40 YEARS OF FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACTION
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News
Wednesday, April 30, 2025 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM ET Join us for an online event on Wednesday, April 30, from 2:00-3:30 pm U.S. Eastern time (18:00–19:30 UTC) with three people known worldwide…
Briefing Book 891
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., April 22, 2025 – Declassified U.S. intelligence reports from the 1980s and 90s show that, even while the possibility of war between India and Pakistan remained low, the U.S.…
Briefing Book 890
Edited by Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi and Peter Kornbluh
Washington, D.C., April 7, 2025 - Just six months before the 1964 military coup that overthrew the government of João Goulart in Brazil, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence for Plans Richard…
Briefing Book 889
Edited by Peter Kornbluh and Michael Evans
Washington, D.C., March 28, 2025 - Both John F. Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, were briefed by CIA officials on an Agency counterintelligence operation to break into the…
Briefing Book 888
Edited by Peter Kornbluh and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi
Washington D.C., March 19, 2025 - On the day of President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in January 1961, “47 percent of the political officers serving in United States embassies were CAS”—…
News
by The Archive
Washington, D.C., March 12, 2025 – The acting executive secretary of the U.S. Agency for International Development Monday night ordered the destruction of classified records and personnel files,…
Briefing Book 887
Edited by Rachel Santarsiero
Washington, D.C., February 28, 2025 - For 17 years, the U.S. Intelligence Community has refused to declassify one of its first investigations into climate change as a national security threat.
Briefing Book 886
Compiled and edited by Scott Shane
Update - February 14, 2025Washington, D.C., February 14, 2025 - Some 14 years after Anwar al-Awlaki's death in an American drone strike, the Al Qaeda terrorist has become the unlikely subject of a…
Briefing Book 885
Edited by Rachel Santarsiero
Washington, D.C., February 6, 2025 - In the first two weeks of President Donald Trump’s second term, the administration has begun to scrub critical environmental resources and datasets from federal…
Briefing Book 884
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington, D.C., February 3, 2025 - Continued U.S. control of the Panama Canal “looks like pure colonialism,” Henry Kissinger advised President Gerald Ford during a National Security Council meeting…
Briefing Book 883
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., January 23, 2025 - Today, the National Security Archive publishes newly declassified information on a secret mid-1960s project in which a handful of young physicists at Lawrence…
Briefing Book 882
Edited by Peter Kornbluh and William LeoGrande
Washington, D.C., January 15, 2025 - The late President Jimmy Carter, who was laid to rest last week after a state funeral in Washington, D.C., adamantly believed that the U.S. embargo on Cuba was “a…
Briefing Book 881
By Malcolm Byrne with Autumn Kladder
Washington, D.C., December 29, 2024 – The late President Jimmy Carter, contrary to the views of some critics, was typically focused, knowledgeable, and strong-willed on matters of foreign policy,…
Briefing Book 880
Edited by Michael Evans
Washington, D.C., December 23, 2024 – Today, the National Security Archive and ProQuest (part of Clarivate) celebrate the publication of a new scholarly document collection many years in the making…
Briefing Book 879
Edited by Kate Doyle and Claire DorfmanSpecial thanks to Salvador Leyva and Laura Sánchez Ley
Washington, D.C., December 20, 2024—Half a century ago, Mexico was convulsed by state violence and social upheaval. The year 1974 witnessed some of the most emblematic human rights abuses to occur…
Briefing Book 878
Compiled and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
Washington, D.C., December 18, 2024 – A now-legendary but long-secret 70-paragraph telegram written by the top political analyst at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in March 1994, E. Wayne Merry,…
Briefing Book 877
Edited by William Burr and Avner Cohen
Washington, D.C., December 17, 2024 - A recently declassified Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee (JAEIC) report from December 1960 is the first and only known U.S. intelligence report to…
News
Edited by Michael Evans
Washington, D.C., December 6, 2024 - Yesterday, Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced that he has asked the United States to expedite the declassification of archival records on the 1985 Palace…
Briefing Book 876
Compiled and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
Washington, D.C., December 5, 2024 – Thirty years ago, the Budapest Memorandum ensured the destruction of dangerous post-Soviet nuclear stockpiles but was overshadowed at the time by Russian…
Briefing Book 875
Edited by: Claire Dorfman and Rachel SantarsieroSpecial thanks to Sajit Gandhi and Vivek Ramkumar
Washington, D.C., November 26, 2024 - U.S. officials had an “unusual” degree of concern about the “potential ecological and social impacts” of the Camisea natural gas pipeline in Peru, according to…
Briefing Book 874
Edited by Tom Blanton and Svetlana Savranskaya
Washington, D.C., November 21, 2024 - The National Security Archive filed suit in federal court today to contest the estimated 12-year backlog of Freedom of Information requests for presidential…
Briefing Book 873
By James David
Washington, D.C., November 20, 2024 – The failure of the U.S. intelligence community to adequately warn policymakers about the poor Soviet grain harvest of 1972—resulting in higher food prices in the…
News
Edited by Michael Evans
Washington, D.C., November 1, 2024 - A recently declassified “after-action” report from a 2002 war game “triggered internal warnings that the U.S. military was vulnerable to low-tech warfare,”…
Briefing Book 872
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., October 30, 2024 - A 1983 study from scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore Laboratory said that a full-scale nuclear war between the superpowers would “…
News
Washington, D.C., October 18, 2024 – National Security Archive director Tom Blanton reflects on 40 years of working “to dislodge and declassify U.S. government secrets” in the latest edition of “In…
Briefing Book 871
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington, D.C., October 1, 2024 - On the 50th anniversary of the Pinochet regime’s first act of international terrorism, the National Security Archive is posting a compilation of documents,…
News
Edited by Kate Doyle and Claire Dorfman
Washington, D.C., September 26, 2024 - On the 10th anniversary of the forced disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College in Iguala, Mexico, the National Security Archive…
Briefing Book 870
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington, D.C., September 9, 2024 – Fifty years ago, as the New York Times prepared to break a major exposé on CIA covert operations in Chile, the architect of those operations, Henry Kissinger,…
News
By Kate Doyle and Claire Dorfman
Mexico City, Mexico, August 19, 2024 - From 1965 to 1990, the Mexican State was responsible for “systematic and widespread” human rights abuses “against broad sectors of the population,” according to…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 869
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., August 8, 2024 – On the week of the 79th commemoration of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, the National Security Archive today publishes a fascinating new…
Briefing Book 868
Edited by Rachel Santarsiero
Washington, D.C., August 1, 2024 – The most successful multilateral environmental treaty of all time drew Ronald Reagan’s support despite opposition from his more conservative advisers, because the…
Briefing Book 867
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., July 23, 2024 - A major report on the current state of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) recently released by the National Coalition for History (NCH) includes…
Briefing Book 866
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., July 16, 2024 - On 16 July 1945, 79 years ago, the United States, under the Manhattan Project, staged the first test of a nuclear weapon in the New Mexican desert. The first trial…
Briefing Book 865
Edited by Peter Kornbluh and William M. LeoGrande
Washington, D.C. July 12, 2024 - “Cuba,” as former Foreign Service officer, Wayne S. Smith, was fond of observing, “seems to have the same effect on American administrations as the full moon has on…
