The National Security Archive The George Washington University Gelman Library Suite 701 2130 H Street N W Washington D C 20037 Phone 202 994-7000 Fax 202 994-7005 www nsarchive org nsarchiv@gwu edu Annual Report for 2009 The following statistics provide a performance index of the Archive’s work in 2009 ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ Freedom of Information and declassification requests filed – 1 300 Freedom of Information and declassification appeals filed – 299 Pages of U S government documents released as the result of Archive requests – 66 156 including such newsmaking revelations as FBI interviews with Saddam Hussein that revealed the dictator deemed Iran more of a threat than demands from the U S to allow weapons inspectors back into Iraq declassified documents from 1963 written by then attorney general Robert F Kennedy arguing that the travel ban on Cuba went against traditional American liberties a collaboration between the United States and Brazil to overthrow Chile’s Allende and secret U S -Japan agreements that allowed U S forces to transport nuclear weapons on Japanese territory Pages of declassified documents delivered to publisher – 30 009 in three reference collections Peru Human Rights Drugs and Democracy 19802000 Part II The National Security Agency Organization and Operations 1945-2009 Part I and The U S Intelligence Community after 9 11 Declassified documents delivered to truth commissions and human rights prosecutions – 7 000 documents to Argentina’s Archivo Histórico de Cancillería Foreign Ministry Archive 5 000 documents to the Historical Memory Group of Colombia’s National Commission on Reparation and Reconciliation for use by researchers at Memoria Histórica 24 documents from Argentine Paraguayan U S and Mexican intelligence agencies to the Federal Criminal Tribunal No 1 in Rosario Argentina as evidence in the Operation Mexico case 307 documents to the Spanish Audiencia Nacional for investigations into the 1989 assassination of the Jesuit Priests in El Salvador 305-document database to Argentina’s Federal Oral Criminal Tribunal No 1 of Buenos Aires as evidence for Operation Condor indictments 8 documents to Guatemala’s Department of Justice Office of Special Investigation as evidence for the 1982 massacre in the village of Dos Erres Peten Guatemala 18 documents to lawyers prosecuting the case of Edgar Fernando Garcia in Guatemala Books published by Archive staff and fellows – 4 Defusing Armageddon Inside NEST America’s Secret Nuclear Bomb Squad New York W W Norton Company 2009 318 pp Vietnam The History of an Unwinnable War 1945-1975 Lawrence Kansas University Press of Kansas 2009 665 pp A World of Trouble The White House and the Middle East — From the Cold War to the War on Terror New York Farrar Straus and Giroux 2009 640 pp The Secret Sentry The Untold History of the National Security Agency New York Bloomsbury Press 2009 432 pp Electronic Books published by Archive staff and fellows – 38 bringing the Web site total to 303 Research requests to the Archive by letter – 15 by e-mail – 2 600 by phone – 1 600 Visiting researchers at the Archive’s reading room in GWU’s Gelman Library – 473 from 25 countries Unique visitors to the Archive’s Web site – more than 2 189 247 Pages in html downloaded from the Archive’s Web site – 23 733 954 65 025 html pages per day Bytes downloaded from the Archive’s Web site – 4 862 Gigabytes 13 3 GB per day Awards the Archive received four additional awards from the University of Wisconsin’s Internet Scout Report recognizing “the most valuable and authoritative resources online” Radio and TV transcripts of Archive staff interviews found on Lexis-Nexis – 28 News stories citing the Archive on Factiva formerly Dow Jones Interactive and Lexis-Nexis – 1038 Foreign countries where Archive staff were quoted in newspapers and broadcast news – 19 Argentina Australia Brazil Chile China Colombia Czech Republic Guatemala Mexico Netherlands New Zealand Norway Paraguay Peru Portugal Russia Spain United Arab Emirates Uruguay 1 January 2009 Archive senior fellow Jeffrey Richelson’s innovative history of the U S government’s Nuclear Emergency Search later Support Team NEST Defusing Armageddon Inside NEST America’s Secret Nuclear Bomb Squad was published on January 12 Created during the 1970s NEST is the U S government’s quick-response group for dealing with “suitcase” bomb threats and nuclear accidents in the U S and overseas Journalist Douglas Waller said that Defusing Armageddon “joins a long line of authoritative books Richelson has produced ” while Publishers Weekly said it makes a “convincing and troubling case that much of the world’s nuclear material remains in the hands of institutions and governments incompetent to protect it ” With the release of this book the Archive posted briefing books on “U S Nuclear Detection and Counterterrorism 1998-2009” and on NEST’s first incarnation as “The Nuclear Emergency Search Team ” sparking press attention for the book including major coverage in Canada while the Internet Scout Report called the