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(U) NSA and the President's Daily Briefing -- An Eventful First Year
FROM: Patrick Bomgardner
Chief, Executive Support Staff (S17)
Run Date: 05/12/2006
(C) The moment I heard that NSA was creating a staff to manage our participation in the
President's Daily Briefing (PDB), I knew it was an endeavor that I had to lead. I felt like Kevin
Costner's character in the movie "Field of Dreams." All I had to do was build it, and all those
smart, insightful SIGINT analysts would come bearing PDB articles, eager to have their analysis
read by the President of the United States. What analyst wouldn't want to do that? Of course,
there was also a point in my life when I naively believed that I could convince thousands of
people to use a different cleaning product and become a multi-level marketing mogul. I was
wrong in both instances, but I was less wrong about the PDB.
(C) Building "it" turned out to be the easy part. Since July 2005, we've made great progress in
integrating NSA into the Director's of National Intelligence (DNI) vision of a PDB that includes
input from all of the Intelligence Community (IC) agencies. We have NSA employees working at
the very center of PDB production.
is the first NSA analyst assigned to the PDB
Staff. After first working as a PDB editor, she's currently serving as PDB Briefer to the Secretary
of Defense. Another NSA analyst,
serves as the NSA Representative and
Executive Officer on the PDB Planning and Production Staff. He's responsible for shepherding
NSA's PDB article submissions through the production process, as well as for providing feedback
on NSA's contributions. Together,
and
represent NSA's critical link to the IC PDB
Process.
(C) At Headquarters, NSA established the Executive Support Staff (ESS) within the Office of
Strategic Intelligence Issues (S17). I have the pleasure of leading this team of extraordinary
analysts and staff officers comprising
,
,
and
Diane Cline. We work through an extensive network of S17, Analysis and Production, Data
Acquisition and National Threat Operations Center subject matter experts and production
managers to produce original, NSA-authored articles. We also collaborate with IC colleagues on
their PDB articles that make extensive use of SIGINT. So, the infrastructure to support NSA's
PDB effort is well established.
(C) Coaxing Shoeless Joe NSA Analyst out of the SIGINT traffic cornfield proved to be more
difficult. Writing for the PDB can be daunting, even for experienced hands, as it requires leaving
one's comfort zone. For those who rise to the challenge, having a PDB article published can be a
rewarding experience. With the aid of the DNI PDB Staff, S17 ESS has mentored and guided a
number of intrepid analysts through the rigorous PDB editorial process, resulting in publication
of well-received articles. In February the Acting SIGINT Deputy Director presented First-time
PDB Publication Certificates, issued and signed by the Assistant Deputy Director of National
Intelligence for the PDB (ADDNI-PDB), to 16 proud and deserving NSA trailblazers. We've had a
few more successes since then, but we'd like to see more.
(C) Despite these early successes, corporately we still face challenges. While the ADDNI-PDB
and NSA senior managers encourage NSA participation, NSA has not yet gained acceptance as a
full partner in the PDB process. On one hand, other PDB contributors still often view NSA as a
single-source "collector" agency - a source for PDB raw material, rather than the source of
articles with unique SIGINT insight. On the other hand, NSA itself has not fully embraced the
role of PDB contributor. Changing the NSA analyst culture to accept the tradeoff of writing PDB
articles at the expense of day-to-day SIGINT production is something that NSA managers are
grappling with.
(U//FOUO) We are developing a long-term strategy to overcome these challenges and jumpstart
NSA participation. S17 ESS is teaming with the SIGINT National Intelligence Officers to develop
a program to mentor interested analysts in writing for the PDB. We are working with the PDB
Staff and the National Cryptologic School to devise a one-day "Writing for the PDB" seminar.
We've asked the Intelligence Analysis intern program to encourage interns to spend one of their
later tours in S17 ESS.
(U) The PDB has been around as almost exclusively a CIA product since the Johnson (Lyndon,
not Andrew) administration, so it will be difficult to transform it overnight. However, the IC owes
it to the President and the nation to make the PDB the best source of intelligence it can be. I
believe the topnotch professionals at NSA have an important role to play. The S17 ESS looks
forward to working toward that end with both NSA analysts and our IC colleagues.
(U//FOUO) LBJ reads the PDB with his family
(U//FOUO) POC: Patrick Bomgardner, Chief S17 ESS,
(U//FOUO) Visit the Executive Support Staff webpage for further information. See also a
previous article about the PDB.
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108