Official explainer: the PDB is a daily all-source national security summary coordinated by the ODNI with CIA input, for the president and selected cabinet members and advisers. Most remain classified.
“Given the sensitive nature of the information, most PDBs—even those from many years past—remain classified.” source
The CIA releases nearly 2,500 daily briefings given to Kennedy and Johnson, including the early President's Intelligence Checklists, covering the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Tet Offensive and Kennedy's assassin.
Page header shows 8 Sep 2015; the dateline reads 16 September 2015.
The CIA releases about 2,500 PDBs from the Nixon and Ford administrations, some 28,000 pages, at a public symposium at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California.
OFFICIALNational Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States · 2004
Reproduces the text of the 6 August 2001 Daily Brief item on Bin Ladin, redactions marked, and describes the PDB as six to eight short articles for a handful of officials.
“The PDB is considered highly sensitive and is distributed to only a handful of high-level officials.” source
Archived Commission website.
CLASSIFIEDDeclassifiedFILE NO. 035SHEET 2 OF 3
Press
Newspaper and magazine coverage, then and now. Linked, never copied.
Bush shows reporters the notepad Reagan left in the Oval Office desk: cartoon turkeys pulling down an elephant, “Don't let the turkeys get you down”, and a handwritten line from Reagan.
“Dear George. You'll have moments when you want to use this particular stationery. Well, go to it.” source
Full transcript, as published by CNN, of the letter Obama left for Trump: four pieces of advice on opportunity, America's role, democratic institutions and family.
“Third, we are just temporary occupants of this office.” source
CLASSIFIEDDeclassifiedFILE NO. 035SHEET 3 OF 3
Analysis
Our own reading of the file, written from the sources on the other sheets. Opinion is marked as such.
The book of secrets is fiction with a clear birth certificate: a 2007 adventure film. Its pull comes from two real practices that most people only half know about. Presidents do hand something over in private, and presidents do read material nobody else is allowed to see.
What they hand over is a personal note. Reagan started it in 1989 with a cartoon notepad and two lines of encouragement; Bush wrote to Clinton that he was rooting for him; Obama told Trump that presidents are temporary occupants of the office. The published notes are advice, not files. What presidents read is the President's Daily Brief, a short daily intelligence summary that also goes to a few senior officials. Old ones have been declassified by the thousand.
Our label is Explained: the myth's origin is identified and the real practices it borrows from are documented. The record cannot prove that nothing else is ever passed on in private. It can only show that what has surfaced looks nothing like the film's book.
What it shows
That the “President’s Book of Secrets”, a shared diary of presidents full of national secrets, comes from a 2007 film.
That outgoing presidents have left personal notes for their successors since 1989, and several texts are public.
That presidents receive a classified daily intelligence brief, thousands of which the CIA declassified in 2015 and 2016.
What it doesn't prove
That nothing confidential passes between presidents in private; a record cannot prove a negative.
What recent Daily Briefs contain: most PDBs, even old ones, remain classified.
That the film's writers drew on the desk-note tradition; we found no source saying so.
The other side
The case for the myth is that its core is not absurd. Presidents really do read a document few others may see: the ODNI says most Daily Briefs, even those from many years past, remain classified, and the desk notes stay private until a president, an archivist or a leak makes them public. A secret that only presidents share would, by its nature, leave no record for us to find.
Film page: released 21 December 2007, directed by Jon Turteltaub, from Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films. Ben Gates's quest to clear an ancestor's name leads to a secret book.
“leads him to a closely guarded book containing the nation's deepest secrets” source
Aggregator page; used only for the film's release facts and synopsis. Reviews in Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and RogerEbert.com could not be opened (paywall or 403).
Encyclopedia entry with the plot: the book is a fabled shared diary written by US presidents, hidden at the Library of Congress, which no one can read without the sitting president’s consent.
“a fabled shared diary written by US Presidents containing national secrets” source
Commentary; used only for the film’s plot, alongside the Rotten Tomatoes synopsis.
TO VERIFY Candidates, not yet checked
Film reviews (Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, RogerEbert.com) describing the book's contents as Area 51, the JFK assassination and Watergate: seen only in search snippets, pages not opened.
CNN's 2017 and 2021 pages publishing the desk notes (returned HTTP 451 from here).
The originals of the desk notes in the presidential libraries (Bush Library for the Reagan and Bush notes) and the full texts of the Clinton–Bush and Bush–Obama notes.
The date of the 9/11 Commission chapter (report published 2004; exact day not shown on the page opened).
Found, but not linked to a source we trust. Not on the sheets until they are.
