, body count, how

many viet cong, north vietnamese were killed, how many were flown, how many bombs were dropped? that is what general westmore thought was important at the time. i cannot say to what extent the 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. and so, gauging to what extent a given piece of intelligence will influence policymakers -- most of them are drawing on many sources for influence into their decision calculating. >> did patton focus on details? mr. clapper: he did. yes, john.

>> thank you very much for this event. this is a question for 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 that. >> the center section just to your left, gentlemen. >> my question is, how do you communicate with each other in -- and 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? the last part of it, if you think it is important enough for national security and it is

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 lot of time in the vietnam days talking as buddies. we do communicate in different 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 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. mr. clapper: one of the, my wife is not 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. i am very, very proud of the trust and confidence and 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 of 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 ic components because we use it all. what commonly occurs is we will use several sources to portray one-story. it isn't a question of it being an exclusively a cia article or exclusively an nga article one we try to do is put them together so we draw on geospatial intelligence. their tremendous capabilities in graphics and imagery. we drawn at james -- attaches and the nsa for intelligence which we try to fuse together into one product so we sort of don't try to do that anymore because it is kind of a statistically tough thing to do and i am not sure it has a lot

of 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. pdb fits into the overall schedule for the day. when i see press shots today it looks like president obama has more people there every morning. how does it work? >> eight varies depending on the president's travel schedule and commitments but the typical time

for a briefing is 10:00 but as i 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 importance to to update it from 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

the presidents advisers who are very competent themselves in intelligence issues, one of whom was john. the president is attended to 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 clinton. 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 -- i would augment it with additional information and then i would leave to talk about, what are we going to do about these intelligence issues? the same thing happens today. the presidents advisers say

-- stay around. we would 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. that pdb serves as -- >> i think john makes a good point if i could just -- and that is, many many presidents including this one, very 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. we never represented -- 100% 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. and because i just think that is 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 tight time schedule and you are trying your best to make sure you are complete and accurate -- errors are going to occur but we 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. knowing yorba linda politics, i 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? >> i am pleased to say that doesn't happen. i cannot think of a case where

somebody said for a substantive reason, that is bad news. i do not recall an occasion for that. i think 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 sometimes the reader -- those arguments are very healthy because whether or not you are 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. others before admiral rogers have spoken to this possibility. the 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 sector, 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. i think chris inglis of the nsa said it best when he said, we have to march on and recover from this. given the contemporary period of these tools that were the in 2013, as a result of

presidential group that was assembled after the edwards noted regulations, we have a better process for making decisions about informing providers of a 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 of this country, to these types 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 of what it is -- and so, this administration, the intelligence community is focused on this in the next administration needs to take this up early on as the most 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. we have to attempt to maintain vigilance and anticipate any of these scary scenarios so that is certainly a bad one and that is 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 john said 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 way of life and one of the ways that specific ways that threat could manifest itself is exactly along 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 systems, medical centers rely on 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 the police on the streets. we know what the responsibility of the government is. we have not figured out what the role of government is to optimize civil liberties while optimizing security whether it be nationstates, adversaries, terrorist groups, or individuals that want to hack into something and destroy it -- this is

something that we as a nation need to 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 an article and where he was drawn on, what i do components. that is reflected at the bottom of every article. the 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 people that we pick to manage this activity. in this case, i know president bush did have his process was to read the 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 about it and when we are in the oval with him, we either -- he may ask a question or give us a task from an article that he has read and/or 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. and 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 also, jim may see an issue and 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

call 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. my question is 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? >> if you mean, do we try to warn them, the answer is absolutely yes. the department of homeland security has an important role in engaging with the private sector to as we learn -- if we 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 warning industry and the entire commercial sector of a potential threat. >> we have a collaborative relationship in terms of making sure to share information with each other, 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 on point? >> i think there are any number of plots which are terrorist plots which we get 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. that is often the case heard where we also do very well is when the president has foreign engagements and in preparing him for what the issues are, what is 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 that insight in advance in the 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 invasion and if that insight in advance of the situations that really the president is looking for that advantage -- and, we 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 stop a perforator from requiring 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. have we achieved ordination and 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 think back 50 years ago and the 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. what we do work at the cause that is largely on a bilateral basis -- many countries are pleased to share with us and do willingly and freely. when we try to promote is sharing between other countries and this is particularly true in europe given the challenges they have and they have certain obstacles, both legal and others, that prevent free sharing as much as they might like.