first posting an “engaging clutch of materials and one that will be fascinating for anyone with an interest in national security ” On January 13 Archive senior analyst William Burr posted on the Nuclear Vault previously secret U S documents on Iran’s nuclear ambitions under the Shah that are relevant to the core nationalist concerns that drive Iran’s nuclear program today The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists January February issue featured Burr’s essay on the historical roots of Iran’s search for nuclear capacity and outlets ranging from U S News and World Report to Der Standard Vienna reported on the documents with a special emphasis on the resonance for the new Obama administration worried about Iran as a proliferant state while Iranians see nuclear power both in the 1970s and today as a matter of national “right ” The documents also detailed some of the 1970s ideas for solutions that are under discussion even today such as international reprocessing facilities February 2009 The February 2009 issue of Cigar Aficionado featured an article by Archive Cuba analyst Peter Kornbluh and William LeoGrande Dean of the School of Public Affairs at American University titled “Talking with Castro ” The article traces the secret back-channel efforts by Presidents Kennedy Carter and Clinton and Secretary of State Kissinger to improve or normalize relations with Cuba Declassified documents posted simultaneously on the Archive’s web site reveal a history of secret efforts to lessen hostilities and establish diplomatic relations Kornbluh stated “this rich declassified record of the past provides a road map for the new administration to follow in the future ” The article is adapted from a forthcoming book by Kornbluh and LeoGrande titled “Talking with Fidel The Untold History of Dialogue between the United State and Cuba ” March 2009 On March 13 in celebration of Sunshine Week the Archive awarded its fifth annual Rosemary Award—named for President Richard M Nixon’s secretary Rose Mary Woods whose improbable backwards-leaning stretch may have accidentally erased 18-1 2 minutes of Watergate tape—to the FBI for the worst Freedom of Information Act performance by a federal agency The FBI’s reports to Congress show that it is unable to find any records in response to 66% of its incoming FOIA requests on average over the past four years This compares to a 13% no records response on average by other agencies Al Kamen’s In the Loop column featured the Archive’s 2009 Rosemary Award with a quote from Tom Blanton attributing the FBI’s unresponsiveness to “using a limited search process that it knows won’t find the relevant records ” April 2009 Archive director Tom Blanton contributed comments and analysis as well as a series of public appearances in Brasilia in April 2009 to the development of the proposed FOI law in Brazil in partnership with the impressive coalition organized by the investigative 2 journalists’ association ABRAJI Blanton gave specific examples of the Archive’s success in using the U S FOIA to obtain national security files and answered key questions posed by the seminar about both U S and international experience on the costs of implementation the number of government employees required the treatment of national security and other sensitive information the potential of Internet access and the application of right-toinformation laws to the private sector or state-owned companies a number rapidly increasing at least in the U S May 2009 On May 1 the Archive posted on the Nuclear Vault previously secret documents from the 1950s that describe the “road not taken” in the nuclear arms race—the Navy proposal for “finite deterrence” Using declassified material from the Navy Archives the collection documents the late-1950s proposals of Chief of Naval Operations Arleigh Burke that the U S develop a minimum or “finite” deterrence posture based on Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missile weapons systems Believing that the Polaris’s relative invulnerability made it an effective deterrent Burke argued that it would be possible to minimize reliance on Strategic Air Command bombers and ICBMs and to avoid the Air Force’s dangerous preemptive strategies This debate of “how much is enough” resonates with the current Obama administration consideration of interim steps towards smaller and smaller nuclear forces as part of the President’s long-term goal expressed in his April 5 Prague speech of a world without nuclear weapons The Internet Scout Report praised this as an “engaging collection” that is “another fine addition” to the Archive’s Web site On May 8-11 some 25 freedom of information FOI advocates and practitioners from the Caucasus region convened in Telavi Georgia to compare the laws and the practices across the region and to outline some common strategies to strengthen the right of access in these countries Organized by the National Security Archive together with its partners from Tbilisi State University the workshop included participants from Georgia Armenia Azerbaijan Russia