Testimonials
My thanks to the NSA [National Security Archive], especially Dr. Curry, for the rapid response to my request for the use of the Kissinger Nixon records of conversations in my new book "Legislative Intent of the Taiwan Relations Act"...
My thanks again for the outstanding public service your organization continues to provide...
At bottom, Able Archer 83: The Secret History of the NATO Exercise That Almost Triggered Nuclear War is a valuable addition to the literature on the post-détente “Era of Renewed Confrontation.” Despite its sensationalistic subtitle and occasional overreaches, this is a serious work that makes significant contributions to our collective understanding of a tense and perhaps alarming episode in Cold War history.
"Nate Jones of the George Washington University’s National Security Archive has done a superlative job [in Able Archer 83] of drawing together primary-source material that paints a compelling picture of this terrifying crisis, helped considerably by the outstanding scene-setting in his colleague Tom Blanton’s foreword .... The National Security Archive has done a great service to the people of the United States and anyone who wishes to learn from its history by obtaining the release of so many highly classified documents central to this story, in particular the PFIAB Repo
LeoGrande and Kornbluh’s exhaustive and masterful diplomatic history will stand as the most authoritative account of U.S.-Cuban diplomatic relations….
“The Kissinger Transcripts is among the most important Cold War records to emerge thus far. In these pages we see the bare knuckles of Triangular diplomacy, the mercurial Mao, the blustery Brezhnev, and the multiple personalities of Henry Kissinger, all of them analyzed in expert commentary by William Burr of the National Security Archive.”
“Agradecimientos: Al National Security Archive (NSA) que por medio de un Convenio firmado con la Corte Suprema de Justicia, posibilitó la instalación del equipo informático y la conexión de Internet en la oficina.”
“Over the years the archive has found that declassifying documents may alter the course of history as well as illuminate it. A database on the Guatemalan military, assembled from declassified U.S. documents, wound up helping the truth commission examining human rights abuses in Guatemala to pursue its investigations despite resistance from Guatemalan authorities.”
"‘This thing about eyeball-to-eyeball, it never was. That confrontation never took place,’ said Kornbluh, who is a Cuba analyst at the nongovernment National Security Archive, which has spent decades working to get missile crisis documents declassified.”
“Drawing upon a trove of new documents, the authors provide a full length fascinating account of Nixon and Kissinger's madman nuclear threat making in 1969 against North Vietnam ... I didn't know any of this as I was copying the top secret Pentagon Papers that fall but if I had I would have given the Papers to the newspapers right away rather than two years later ... A gripping and essential read.”
“Finally a well-researched and well-written account of our leaders’ dangerous nuclear brinksmanship across the high years of the Cold War. There’s much here that’s new and much that’s troubling – for today as well as yesterday.”
“Thank you again for your recent trip to Spain. It was a pleasure to have you work with us in submitting evidence for the judicial case against General Augusto Pinochet. We will be relying on you to search for other declassified U.S. records that may be relevant to this judicial case, as well as to the cases of other human rights abusers in Chile which we are advancing. Your work is invaluable to the pursuit of truth and justice.”
“The National Security Archive at George Washington University maintains a trove of declassified government papers, including voluminous files involving national security decision making during the Cold War. Tom Blanton, the director, and his colleagues guided [research assistant] Gabriela and me through the archive’s collections, many of which are assembled and analyzed in thoughtful electronic briefing books. William Burr, a senior analyst, has edited several invaluable collections about nuclear weapons policy during the Cold War.”
For “outstanding collections of primary source materials in the fields of international or diplomatic history, especially those distinguished by the inclusion of commentary designed to interpret the documents and set them within their historical context.”
“Russia has reverted to authoritarian type, yet there are opportunities for human rights cases and accountability in the European context. We need from you any US documents you can retrieve on Chechnya and the enormous human cost of those wars. Such information is called ‘state secrets’ in Russia.”
“Masterpieces of History ... provides a fascinating array of sources from the late 1980s and early 1990, largely from Russian-language originals. Experts who have seen these documents already at conferences or the archive itself, as I did in the course of writing my book 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe, already know how valuable they are.”