Special Exhibit
This Special Exhibit marking the NATO 75th Anniversary Summit in Washington, D.C., is a one-stop portal for thousands of declassified U.S. documents and numerous National Security Archive…
Briefing Book 864
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
Washington, D.C., July 9, 2024 - Hailed at the time as an historic change “burying” a Cold War rivalry, the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997 was privately characterized as a “forced step” by Russian…
News
By Michael Evans
Washington, D.C., June 28, 2024 – This week, Washingtonian magazine published a glowing profile of the National Security Archive, its executive director Tom Blanton, and the Archive’s decades-…
Briefing Book 863
Edited by Michael Evans
Washington, D.C., June 21, 2024 – On Wednesday, a Colombian court condemned former Colombian Army Gen. Iván Ramírez Quintero to 31 years in prison for the death of Irma Franco, a member of the M-19…
Briefing Book 862
Edited by Peter Kornbluh and John Dinges
Washington, D.C., June 18, 2024 - On June 18, 1974, the official registry of the Chilean military dictatorship published Decree 521 on the “creation of the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA…
News
Edited by Michael Evans
Washington, D.C., June 10, 2024 – Today, an eight-member jury in West Palm Beach, Florida, found Chiquita Brands International liable for funding a violent Colombian paramilitary organization, the…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 861
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., May 31, 2024 - On 6 October 1977, President Jimmy Carter and top U.S. national security officials dialed into a secret “Missile Attack Conference” (MAC) to coordinate a response to…
Briefing Book 860
Translated and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya with assistance from Anna Melyakova
Washington D.C., May 25, 2024 - The National Security Archive today marks what would have been Anatoly Sergeyevich Chernyaev’s 103rd birthday with the publication for the first time in…
Briefing Book 859
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya
Washington, D.C., April 29, 2024 - New evidence from Russian archival sources and published today by the National Security Archive details Fidel Castro’s extraordinary April-May 1963 trip to the USSR…
Briefing Book 858
Edited by Rachel Santarsiero
Washington, D.C., April 26, 2024 - High-level officials inside the Nixon administration debated climate change and the impacts of sea-level rise, extreme temperatures, and fossil-fuel consumption as…
Briefing Book 857
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., April 18, 2024 - After nine years of unwanted delays, the State Department’s Office of the Historian (OH) last month published a new Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS)…
Briefing Book 856
Edited by Michael Evans
Washington, D.C., April 15, 2024 – A highly sensitive blacklist of allegedly corrupt Colombian officials assembled by the U.S. government and presented to Colombian President Alfonso López Michelsen…
Briefing Book 855
By Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton
Washington, D.C., April 4, 2024 - Top NATO and U.S. officials worked out cooperative agreements with senior Russian leaders including the defense minister of the newly independent Russian…
Briefing Book 854
By Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton, with Natalie Sherman
Washington, D.C., March 21, 2024 - Vladimir Putin’s first election as president of Russia 24 years ago was “reasonably free and fair,” according to a declassified U.S. Embassy message from Moscow,…
FOIA Audit 789
Edited by
Lauren Harper,
William Burr,
Tom Blanton
Washington, D.C., March 15, 2024 - The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is requesting less funding for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 than it received in FY 2024, threatening to worsen an…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 853
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., February 29, 2024 - Seventy years ago, on 1 March 1954 (28 February in Washington), the U.S. government detonated a thermonuclear weapon, code-named “Shrimp,” on Bikini Atoll in the…
Briefing Book 852
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., February 13, 2024 - State Department lawyers advised Henry Kissinger that transcriptions of his telephone conversations made when he served as national security adviser and…
Briefing Book 851
By Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
Washington, D.C., January 25, 2024 - Declassified highest-level records from the Moscow summit 30 years ago this month detail U.S. President Bill Clinton’s strong personal support for Russian…
Briefing Book 850
Edited by Malcolm Byrne and Michael Evans
Special thanks to Autumn Kladder for help with document selection
Washington, D.C., December 14, 2023 – The National Security Archive is pleased to announce the publication of a major primary document collection on the presidency of Jimmy Carter. The latest in the…
Briefing Book 849
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., December 6, 2023 - Recent U.S. government decisions on the declassification of historical records on nuclear proliferation demonstrate the good, the bad and the ugly in the current…
Briefing Book 848
Edited by Peter Kornbluh, William Burr and Tom Blanton
Washington, D.C., November 29, 2023 - Henry Kissinger’s death today brings new global attention to the long paper trail of secret documents recording his policy deliberations, conversations, and…
Briefing Book 847
Edited by Peter Kornbluh and John Dinges
Washington D.C., November 22, 2023 - “[I]f there has been sufficient reason to open this envelope, I accuse the government of Chile of my death,” wrote DINA agent Michael Townley in March 1978, as…
Briefing Book 846
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., October 26, 2023 - In early August 1977, Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev wrote to President Jimmy Carter to inform him that the Soviet Union had detected a nuclear…
Briefing Book 845
Compiled and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
Washington D.C., October 4, 2023 – Thirty years ago in Moscow, Russian President Boris Yeltsin ordered tanks and airborne troops to shell and storm the “White House,” the Russian Parliament (Supreme…
Briefing Book 844
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington D.C., October 3, 2023 – As a diplomatic gesture to mark the 35th anniversary of the October 5, 1988, Chilean plebiscite that forced General Augusto Pinochet from power, the U.S. State…
Briefing Book 843
Edited by Kate Doyle and
Claire Dorfman
Special thanks to Lauren Harper for contributing research
Washington, D.C., September 26, 2023 - Nine years ago today, 43 Mexican college students were violently abducted and disappeared by police and drug traffickers in the town of Iguala, Guerrero. As the…
Briefing Book 842
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., September 21, 2023 – The Reagan administration rejected an international agreement on humanitarian laws of war—Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions—due to…
Briefing Book 841
Edited by Michael Evans
Washington, D.C., September 19, 2023 – Colombian President Gustavo Petro should comply with the 2014 sentence of the Inter-American Human Rights Court (IACHR) and ask U.S. President Joe Biden to…
Briefing Book 840
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
September 8, 2023, Washington D.C. - “In the Eisenhower period, we would be heroes,” Henry Kissinger told President Richard Nixon several days after the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile,…
Briefing Book 839
Edited by Tamara Feinstein
Washington, D.C., August 28, 2023 – On the 20th anniversary of the Peruvian truth commission’s final report, the National Security Archive posts a core collection of declassified U.S. documents…
Briefing Book 838
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington, D.C., August, 25, 2023 - On the morning of the U.S.-backed military coup in Chile, the CIA briefed President Nixon that Chilean military officers were “determined to restore…
Briefing Book 837
Edited by Corina Snitar
Washington, D.C., August 11, 2023 – Recently unearthed documents from the Romanian national archives shed new light on the Comintern, the Soviet-led international organization that from 1919-1943 was…
Briefing Book 836
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington, D.C., August 8, 2023 - As the commander in chief of the Chilean army, Gen. René Schneider, lay dying in a hospital after being shot in a CIA-backed coup plot in October 1970, President…