and the United States and representatives of the leading FOI organizations in each country meeting for two days of presentations and discussion in Telavi and a session at the State Security Archive of Georgia in Tbilisi Among the participants were lawyers who had brought FOI cases journalists who had to use FOI laws in their investigative work and academics—both those who helped draft and promote the FOI laws and those who faced problems with access in their work in the archives The workshop took place at a critical turning point—all the represented countries now have FOI laws most recently the Russian Federation in January 2009 but implementation of the laws is facing more and more difficulties in each of the countries Archive director Tom Blanton and senior fellow Svetlana Savranskaya shared their experience with the U S FOIA and helped forge a new regional Caucasus network to address implementation problems in each country and build some regionwide audits and metrics for success June 2009 To highlight overclassification by the CIA and the need for better guidelines for declassification review of older documents on June 5 the Archive posted “The Secrecy Court of Last Resort” electronic briefing book detailing releases by the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel ISCAP The posting consisted of CIA documents including intelligence estimates on nuclear issues ranging from proliferation to terrorism which the Agency had denied altogether on appeal but which ISCAP declassified In The Washington Post Walter Pincus highlighted a December 1960 estimate on the Israeli nuclear program that was re-released to the Archive by ISCAP and raises questions that remain valid “that friends—and potential foes—may have similar reasoning for nuclear ambitions” and that that is “worth understanding even for unpredictable and potentially unstable governments ” 3 July 2009 The Washington Post’s July 2 article Hussein Pointed to Iranian Threat by Glenn Kessler highlighted 20 FBI interviews with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein—“High Value Detainee #1”—after his capture in 2003 and obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive Hussein’s answers during the interview sessions undercut the Bush administration rationales for the invasion of Iraq For instance Hussein was more concerned about Iran discovering Iraq’s vulnerabilities than the consequences of refusing to allow U N weapons inspectors back into Iraq Hussein also described Osama bin Laden as a “zealot” and denied that Iraq had any substantive ties to al-Qaeda Publication of the interviews made worldwide headlines including coverage in The New York Times The Bangkok Post USA Today and the Gulf News ran full-page transcripts of all 20 interview sessions as well as the 5 casual conversations Archive director Tom Blanton was the keynote speaker at the American Library Association’s annual conference President’s Program on July 12 and spoke before a packed audience about the “Secrecy Hangover”—documenting the rising rate of government security classifications and noting that although President Obama has made openness and transparency a priority his administration has backtracked on releasing information on warrantless wiretapping the state secrets privilege and the release of torture photos Blanton likened the incredible inertia of government bureaucracy to the metaphor of turning around a supertanker August 2009 On August 25 the Archive launched the 83 000-page and counting Torture Archive—the multi-layered online database that digitally preserves catalogs and makes widely accessible all the available primary source documents related to the detention and interrogation of individuals by the United States in connection with the conduct of hostilities in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as in the broader context of the “Global War on Terror ” The ultimate goal of the Torture Archive is to become the online institutional memory for essential evidence on torture in U S policy The launch featured the Obama Administration’s release of a May 2004 CIA Inspector General report Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities that exposes torture as a U S policy The Archive posted a side-by-side comparison of the recently released version and a version released in 2008 by the Bush administration—both versions are included in the digitized collections of the Torture Archive Later in October the Torture Archive received a citation from the University of Wisconsin’s Internet Scout Report recognizing “the most valuable and authoritative resources online” stating that “83 000 digitized pages of items related to torture might not be everyone’s cup of tea but this invaluable resource created by the National Security Archive at the George Washington University is a real gem and an important research tool ” Archive senior analyst Peter Kornbluh made worldwide headlines on August 16 by posting an analysis of documents from 1971 declassified as part of the State Department’s Foreign Relations of the United States