History Press lands book on how CIA shaped history from Charlwood

The History Press has snapped up a new book on how the CIA has shaped history, by David Charlwood. 

Simon Wright, commissioning editor, acquired world English-language rights, including audio, to Current Intelligence: How the CIA's Top-Secret Presidential Briefing Shaped History from Jason Bartholomew at the bks agency. Publication is scheduled for January 2023.

The synopsis says: "Every day, the President of the United States receives a bespoke, top-secret briefing document from the Central Intelligence Agency. Truman started them, Kennedy came to rely on them and Trump hardly read them. Current Intelligence charts almost a century of American history and politics, revealing for the first time the day-to-day intelligence that landed on the Oval Office desk in the form of the President’s Daily Brief. Using recently declassified documents, Charlwood uncovers what successive American presidents knew and when, and what they did in response. The Cold War nuclear arms race, the Vietnam War and 9/11 might never have happened if presidents had read their Daily Briefs differently."

Charlwood said: "Writing Current Intelligence was a chance to explore 75 years of history and see how secrets have shaped events. In 1946, when President Truman asked the US intelligence services to create a document to fill what he candidly admitted were 'gaps' in his information, he would never have imaged the CIA would still be producing it today. Researching across the whole collection of decades of President's Daily Briefs brings a new perspective on the last century. You certainly understand why CIA directors and National Security advisors so often pushed to get the occupants of the Oval Office to sit down and read it."

Wright added: "David’s gripping book offers a totally new perspective on American politics and world history. He beckons us into the decision rooms and introduces us to the backroom personalities who changed the minds of presidents. He is an enormously talented writer and I’m delighted to welcome him to the list."

Charlwood has worked as a journalist and in publishing and is a contributing historian for BBC radio.