Briefing Book 835
Edited by William Burr
A newly declassified memorandum from the weeks after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki confirmed early reports of fatal radiation disease even as Manhattan Project director General Leslie…
Unredacted blog
The United States will not pay climate reparations to developing countries under any circumstances, Special Presidential Climate Envoy John Kerry stated in his July 13, 2023, testimony …
Unredacted blog
On March 17th of this year, State Department spokesperson Ned Price was asked by Pakistani news media about unconfirmed reports of a U.S. drone strike in the Pakistani village of Zangara, within the…
Briefing Book 834
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., July 18, 2023 – A set of highly secret emergency action plans kept inside the closely guarded “Football” that traveled with the President at all times and that would give the…
Briefing Book 833
Edited by Rachel Santarsiero
Washington, D.C., July 6, 2023 – As the world’s wealthiest countries continue to avoid making serious financial commitments to developing states on the front lines of the climate crisis, declassified…
Unredacted blog
State Department Launches AI Pilot Program for FOIA Processing Federal News Network reports that the State Department is “experimenting with automation” to improve its FOIA work. Of specific interest…
Unredacted blog
Declassification Provisions of the 2024 Intel Authorization Act Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) is touting the 2024 Intelligence Authorization Act (IAA), which unanimously passed the Senate Intelligence…
Briefing Book 832
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., June 6, 2023 - U.S. officials and NATO allies feared that international talks meant to strengthen the protection of civilians during conflicts could lead to a ban on the use of…
The First Six Months of Clinton-Russian Relations:
Summits with Yeltsin at Vancouver and Tokyo, 1993
Summits with Yeltsin at Vancouver and Tokyo, 1993
Briefing Book 831
Compiled and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
Washington, D.C., June 5, 2023 – Declassified highest-level records from the first six months of the Clinton administration’s relations with the Russian Federation in 1993 reveal a remarkable array…
Briefing Book 830
Translated by Anna Melyakova
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya
Washington D.C., May 25, 2023 - The National Security Archive today marks what would have been Anatoly Sergeyevich Chernyaev’s 102nd birthday with the publication for the first time in English…
Briefing Book 829
Edited by Peter Kornbluh and
William Burr
Washington D.C., May 25, 2023 - As Henry Alfred Kissinger (HAK) reaches 100 years of age, his centennial is generating global coverage of his legacy as a leading statesman, master diplomat, and…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Archive, working with our partners at ProQuest, is publishing a new compilation of documents on U.S. policy toward Iraq. The 2,179 -document collection, Targeting Iraq, Part II…
Unredacted blog
Recent allegations that the Uighurs, a Turkic ethnic group native to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the Northwest region of China, are an “attractive constituency” for terrorist groups like…
Briefing Book 828
Edited by William Burr and Leopoldo Nuti
Washington, D.C., April 20, 2023 - Sixty years ago, during April 1963, the U.S. Air Force took steps to implement the final stage of the secret U.S.-Soviet deal that helped resolve the Cuban Missile…
Briefing Book 827
Edited by Michael Evans
Washington, D.C., April 18, 2023 – A Colombian taxi driver who last month was handed a 36-month prison sentence for his part in secretly delivering cash payments from Chiquita Brands International to…
News
Edited by Kate Doyle and Claire Dorfman
Washington, D.C., April 14, 2023 - Tomás Zerón’s rehabilitation tour has begun.
News
Washington, D.C., April 3, 2023 - Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) today announced that the National Security Archive and its partner, Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, are…
Unredacted blog
Archive Analyst William Burr and “The Movement and the Madman” “The Movement and the ‘Madman’” recently premiered on PBS’s American Experience, and features an interview with the Archive’s William…
Briefing Book 826
By William Burr and
Jeffrey P. Kimball
Washington, D.C., March 24, 2023 - On Tuesday, March 28, 2023, PBS’s “American Experience” program premieres “The Movement and the ‘Madman,’” a documentary that tells the story of how the…
News
Washington, D.C., March 23, 2023 - The United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs invited the National Security Archive to testify today about ways to modernize the…
Briefing Book 825
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., March 20, 2023 -The declassified Air Force film shows the crew of a U.S. B-52 bomber reaching its “Positive Control” (“fail safe”) point on the way to its target in the Soviet…
Briefing Book 824
Edited by James E. David and Charles Byvik
Washington, D.C., March 13, 2023 – The 65-year U.S. effort to detect and track objects in space, from the days before Sputnik 1 to today’s much more crowded orbital environment, is the subject of a…
Briefing Book 823
Edited by Kate Doyle and Claire Dorfman
Additional research by
Carlos Osorio
Washington, D.C., March 10, 2023 - Years before 43 young men from the Ayotzinapa teachers’ college were attacked and forcibly disappeared in Iguala, Guerrero, the Mexican military had the school…
FOIA Audit
Edited by Lauren Harper and Wendy Valdes
Washington, D.C., March 9, 2023 – The public still cannot submit Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the CIA or other prominent agencies through the national FOIA portal, FOIA.gov,…
Briefing Book 451
Edited by William Burr and
Jeffrey T. Richelson
Washington, D.C., December 16, 2013 – The Soviet Union assisted the United States in its effort to curb South Africa's nuclear program in August 1977 when Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev…
Briefing Book 822
Edited by Cristin Monahan
Washington, D.C., February 28, 2023 - In February 1998, 25 years ago this month, the United States suffered a series of cyber intrusions known as SOLAR SUNRISE that then-Deputy Secretary of Defense…
News
Washington, D.C., February 23, 2023 – A few days after President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would suspend its observation of START, the only U.S.-Russia arms control agreement…
Unredacted blog
FOIA Online Sunset is Imminent FOIA Online is set to be decommissioned on September 30 of this year. More than a dozen agencies still actively use the service, raising questions about what they will…
Briefing Book 821
by William Burr & Leopoldo Nuti
Washington, D.C., February 16, 2023 - Harvard professor and future Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger discussed the U.S. withdrawal of Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) from…
Briefing Book 820
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya
Washington, D.C., February 7, 2023 – With the Cold War coming to an end and the Soviet Union dissolving, President Bill Clinton was determined not to miss a historic opportunity to help Russia…
Unredacted blog
Public Interest Declassification Board Meets at LBJ Library The Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) recently held a two-day conference at the LBJ presidential library to discuss…
Briefing Book 819
By Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
Washington D.C., January 30, 2023 – The George H.W. Bush administration was reluctant to embrace the “relations of deep mutual trust and alliance” proposed by the newly independent Russian…
Unredacted blog
Classified Documents Found at Mike Pence Residence, Prompting NARA to Consider Asking Living Former Presidents and VPs to Search for Classified Records “About a dozen” classified documents have been…
Unredacted blog
On January 13 of this year, Hasibullah Ahmadi, head of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Interior’s counternarcotics department, asserted that drug trafficking from the country has dropped, but admitted this…
News
By Kate Doyle and Claire Dorfman
Washington, D.C., January 24, 2023 - On Friday, January 20, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights set a new legal precedent for access to human rights information when it ordered the…
Unredacted blog
President Biden Does Not Keep Visitor Logs for Private Residence, in Keeping with Trump’s Practice The Biden administration announced this week that it maintains no visitor logs for President Biden’s…
News
Busboys and Poets
2021 14th Street NW, Washington, DC
Thursday, January 26, 6-8 p.m.