series revealing that Richard Nixon had opened up a secret diplomatic back channel with Brazilian President Emilio Médici to intervene in Chile Cuba and other Latin American nations “to prevent new Allendes and Castros ” Two year later Chilean President Salvador Allende was toppled by a CIA-supported coup led by General Augusto Pinochet in September 1973 Kornbluh told CNN com that the documents are a “smoking gun of confirmation of Brazil’s effort to engage in operations to overthrow the government of Chile and a discussion of collusion with the United States ” Two days after the publication of the documents on the Archive’s Web site Isabel Allende—the daughter of overthrown Chilean President Salvador Allende—requested via Twitter that the Brazilian government open any archives that could shed light on Brazil’s possible involvement in the 1973 coup that led to the death of her father On August 20 after a Mexican Supreme Court ruling that vacated the conviction of 20 men for the December 1997 Acteal massacre Archive Mexico project director Kate Doyle published 4 declassified documents from the U S Defense Intelligence Agency that describe the Mexican army’s role in backing paramilitary groups in Chiapas at the time of the killings The previously secret cables confirm reporting about military support for indigenous armed groups carrying out attacks on pro-Zapatista communities in the region and contradict the official story of the massacre by the government of thenPresident Ernesto Zedillo In addition to publishing the documents on the Archive’s Web site Doyle wrote an op-ed in Milenio Diario discussing the nature and importance of the U S records and calling for the Calderon administration to officially release information on the massacre September 2009 On September 10 2009 Archive director Tom Blanton testified at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee chaired by Representative Barney Frank DMass at which academics and other witnesses advocated for greater transparency at the World Bank Citing the history of past disclosure reforms Blanton emphasized that congressional pressure “has been essential for every reform ” According to his testimony “The bottom line is that real reform depends on four factors coming together pressure from outside critics pressure from Congress rhetorical commitments by the Bank and inside reformers who internalize the need for transparency ” Archive Director Tom Blanton Deputy Director Malcolm Byrne and Eurasia Project Director Svetlana Savranskaya traveled to Tbilisi to help launch a new Georgian NGO the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information IDFI and visit Soviet-era archives The Institute for Development of Freedom of Information formally came into existence at a press conference in the Georgian capital on September 22 Its founders historians Giorgi Kldiashvili and Levan Avalishvili marked the event with the publication of a remarkable 44-page full-color inaugural issue of the IDFI “Informational Bulletin” consisting of a detailed audit of Georgian government agencies’ compliance with national e-government laws Using an astonishing 183 parameters Kldiashvili and Avalishvili performed a systematic study of 18 ministries and rated the performance of each on a chart which understandably drew the attention of not just the media but the ministries themselves several of which sent representatives to the press conference The first edition of México Infórmate—a weeklong event aimed at promoting the use of transparency laws to combat corruption and impunity in Mexico was celebrated from September 27 to October 3 to coincide with International Right to Know Day Over 150 activities were conducted during the week in 20 states and Mexico City—highlighted by participation in the first Feria de Transparencia Transparency Fair held in the Zocalo Mexico City’s central plaza Other activities included a special edition of Emeequis with articles by Kate Doyle and Manuel Mora radio interviews several investigative journalism workshops in multiple states book presentations and more Over 60 organizations joined the México Infórmate crusade from local information commissions academic institutions nongovernmental organizations and media outlets such as Noroeste from Sinaloa a m from Guanajuato La Unión from Morelos and Cuarto Poder from Chiapas México Informate was successfully supported by social media tools—a blog in El Universal Mexico’s top news Web site that attracted thousands of readers and attracted over 12 000 visits on its first posting and a Twitter account that has over 650 followers and over 100 updates Archive Colombia documentation project director Michael Evans traveled to Colombia for the September 20th presentation of the Colombian Historical Memory Group’s report on the El Salado massacre that took place there in February 2000—one of the most gruesome and indiscriminate massacres in modern Colombian history where 37 people were hacked to death 5 over several days by right-wing paramilitary forces Police and military forces had cleared