i do think we have come a long way since 9/11 but that is not a , say that there is not more than we can do. lighth, we have come years. i think a lot of people who complain about, well, if only they had shared more information, do not comprehend the complexity of putting together an architecture were you put together many departments and agencies, many different i.t. systems, many responsibilities, and be able to move the information and tap systems soulse data you can move information at the speed of light. something can happen or you get intelligence in another part of the world that will have importance as far as the streets of yorba linda. how do you move that quickly through the system? you have national government, you have state am a you have the cops on the street.

i think americans would be very, very impressed with what this country is done. with americans like you to work in the different public-sector areas, working around the clock to try to make sure every bit of data that comes -- and we are being overwhelmed by data, not just that collected clandestinely and secrets like -- and secretly, how do you make sense of that and how do you interact with one another, and putting together the system has i will give jim clapper -- there really is an engineering issue here that you want to make sure that you are able to interact with each other as efficiently as possible. >> we have time for two more questions. i want to remind you all -- it will be interesting.

a am wondering if there is difference between the -- presented to the president nominee. >> this year with more media attention and controversy then ever. since we started this in 1952. the briefings for the candidate are probably a bit more general, and dopically focused not going to operational considerations or covert action or any of those issues.

is pretty much a parallel so the incoming president is getting pretty much the same as the incumbent president. straighthis is a great -- this is a great trade of this country. great trait of this country. ensure to do our part to a smooth transition and handoff as possible. >> before we turn the microphone back to jill witmer. >> how many hours as a take per day for the presidential daily brief? >> that is a great question. i do not know because it is situational and article

dependent. many time articles take a great deal of research. we will occasionally do stanback features, which are longer. sometimes the coordination process can be a little painful. we don't really keep track of and it isime it takes not a profit-making thing. i think our commitment is to make of products, these articles with as high quality as possible. >> we take fewer women hours than man-hours.

you could have world-class experts that might take them six hours to draft something. it might take them additional time to work through the system. is a reflection of many years of understanding the issues. in that expertise comes with a tremendous amount of effort. will we try to give the president's dicamillo's and best give the president is the accumulation of that knowledge. what we try to give the president is the accumulation of that knowledge. thanking join me in professor. let's take a 20 minute break and when we return -- will take the stage.

>> this week and on american history tv, just before five eastern architectural historian talks about the construction of the brooklyn bridge, why manhattan needed the bridge. >> when the brooklyn bridge was open it in a put the fairies out of business. by the mid-1890's the city of had reached one million people. >> that is the real interesting thing about country music.

it is the music of poor white people. people who are privileged to be white. arepeople who underprivileged in terms of their identity and pocket -- identity and opportunities. emerging definitions of whiteness and blackness in colonial america and how it impacted the origins of country music. at four.ay afternoon state and administrative problems on the horizon created evidence that the crusade may be slowed. or may level law. -- level off. >> the film documents the final months of the year of president lyndon b. johnson and his

meeting with the mexico's and celebrating the holidays with his family at his texas ranch. and william hazel grove. for a complete schedule, go to c-span.org. hear from some of the democrats vying to leave the party, including ray buckley. , and harrison representative keith ellison from minnesota. a voter14 we hit

turnout low. we've got a lot of rebuilding to do. barack obama and japanese prime minister chin so all they -- prime minister shinzo abe this is the site of pearl harbor. wednesday at eight, a review of house and senate hearings from 2016, including topics such as the flint michigan water crisis. >> you found out that one of your divisions had created 2 million state accounts, have fired thousands of employees for , and hadbehavior cheated thousands of your own customers, and you didn't even once consider firing her ahead of her retirement?

>> we remember some of the political figures that passed away in 2016, including first lady nancy reagan, and justice scalia. our program continues with mohammad ali and former senator and astronaut john glenn. >> next we will hear personal accounts from comedian lenny bruce's life and legacy, including his lawyer, writing collaborator, and friends. events part of a two-day g -- bratin >> our first speaker is one of the most important lawyers of our time. a very important in terms of his advocacy for human rights abroad, whether in the former soviet union, chi lay, or the union of south africa.

somebody deeply involved in the constitution of czechoslovakia. at home he has been deeply involved in issues involving the first amendment and the freedom off expression, which is one of the key things of our conference. heels of had a striking list of celebrity clients, one of whom -- be hearingring about right now. >> am very sorry that before this conference started you all haven't had a chance to see either video or audio of lenny bruce, to hear his commentary about someone you have never seen