SOLD OUT! Walk-ins welcome as space permits
Unredacted blog
DoD May Seek Expanded Authority to Classify Diplomatic Material in New EO on Classified National Security Information The National Security Archive has learned that the Pentagon is seeking…
News
By Tom Blanton and Malcolm Byrne
Washington, D.C., January 9, 2023 – The National Security Archive today celebrates the 90th birthday of our longtime scholarly partner and moral inspiration, Vilém Prečan, with this Web publication…
Unredacted blog
Deadline Extended for Agencies to Transition to Fully Electronic Records The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) recently issued a joint…
Unredacted blog
NYT Names “After Ayotzinapa” One of 2022’s Best Podcasts The New York Times has named “After Ayotzinapa” one of the “Best Podcasts of 2022,” calling it a “jaw-dropping account” that “…
Briefing Book 818
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington, D.C., December 13, 2022 - In the immediate aftermath of the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev met with the Czechoslovakian Communist Party leader,…
News
Washington, D.C., December 12, 2022 – Today, the National Security Archive relaunched its platform of Russian-language primary sources featuring a new search engine that allows researchers to perform…
Briefing Book 817
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., December 9, 2022 – Canadian inspectors visiting the Canada-Indian Reactor (CIR) at Trombay during June 1968 were “unsettled” by data suggesting that India was heading toward the “…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Archive, along with our scholarly partners at ProQuest, is publishing a timely collection on the 20-year U.S. war in Afghanistan. The new Digital National Security Archive (DNSA…
Unredacted blog
The Archive is deeply saddened to announce the recent passing of senior fellow Dr. John Prados, a celebrated military and intelligence historian and one of the founders of the Archive. A…
News
By the Archive
Washington, D.C., November 30, 2022 - We are deeply saddened to announce the passing yesterday of National Security Archive senior fellow Dr. John Prados, a celebrated military and intelligence…
Briefing Book 816
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., November 18, 2022 - A top safety official at a U.S. nuclear weapons lab wrote that “the public must be encouraged to realize that risks [of an unintentional nuclear detonation]…
Briefing Book 815
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya
Washington, D.C., November 3, 2022 – As Cuban-Soviet ties grew stronger from late 1960 through early 1961, the Cubans repeatedly asked for military assistance and security guarantees from the Soviets…
Unredacted blog
The United Nations Human Rights Council recently voted to adopt a resolution to address the human rights implications of the United States’ nuclear legacy in the Marshall Islands. The October 7th…
Briefing Book 814
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington D.C., October 28, 2022 - Sixty years ago today, the most dangerous days of the Cuban Missile Crisis came to an end—and the cover-up of the deal that would end the crisis began.…
Briefing Book 813
By Tom Blanton
Washington, D.C., October 27, 2022 - The most dangerous 24 hours of the Cuban Missile Crisis came on Saturday, October 27, 1962, 60 years ago today, as the U.S. moved closer to attacking Cuba and…
Briefing Book 809, Special Exhibit 809
Edited by Tom Blanton
The Cuban Missile Crisis actually lasted 59 days, not the fabled "13 days" so familiar from books and Hollywood. Soviet nuclear warheads arrived in Cuba on October 4, 1962, and did not leave until…
Briefing Book 812
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., October 21, 2022 - President John F. Kennedy made unilateral decisions to blockade Cuba and approve other military moves, but winning the support of European allies remained central…
Unredacted blog
The Archive’s Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60 Series Continues The National Security Archive’s Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60 series continues with two new recent postings on 1) U.N. Ambassador Adlai…
Briefing Book 811
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington D.C., October 17, 2022 - In a secret “eyes only” memorandum for John F. Kennedy, written 60 years ago today at the outset of the Cuban Missile Crisis, U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson…
Briefing Book 810
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya
Washington, D.C., October 14, 2022 - Today the National Security Archive publishes for the first time in any language a translation of the first meeting between Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and…
Unredacted blog
The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60 The Cuban Missile Crisis actually lasted 59 days, not the fabled “13 days” so familiar from books and Hollywood, according to a new collection recently announced by the…
News
By Tom Blanton and Nate Jones
Washington D.C., October 4, 2022 – Federal judge James Boasberg today supported a CIA claim that a public document about a famous nuclear war scare should be censored “to protect ‘intelligence…
Briefing Book 808
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya
Washington, D.C., October 3, 2022 - Sixty years ago, on October 1, 1962, four Soviet Foxtrot-class diesel submarines, each of which carried one nuclear-armed torpedo, left their base in the Kola Bay…
Briefing Book 807
Edited by Claire Dorfman
Washington, D.C., September 30, 2022 - To mark this year’s anniversary of the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre, the National Security Archive today posted an essential collection of ten key U.S. documents on…
Briefing Book 806
Edited by William Burr and Peter Kornbluh
Washington D.C. September 22, 2022 - The Soviets exposed then Vice President Richard Nixon and his wife, Pat, to ionizing radiation during his famous visit to Moscow in July 1959, according to…
Briefing Book 805
Edited by William Burr and Peter Kornbluh
Washington D.C., September 15, 2022 - On December 9, 1975, as Secretary of State Henry Kissinger prepared to travel to Moscow for arms control talks, he placed an urgent phone call to Soviet…
Briefing Book 804
Edited by Peter Kornbluh and William Burr
Washington D.C., September 13, 2022 - On the 5th anniversary of the CIA’s September 13, 2017, decision to pull its agents out of Cuba, after several operatives were stricken with what has…
Briefing Book 803
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington D.C., September 12, 2022 - One day after the violent, U.S.-backed, coup d’état in Chile, the overthrow of Salvador Allende was the very first item in President Richard Nixon’s September 12…
Unredacted blog
Resources for the Trump Mar-a-Lago Records Saga The extraordinary saga of former President Trump’s mishandling of government records, including classified national security information,…
Briefing Book 802
Compiled and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
For more information, contact: National Security Archive
202.994.7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., August 30, 2022 – The National Security Archive mourns the passing today of Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, 1931-2022, first and last president of the Soviet Union, who…
Briefing Book 801
Edited by Michael Evans
