Records of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (George H.W. Bush Administration)

Originally created as the President’s Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956, this advisory board, comprised of private citizens outside government, conducts objective, independent reviews of foreign intelligence activities of the U.S. government, reports their findings and offers recommendations to the president. President Kennedy officially changed the board’s original name to its current one in 1961. Except for Jimmy Carter, who abolished the group in 1977, the advisory board has served every president since its creation. The Bush Presidential materials contain a wide variety of documents from meeting agendas, schedules, invitations to speak at PFIAB meetings, requests for employment, correspondence from U.S. citizens and members of Congress, PFIAB staff administrative and operational functions to intelligence reports and studies as well as letters and recommendations to the president on current and future foreign intelligence concerns and topics. The materials also contain copies of newspaper and journal articles, information on PFIAB members as well as reports to Congress, including open testimony on U.S. intelligence organization to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The Quayle Vice Presidential materials primarily consist of the PFIAB meeting that he attended and files on arms control and soviet non-compliance. Similarly, George Bush’s Vice Presidential materials consist of documents from Bush’s Assistant for National Security Affairs, Donald Gregg. These folders contain information on the PFIAB meetings that Bush attended as Vice President. Read less