out of the town before the killings began and claimed to have not known anything about what was happening Hundreds of people trucked in from far and wide for the event many of them among those who were displaced from the area after the killings Evans supplied further documentation supporting the potential involvement of the Colombian security forces in the killings at a time when the development of Plan Colombia was in its final stages—a package that called for massive increases in aid for the Colombian military but would also require the Colombian government to show that the military was severing longstanding ties with paramilitary forces October 2009 In October 2009 a document obtained by the Archive’s Colombia Project was introduced as a key piece of evidence in the trial of an Army commander on trial for the disappearances of civilians during one of the most searing events in Colombian history the November 1985 Palace of Justice case Established under the Colombian Supreme Court of Justice and led by three former presidents of the Court the Truth Commission on the Palace of Justice requested the Archive’s help in documenting human rights atrocities that occurred during Colombian Army efforts to retake the building from guerrilla forces causing the deaths of some 95 people including 11 Supreme Court justices and the disappearances of at least 12 others Working with the International Center for Transitional Justice the Archive has helped the Commission to overcome obstacles encountered during preliminary stages of its investigation by aggressively pursuing declassified U S information on these events and obtaining a special expedited declassification review from the U S Embassy in Colombia On October 13 Archive senior fellow Robert Wampler published on the Nuclear Vault documents detailing secret U S -Japan agreements—part of the 1960 Security Treaty and the 1969 agreement to return Okinawa to Japan—that allowed U S forces to transport nuclear weapons on Japanese territory Publication of the documents was sparked by the decision of Japan’s newly elected Democratic Party to come clean about long-standing controversies over secret bilateral nuclear agreements with the U S Acknowledging such agreements would be very controversial for a country that pledged to never possess produce or allow nuclear weapons inside its borders after Hiroshima and Nagasaki Wampler called for U S assistance and cooperation in releasing its own records on the secret agreements now that the new Japanese government if no longer a hindrance to their release Publication of the U S documents led to coverage in The Wall Street Journal and numerous Japanese media including The Japan Times and the Tokyo Broadcasting Company On October 22 the Archive generated worldwide headlines by filing12 FOIA requests on behalf of a coalition of musicians including Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine R E M Pearl Jam and others for documents “concerning the use of loud music during detention and or a technique to interrogate detainees at U S -operated prison facilities used in its War on Terror at Guantanamo Iraq and Afghanistan during 2002-present ” The requests were filed on behalf of the artists whose music has been used without their knowledge or consent Loud music as a torture tactic has been used before as the Archive found out in 1995 from an After Action report released as the result of a FOIA request—rock music was blasted through loudspeakers toward the Papal Nuncio’s residence in Panama City where General Manuel Noriega had taken refuge during the December 1989 invasion of Panama The 6 report contained a playlist of songs that were called into SouthCom Network radio as a “musical message” to Noriega Articles about the collaboration between the musicians and the Archive appeared on the front page of The Washington Post’s Style Section The New York Times CNN NPR the BBC and in numerous blog posts The Archive also launched its blog Unredacted The National Security Archive Unedited and Uncensored The purpose of the blog is to offer a behind-the-scenes look at the work of the Archive—commentary and analysis on current news stories events litigation global activities hot topics and a regular “Document Friday” series highlighting hot documents In less than one month the blog has been visited 6 821 times averaging about 270 views per day Individual postings have been linked to Slate com AllGov org and the Neiman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University National Public Radio's On the Media featured Archive FOIA Coordinator Yvette Chin as a direct result of her blog entry about receiving a 20 year old document from the CIA about Iran-Contra in October 2009 and how that shows a FOIA system in disarray The Archive also launched a Facebook page and now you can follow the Archive on Twitter November 2009 Marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 on November 9 he Archive posted a selection of documents from its forthcoming Masterpieces of History The Peaceful End of the Cold War in Europe