Washington, D.C., 24 August 2022 - As the U.S. contemplated a more aggressive drug war strategy in Colombia in the 1980s, top intelligence officials said success there would require “a bloody,…
Briefing Book 800
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., August 8, 2022 – After years of research and planning, U.S. officials and scientists overseeing the Manhattan Project were startlingly unprepared for the emergence of…
Unredacted blog
Pentagon and DHS Announce More Destroyed January 6 Phone Records The Pentagon has joined the Department of Homeland Security in destroying potential evidence related to the January 6 Capitol attack.…
Briefing Book 799
Compiled and edited by visiting Scoville Fellow Rachel Santarsiero
Washington, D.C., July 26, 2022 – 75 years ago, President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act into law, marking a major restructuring of the U.S. government’s military and…
Unredacted blog
DEA No Longer Accepting Emailed FOIA Requests The Drug Enforcement Administration (a component of the Department of Justice) recently told the National Security Archive that it will no longer accept…
Briefing Book 798
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., July 14, 2022 – For decades starting in the late 1940s, influential internal U.S. government analyses provided civilian and military leaders with staggering estimates of likely…
Unredacted blog
Last week the Colombia Truth Commission wrapped up three-and-a-half years of work with the launch of its June 28, 2022, report on the causes and consequences of Colombia’s conflict. The publication…
Briefing Book 797
Edited by Michael Evans
Bogotá, 28 June 2022 - Today, Colombia’s Truth Commission wraps up three-and-a-half years of work with the launch of its report on the causes and consequences of Colombia’s conflict. The publication…
Briefing Book 796
Edited by Malcolm Byrne
Document selection by
Mai Der Vang
Washington, D.C., June 27, 2022 – In a remarkable example of transforming the mundane into high art, poet Mai Der Vang, daughter of Hmong refugees and finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry,…
News
Edited by Lauren Harper
Washington, D.C., June 23, 2022 – Gina Haspel, 15 years before President Trump nominated her and the US Senate confirmed her as CIA director, personally oversaw the waterboarding of alleged USS…
Unredacted blog
Nuclear stockpiles are expected to grow over the coming decade, according to the most recent study from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The June 13, 2022, report cites a…
News
Edited by Claire Harvey and Lauren Harper
Washington, D.C., January 6, 2022 - The National Security Archive marks the one-year anniversary of the assault on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, with a meticulously…
News
Edited by Lauren Harper and Claire Harvey
Washington, D.C., June 9, 2022 – As the House Select Committee tonight launches its televised hearings into the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, the National Security Archive marks the…
Briefing Book 795
Edited by William Burr
This posting was UPDATED on October 30, 2024. Read the updated posting Washington, D.C., June 2, 2022 – The apocalyptic threats emanating from Moscow over the Ukraine war raise the terrible…
Briefing Book 794
Edited by Burkely Hermann
Washington, D.C., May 26, 2022 – The Pentagon’s role in U.S. environmental policy expanded during the Clinton presidency as the Pentagon became a more active player at international climate change…
Unredacted blog
SCOTUS Will Not Hear Prepublication Review Case; DNI Has Not Yet Updated Prepublication Instructions Despite 2017 Congressional Mandate The Supreme Court made the unfortunate decision not to hear a…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Archive, along with our scholarly partners at ProQuest, is publishing a rich new set of documents on United States climate change diplomacy from the Reagan years through the…
Briefing Book 793
Translated by Anna Melyakova
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya
Washington D.C., May 25, 2022 –The National Security Archive marks what would have been Anatoly Sergeyevich Chernyaev’s 101st birthday today with the publication for the first time in English of his…
Weekend Read: Guatemalan Judge Orders New Trials Based on Death Squad Dossier, Obtained by NSArchive
Unredacted blog
By Claire Harvey Exactly 23 years ago on May 20, 1999, the National Security Archive published the “Diario Militar”, a detailed document also known as the “Death Squad Dossier” that was…
Unredacted blog
Director of National Intelligence Reiterates Overclassification a National Security Concern at Worldwide Threats Hearing The Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, and the Director of…
Briefing Book 792
Edited by John Prados
Washington, DC, May 11, 2022— The Central Intelligence Agency aggressively pursued clandestine efforts to undermine East German morale at the height of the Cold War, recently declassified CIA records…
Unredacted blog
NSArchive and CREW Ask DOJ to Investigate Missing Trump Call Logs The National Security Archive teamed up with the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) to ask the Justice…
Special Exhibit
Edited by Kate Doyle and Claire Dorfman
Ayotzinapa Investigations is a special page dedicated to the work of the National Security Archive and others in documenting and seeking justice for the 43 disappeared students of the Ayotzinapa…
Unredacted blog
By Claire Harvey Nuclear negotiations between the United States, world partners, and Iran are stalled, and the question of how to bridge the gap between Washington and Tehran remains as important…
Briefing Book 791
Edited by Malcolm Byrne
Washington, D.C., April 14, 2022 – After weeks of uncertainty over ongoing multilateral nuclear negotiations with Iran, it is still an open question whether they will actually produce a signed…
Book By Hussein Banai, Malcolm Byrne, John Tirman
News
Edited by Kate Doyle and Claire Dorfman
Friday, 1 April 2022, Mexico City—International experts investigating the disappearance of 43 Mexican college students have uncovered astonishing new evidence about the case in secret archives of the…
Unredacted blog
Senate Judiciary FOIA Hearing Highlights DOJ’s Poor Performance Encouraging FOIA Compliance Longtime FOIA champion Senator Patrick Leahy presided over his last Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)…
Briefing Book 790
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., March 28, 2022 – Russia’s increasingly grueling invasion of Ukraine has given rise to chilling talk over whether the conflict might go nuclear, reminding the world that atomic…
Briefing Book 789
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., March 24, 2022 – At four in the morning on 3 October 1979, Colonel William Odom, military assistant to national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, received a phone call from the…
Unredacted blog
By Claire Harvey The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) faces existential challenges to preserve electronic records critical to our nation’s history, according to the…
Rosemary Award
Edited by Lauren Harper
Washington, D.C., March 16, 2022 - Former President Donald J. Trump has the dubious honor of winning the National Security Archive’s infamous Rosemary Award for worst performance in open government…
FOIA Audit 789
Edited by Lauren Harper
U.S. National Archives 2025 Budget Request Threatens Mission Failure -
the 2024 update
