Creator of the president's daily intelligence briefing dead at 83

CIA official Richard Lehman died Feb. 17 at Concord Regional Visiting Nurse Association Hospice House in New Hampshire. Lehman is recognized as one of the fifty people who formed the Central Intelligence Agency. He worked for the agency from 1949 to 1982 and received two Distinguished Intelligence Medals, the agency's highest honor. Lehman created the President's Intelligence Checklist (nicknamed "pickle" because of the acronym PICL) in June 1961 after then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy believed that President John F. Kennedy had been blindsided after missing pieces of intelligence. The checklist was later renamed the President's Daily Brief. Later, Lehman became a CIA transition liaison for new presidents, until 1979, when he became chairman of the National Intelligence Council for two years. After retiring from the CIA, Lehman advised George H. W. Bush's administration during their transition in 1988. Bush Sr. had briefly been Director of Central Intelligence in the mid-Seventies. Following the transition, Lehman helped start a consulting business of retired intelligence officers. He was 83.

Sources: Yahoo! News, whitehouse.gov, cia.gov