Be the first to reveal intelligence (5,3,4)

'reveal intelligence' is the definition.
'break the news' can be an answer for 'reveal' (thesaurus). I'm not certain of the 'intelligence' bit.

'be the first' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is found within the answer.
'first' could be 'a' (first letter of the alphabet) and 'a' is located in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...

'to' is the link.

Can you help me to learn more?