Briefing Book 788
By James E. David
CIA U-2 Collection of Signals Intelligence, 1956-1960
By James E. David*
Unredacted blog
By Claire Harvey On February 24, 2022, Russian forces began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine following months of troop build-up along the border and failed negotiations between the two countries, as…
News
By Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
Washington D.C., March 4, 2022 - The National Security Archive mourns the passing of a true hero of nuclear non-proliferation and U.S.-Russian and Russian-Ukrainian cooperation of the 1990s, Colonel…
Briefing Book 787
By Tom Blanton and Svetlana Savranskaya
Washington, D.C., March 3, 2022 – While Russian troops invaded Ukraine this week, the Russian Supreme Court turned down the appeal by the legendary human rights group Memorial against the “…
Briefing Book 650
Edited by Michael Martelle and Rosemary Tropeano;
update by Cristin J. Monahan
Update
Washington, D.C., February 24, 2022 – The nongovernmental National Security Archive’s Cyber Vault today supplemented one of its more popular resources – the National Security Agency’s (NSA)…
News
By Tom Blanton
Washington D.C., February 22, 2022 – The National Security Archive mourns the passing of our longtime Senior Fellow, the award-winning filmmaker Sherry Jones, who died of cancer on February 14…
Unredacted blog
“Shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States” The National Security Archive and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) have…
News
Edited by Lauren Harper and Tom Blanton
Washington, D.C., February 9, 2022 – The National Security Archive and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) have formally requested that the Justice Department and FBI…
Unredacted blog
The final episode of “After Ayotzinapa”, a collaboration between the National Security Archive and Reveal News from the Center for Investigative Reporting, aired Saturday, January 29, 2022. The…
Briefing Book 786
Edited by Peter Kornbluh and George Gelzer,
with a historical chronology by William M. LeoGrande
Washington D.C., February 2, 2022 – On the eve of the 60th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s executive order imposing “an embargo on all trade with Cuba,” the National Security Archive today…
News
Edited by Kate Doyle and Claire Dorfman
Washington, DC, January 28, 2022 – National Security Archive continues the "After Ayotzinapa" project by publishing today the José Torero Cullen interview.
Briefing Book 785
Edited by Tom Blanton
Washington, D.C., January 25, 2022 – The National Security Archive updates today the publication last year of interview transcripts from eight former U.S. ambassadors to Russia, providing essential…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Archive and Reveal News from the Center for Investigative Reporting released the second installment of the new podcast “After Ayotzinapa” this Saturday, January 22, 2022. The…
News
Edited by Kate Doyle and Claire Dorfman
Washington, DC, January 21, 2022 – John Gibler is a journalist, author, and activist who writes eloquently and prolifically about Mexico. His collection of testimonies from Ayotzinapa…
Briefing Book 784
Edited by Burkely Hermann
Washington, D.C., January 20, 2022 – Pentagon demands for military exemptions during the 1997 Kyoto climate negotiations posed a substantial challenge for the Clinton administration both internally…
Unredacted blog
By Claire Dorfman On Saturday, January 15th, the first episode of “After Ayotzinapa,” Part One: The Missing 43, will premiere on podcast platforms and radio stations around the United States! The…
Unredacted blog
“After Ayotzinapa” Podcast Investigates Horrific Mexican Atrocity On Saturday, January 15, a new podcast exploring the shocking case of 43 Mexican students disappeared by security forces in 2014 will…
News
Edited by Kate Doyle
Research assistance by Claire Dorfman
Washington, D.C., January 10, 2022—On Saturday, January 15, a new podcast exploring the shocking case of 43 Mexican students disappeared by security forces in 2014 will launch on radio stations…
Unredacted blog
Archive Cyber Fellow Cristin Monahan examined government records that highlight the double-edged role the Internet played in the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack and its aftermath in this week’s Cyber…
News
Compiled and edited by Cristin J. Monahan
Washington, D.C., January 6, 2022 - On the first anniversary of the January 6, 2021, attack on the United States Capitol, a review of government materials by the National Security Archive’s…
Briefing Book 783
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton
Washington, D.C., December 21, 2021 – On Christmas Day 30 years ago, the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, stepped down and the hammer-and-sickle flags over the Kremlin were…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Archive is celebrating the end of 2021 by looking back to our most impactful postings of the year and highlighting the documents behind them. This week, we’re revisiting former…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Archive is bringing 2021 to a close by revisiting our most significant postings and the documents behind them. This week, we are looking back at The Diary of Anatoly Chernyaev,…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Security Archive is winding-up 2021 by highlighting the most important documents from our most popular postings. This week we’re looking back at the declassified Top Secret…
Briefing Book 782
By William Burr
Washington, D.C., December 10, 2021 – As the United States engages in strategic stability talks with Russia and seeks similar talks with China, it is worth looking back to the origins of…
Briefing Book 781
Compiled and edited by Cristin J. Monahan
Washington, D.C., December 6, 2021 — This week, as NATO concludes its annual flagship cyber exercise, Cyber Coalition 21, newly declassified documents detail American collaboration with NATO…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Archive is wrapping up 2021 by looking back at some of our most impactful postings from the past year and highlighting the biggest documents behind them. This week we’re…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Archive, along with our scholarly partners at ProQuest, is publishing thefourth of seven document installments on the CIA’s traditional method of intelligence gathering,covert…
Briefing Book 780
Compiled and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
Washington, D.C., November 24, 2021 – The biggest train wreck on the track to NATO expansion in the 1990s – Boris Yeltsin’s “cold peace” blow up at Bill Clinton in Budapest in December 1994 – was the…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Archive is concluding 2021 by reviewing some of our most impactful postings from the past year and highlighting the biggest documents behind them. This week we’re highlighting…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Archive is wrapping up 2021 by looking back at some of our most impactful postings of the year and highlighting the biggest documents behind them. This week we’re highlighting…
Briefing Book 710
Edited by Dr. Mary E. Curry
Washington D.C., November 12, 2021 (Updated February 3, 2022) – More than four decades after the murder of Guyanese scholar-political activist Dr. Walter Rodney on June 13, 1980, Guyana’s…
Briefing Book 779
By William Burr
