President’s Daily Brief Documents Declassified

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. – The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released this week the first set of declassified material in a series of six releases. These rare releases contain the daily intelligence report President Harry S. Truman received from the CIA.

Known then as “The Daily Summary,” today these documents continue in the form of the President’s Daily Brief. These documents are housed with the CIA and not in the Truman Library. Some 20,000 pages of classified documents still exist from the Truman administration.

These documents are available in the CIA’s online Reading Room and include:

• The first 20 Daily Summary reports, which include intelligence President Truman received when addressing the immediate aftermath of World War II.
• A 1973 CIA report titled “Keeping the President Informed” about the Daily Summary document.
• A chapter titled “The First ‘First Customer:’ Harry Truman” from a forthcoming history of the President’s Daily Brief by CIA Chief Historian David Robarge.

The next mid-monthly installment of “The Daily Summary: Informing President Truman” will be available this September with a subsequent release each month through January 2019. The entire collection totals more than 3,000 pages and includes intelligence President Truman received regarding topics spanning the Berlin Airlift, the Chinese Revolution, and the Korean War.