Current intelligence in the President’s Daily Brief: accuracy and uniqueness

It is often claimed that intelligence successes are routine but invisible, while failures are public. This paper evaluates this claim by examining the accuracy and uniqueness of more than 250 current intelligence statements selected from declassified Presidents’ Daily Briefs (PDB) (1964–1977). We assessed accuracy by comparing PDB statements with the historical record and uniqueness by comparing them with contemporaneous reporting in The New York Times. The results show that intelligence in the PDB was often accurate, particularly when addressing open, observable events such as elections or diplomatic summits. This finding supports arguments that collections and the resulting supply of information may play a major role in the accuracy of current intelligence. While most of the current intelligence reported in the PDB was also available in newspapers like the New York Times, the PDB often reported on it before the Times.