Washington, D.C., October 14, 2021 – The Pentagon’s plan for a trillion-dollar spending program to build new ICBMs, submarines, and bombers has met pushback from critics in and out of Congress who…
Briefing Book 778
Edited by Michael Evans
Washington, D.C., October 4, 2021 – Declassified State Department and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports that “acknowledge the long-standing relationship between [Colombian] state security…
News
Edited by Ian Sotnek, Emily Kunasek and Cristin J. Monahan
The Cyber Vault has gathered witness testimony and transcripts for hearings held by the first session of the 116th Congress during 2019. These documents are reflective of the scope of the legislative…
Briefing Book 777
Edited by Lauren Harper
Washington, D.C., September 23, 2021 - The Taliban will not – and perhaps cannot – contain al Qaeda, despite hopeful United States government assurances that the Taliban will be an effective…
Briefing Book 776
Edited by Carlos Osorio
and Peter Kornbluh
Washington D.C., September 22, 2021 - In an effort to advance a novel foreign policy tool known as “Declassification Diplomacy,” the National Security Archive today posted key administrative…
Briefing Book 775
By Malcolm Byrne and Kian Byrne
Washington, D.C., September 20, 2021 – Over the four decades since the 1979 Iranian revolution, leaders of both the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran have repeatedly explored…
Unredacted blog
President Biden signed an executive order on ethics commitments on his first day in office, and followed this positive step up with a National Security Memo stressing the importance of transparency…
Briefing Book 774
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington D.C., September 10, 2021 – At the behest of the CIA, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) established a “station” in Santiago in 1971 and conducted clandestine spy operations…
Briefing Book 773
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., August 30, 2021 – In January 1979, State Department officials monitoring Pakistan’s nuclear program were startled by fresh intelligence confirming that Islamabad had secretly…
Book By Malcolm Byrne and Kian Byrne
News
Compiled and edited by
Cristin J. Monahan
Washington D.C., August 20, 2021 - As the world observes the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan, the subsequent collapse of the Afghan government and the resurgence of the Taliban, it…
Briefing Book 772
By Tom Blanton with Claire Harvey, Lauren Harper, and Malcolm Byrne
Washington, D.C., August 19, 2021 – The U.S. government under four presidents misled the American people for nearly two decades about progress in Afghanistan, while hiding the inconvenient…
Briefing Book 771
By Tom Blanton and Svetlana Savranskaya
Washington, D.C., August 10, 2021 – The National Security Archive mourns the passing yesterday in Moscow of Sergei Kovalev, our friend and colleague and inspiration, a legend among human righters in…
News
Compiled and edited by
Cristin J. Monahan
Washington D.C., July 23, 2021 - Earlier this week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) had released a second set of pipeline…
Briefing Book 770
Edited by William Burr
Washington D.C., July 16, 2021 - The United Kingdom in the 1970s and 1980s aspired to improve its nuclear weapons capability to bomb Soviet targets, including major cities, without having…
News
Compiled and edited by
Cristin J. Monahan
Washington, D.C., July 8, 2021 – The Justice Department's recent seizure of more than 30 US-owned web domains accused of disseminating Iranian disinformation is eliciting alarm from free speech…
Briefing Book 769
By Anna Vassilieva
Washington, D.C., June 16, 2021 – The National Security Archive marks today’s summit meeting in Geneva between President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin by publishing detailed transcripts…
Briefing Book 768
Edited by Megan DeTura
Washington D.C., June 10, 2021 – Fifty years ago today, a group of pay-for-hire thugs known as the “Halcones” or “Falcons” swarmed the streets of Mexico City in a coordinated attack against some 10,…
Briefing Book 767
Edited by Joyce Battle
and William Burr
Washington, D.C., June 7, 2021 – On June 7, 1981, 40 years ago today, Israel attacked and partially destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear research reactor at Tuwaitha, using U.S. supplied F-15 and F-…
News
Edited by Kate Doyle
Research assistance: Megan DeTura
Washington, D.C., June 4, 2021—Twenty-two years after the National Security Archive published the notorious “Death Squad Dossier” of Guatemala – which chronicled the kidnapping and disappearance of…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Archive, along with our scholarly partners at ProQuest, is publishing the second installment of Donald Rumsfeld’s “Snowflakes.” The 24,473-page set, Donald Rumsfeld’s Snowflakes…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Archive, along with our scholarly partners at ProQuest, is publishing the second installment of Donald Rumsfeld’s “Snowflakes.” The 24,473-page set, Donald Rumsfeld’s Snowflakes…
Briefing Book 766
Edited by William Burr
Washington D.C., May 28, 2021 – “The United States came fairly close to using tactical nuclear weapons” during the Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1958, according to a secret 1966 RAND summary report…
Briefing Book 765
By Michael Dobbs
Washington, D.C., May 27, 2021 – Nixon and Watergate represent one of those inexhaustible subjects about which there is always something new to be reported or written. For his new book, …
Briefing Book 750
Edited by William Burr
Update
Washington D.C., May 26, 2021 – “The United States came fairly close to using tactical nuclear weapons” during the Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1958, according to a top-secret 1966 RAND…
Briefing Book 764
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya
Washington D.C., May 25, 2021 – The National Security Archive marks the 100th anniversary of Anatoly Sergeyevich Chernyaev’s birth with the publication of the first English-language translation…
Briefing Book 763
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., May 13, 2021—British leaders were determined to become a nuclear power after World War II in part so they could have a “seat at the top table” of international negotiations,…
Briefing Book 762
Compiled and edited by Cristin J. Monahan
Washington, D.C., May 12, 2021 — This week’s ransomware episode involving Colonial Pipeline has exposed deep cracks in America’s digital armor. However, lost in the flurry of calls for…
Briefing Book 761
Edited by Sarah Dunn
Washington, D.C., May 7, 2021 – U.S.-Soviet cooperation in space was a regular, if less noticed, feature of the final years of the USSR and continued well after the emergence of independent…
Briefing Book 760
Edited by Lauren Harper
Washington, D.C. - May 4, 2021 - Some United States Capitol Police (USCP) officers could not access their shields during the January 6, 2021, mob attack on the Capitol because the equipment was…
Briefing Book 759
Edited by James G. Hershberg, George Washington University
Washington, D.C., April 29, 2021 – John F. Kennedy may have secretly warned Fidel Castro against executing survivors of the Bay of Pigs invasion 60 years ago this month while also dangling a…
Book By Christian F. Ostermann
Winner of the prestigious 2022 Richard W. Leopold Prize from the Organization of American Historians.