edited by Svetlana Savranskaya Thomas Blanton and Vladislav Zubok to be published in Spring 2010 by the Central European University Press in the Archive’s Cold War Reader series edited by Malcolm Byrne The Archive published a series of electronic briefing books on its Web site looking at the East German demonstrations in Leipzig and the Czech reaction calling for the Wall to be dismantled The postings led to Archive director Tom Blanton being featured on NPR’s All Things Considered on November 9 and showed that the fall of the wall was viewed with less jubilance at the time and instead generated major anxiety in the capitals of Washington London and Warsaw whose leaders were anxious at the speed of change and skeptical of the resolve of Gorbachev’s political and economic reforms And contrary to popular opinion documents obtained by Archive senior fellow Svetlana Savranskaya showed that Moscow welcomed the fall of the wall as a peaceful solution to months of refugee crises in Eastern Europe and welcomed closer integration with Europe as a solution to their own economic woes December 2009 On December 2 Archive senior analyst Kate Doyle testified in Madrid Spain on the authenticity of documentary evidence presented in the international genocide case on Operation Sofia—a 1982 Guatemalan army counterinsurgency campaign under the direction of military ruler Efraín Ríos Montt that aimed at massacring thousands of indigenous Mayan peasants Doyle’s analysis included letterhead evaluations and signature comparisons to other available military records and determined that “these records were created by military officials during the regime of Efraín Ríos Montt to plan and implement a ‘scorched earth’ policy on Mayan communities in El Quiché The documents record the military’s genocidal assault against indigenous populations in Guatemala ” On December 7 Archive southern cone project director Carlos Osorio delivered two dozen key documents from Argentine Paraguayan U S and Mexican intelligence agencies to the Federal Criminal Tribunal No 1 in Rosario Argentina for the case on “Operation Mexico”—an Argentine secret police rendition program aimed at kidnapping and disappearing leaders of the left-wing Montoneros group living in exile in Mexico City in the late 1970s A secret report— discovered by Osorio among papers from the Paraguayan Archivo del Terror—corroborates the testimony of the only surviving witness of an Argentine secret police cover up of the rendition 7 operation Osorio stated in his testimony that “the records reveal how the Argentine dictatorship conducted its campaign of transnational terror in the 1970’s ” On December 10 marking the 30th anniversary of the December 1979 NATO “dual track” decision that linked deployments of Pershing II long-range theater nuclear forces to proposals for negotiations with Moscow over a program of arms control to limit theater nuclear forces the University of Rome Tre the National Security Archive and other organizations hosted a highly -successful conference in Rome exploring the origins development and outcome of the “dual track decision” within the broader context of the last decade of the Cold War in Europe Several Archive staffers participated in the conference as paper-givers or commentators Thomas Blanton William Burr Malcolm Byrne and Svetlana Savranskaya Simultaneously the Archive posted a collection of recently-declassified U S government documents that suggested the great extent to which U S motives in supporting the deployments were diplomatic and political In light of the ongoing trans-Atlantic debate over the future of U S nuclear weapons in NATO Europe the conference and document posting was particularly timely—given the fact that there are still 200 U S nuclear weapons in Europe On December 14 despite repeated government dismissal motions the Archive successfully settled on favorable terms its lawsuit restoring and preserving millions of Bush White House e -mail messages from 2003 to 2005 The Archive did this by first obtaining a court order to protect the entire corpus of back-up tapes starting in 2003 from the Bush White House computer system The Archive’s dogged pursuit of the case and the front-page news stories that it generated eventually led the Obama Administration to withdraw its litigation motions agree to produce records about what had happened agree to restore records from back-up tapes and agree to install an adequate document storage system that will collect all e-mail including BlackBerry messages This lawsuit ensured the existence of essential evidence for long-term government accountability Indeed the Archive was contacted by several congressional staff after the settlement was announced to discuss whether their pending investigations should go back to the White House to ask for more records than they were originally able to wrest from the Bush Administration Archive general counsel Meredith Fuchs spoke about the significance of the settlement on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show on NPR and in The Washington Post 8