WASHINGTON — After the political convention confetti is swept away, a more sobering tradition of the presidential election begins: The regular, top-secret intelligence briefings for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee.

Started by President Harry S. Truman, the briefings are designed to get the candidates, before they walk into the Oval Office, up to speed on problems around the globe.

Truman, who was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s vice president for almost three months before Roosevelt died, first learned about the Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb only 12 days into his presidency, and he pledged not to leave any future commander in chief behind the ball.

If Clinton is the Democratic nominee, much of the intelligence information she receives probably will sound familiar. As secretary of state until 2013, Clinton was one of President Barack Obama’s senior advisers who were privy to the President’s Daily Brief — the highest level intelligence document prepared in the United States.

The intelligence briefings could be eye-opening for Donald Trump. The Republican’s loose-lipped campaign remarks have left some intelligence and foreign policy officials worried about whether he can keep the nation’s secrets. Trump has said in interviews that he’s looking forward to the briefings.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, whose office arranges the briefings, was asked recently what he would want to say to Trump to help educate the political newcomer about foreign policy and perhaps even counter some of his ideas, such as temporarily banning Muslims from entering the United States.

Clapper bristled and said the question falsely implied that the U.S. intelligence agencies would have a separate message for each candidate.

“There’s a long-standing practice of briefing each of the candidates once they are officially designated. And that sort of shifts into higher gear, in terms of detail, after the president-elect is known,” Clapper said. “It’s not designed to shape anybody’s world view.

“We just brief as we normally would — each of them — and they (the briefings) have to be exactly the same.”

But Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said he believes many people share his deep concern about Trump’s inexperience with handling classified information.

After the Nov. 8 election, more detailed briefings for the president-elect will include information about U.S. covert operations. The sitting president has the final decision on how much information is disclosed.

The ritual began in 1952, when Truman offered intelligence briefings to Republican nominee Dwight D. Eisenhower and Democrat Adlai Stevenson.

CIA briefers were in a quandary after the 2000 election, when the country didn’t know for some time whether Republican George W. Bush or Democrat Al Gore had won.

Bush had received a four-hour CIA briefing in September before the election at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, but he had never seen the President’s Daily Brief, which Gore saw daily as vice president.

As their lengthy ballot recount dragged into December, President Bill Clinton authorized intelligence officials to share the so-called PDB with Bush, too.