Briefing Book 758
Compiled and edited by Cristin J. Monahan
Washington, D.C., April 26, 2021 — The recent passage of the “Cyber Diplomacy Act of 2021” by the House of Representatives suggests U.S. lawmakers are eager to expand the U.S.’s toolbox for…
News
The National Security Archive mourns the death of Dr. Vartan Gregorian, the president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and our dear friend and strong supporter. Vartan was a visionary…
Briefing Book 757
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington D.C., April 16, 2021 – In the earliest known CIA assassination plot against leaders of the Cuban revolution, high agency officials offered the pilot of a plane carrying Raul Castro from…
Briefing Book 756
Edited by Sarah Dunn
Washington, D.C., April 12, 2021 – Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s historic spaceflight 60 years ago, which made him the first human in space, prompted President John F. Kennedy to advance an unusual…
Briefing Book 755
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., April 8, 2021 – The United States and its European allies disagreed over the advisability of using nuclear weapons to signal resolve and deter war if a serious crisis with…
Briefing Book 754
Edited by Robert Wampler
Washington, D.C., April 5, 2021 – President Bill Clinton’s climate policy faced some of its biggest challenges from two very different quarters – China and the Congress – according to a…
Briefing Book 753
Edited by Peter Kornbluh and Savannah Bock
Washington D.C., March 31, 2021 – The Chilean ambassador to Brazil, Raúl Rettig, sent an alarming cable in March 1971 to his foreign ministry titled “Brazilian Army possibly conducting…
Briefing Book 752
Edited by Carlos Osorio
Washington, D.C., March 23, 2021 - On the eve of the 45th anniversary of the military coup in Argentina, the National Security Archive is today posting declassified documents revealing what the…
Unredacted blog
Guest Post By Open The Government Sunshine Week, the annual celebration of the importance of open government and freedom of information, is this week, and we are amplifying the recommendations in…
Unredacted blog
Guest Post By Open The Government Sunshine Week, the annual celebration of the importance of open government and freedom of information, is this week, and we are amplifying the recommendations in…
Briefing Book 751
By Michael Evans, Senior Analyst, National Security Archive
Washington, D.C., March 18, 2021 – Ten years ago, the Mexican municipality of Allende was the site of one of the worst human rights atrocities ever seen in the country: a three-day rampage that…
Briefing Book 749, FOIA Audit 749
Edited by Lauren Harper and Wendy Valdes
Washington D.C., March 12, 2021 - The Defense Department finally replied to the National Security Archive’s September 2006 FOIA request early last year. After nearly 15 years of waiting, on…
Briefing Book 748
Edited by Lauren Harper
Washington, D.C., March 3, 2021 - Video evidence presented by House impeachment managers during Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial shows just how close the violent mob came to physically…
Briefing Book 747, Special Exhibit 747
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton
Washington, D.C., March 2, 2021 – The first and only president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, is turning 90 years old today in Moscow. On the occasion of his…
Briefing Book 746
By Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton
Washington, D.C., February 26, 2021 – Thirty years ago this week, the U.S.-led coalition launched its ground offensive in the Persian Gulf after spending months trying to get Saddam Hussein to…
Briefing Book 745
Edited by Robert Wampler
Washington D.C., February 25, 2021 – As President Joe Biden elevates climate change to a Cabinet-level national security issue, the challenges his administration faces can be illuminated by a…
Unredacted blog
There’s Still Plenty President Biden Can Do to Boost FOIA In His First 100 Days President Biden did not follow in President Obama’s footsteps and issue a memorandum on the Freedom of…
Briefing Book 744
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya
Washington, D.C., February 22, 2021 - Leading Soviet reformer Alexander Yakovlev discussed with George Kennan his "X Article" that grew out of the famous Long Telegram in a previously…
Briefing Book 743
Edited by Nate Jones
Washington, D.C., February 17, 2021 – “What might have happened that day in November 1983 if we had begun a precautionary generation of forces” against a Soviet alert in response to the Able Archer…
Briefing Book 742
Compiled and edited by Cristin J. Monahan
Washington D.C., February 15, 2021 - Since our last posting about exercise Eligible Receiver 97-1, the Cyber Vault project has continued its efforts to unearth more documents and information about…
News
Edited by Tom Blanton
Washington, D.C., February 11, 2021 – The National Security Archive et al. v. Donald J. Trump et al. lawsuit, filed December 1, 2020, to prevent a possible bonfire of records in the Rose…
Briefing Book 741
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington D.C., February 10, 2021 – The Trump administration’s response to the mysterious health episodes experienced by intelligence and diplomatic personnel in Havana, Cuba, in late 2016 and 2017…
Unredacted blog
FOIA Spotlights Existential Trouble Posed to Florida Panther by Weak Enforcement of the Endangered Species Act The Fish and Wildlife Service – a component of the Department of the Interior – is…
Briefing Book 740
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington, D.C., February 2, 2021 – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducted a two-year “epidemiologic investigation” of the mysterious medical incidents suffered by U.S.
Briefing Book 739
Edited by Claire Harvey
Washington, D.C., February 1, 2021 – On September 9, 2003, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wrote to Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Steve Cambone expressing concern about information…
News
by Peter Kornbluh
Washington D.C., January 26, 2021 – The celebrated Chilean judge, Juan Guzmán Tapia, best known for his principled stand against human rights abuses and his pioneering prosecutions of…
Unredacted blog
The Capitol Riot: Documents You Should Read (Part 1) The Pentagon’s timeline of its response to the January 6, 2021 mob attack on the U.S. Capitol features multiple discrepancies with the public…
Briefing Book 738
Edited by Tom Blanton and Lauren Harper
Washington, D.C., January 20, 2021 - Biden spokesperson Jen Psaki has now pledged the new administration will resume publication of Secret Service logs of White House visitors, an Obama transparency…
Briefing Book 737
Edited by Cees Wiebes and William Burr
Washington, D.C., January 15, 2021 – The stationing of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe remains a controversial issue on both sides of the Atlantic. One of the less well-known cases involves…
Briefing Book 736
Compiled and edited by Lauren Harper and Tom Blanton
Washington, D.C., January 13, 2021 - The Pentagon’s timeline of its response to the January 6, 2021 mob attack on the U.S. Capitol features multiple discrepancies with the public record, while…
Unredacted blog
Trump Appoints Loyalists – Including a Real Estate Lawyer – to PIDB President Trump has recently appointed three new members to the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) – an important…
Sourcebook
The Capitol Riot: Documents You Should Read (Part 1)
Briefing Book 121
Edited by Tom Blanton
Updated by John Prados
Washington, DC, December 27, 2020—The National Security Archive is today posting an update to a 2004 E-book featuring a landmark but still relatively little-known State Department study of the…
News
Compiled and edited by Cristin J. Monahan and Emily Kunasek
Washington, D.C., December 21, 2020 – With the House and Senate’s passage this month of the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 (hereafter…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Archive, with our partners at the scholarly publisher ProQuest, is publishing a new Digital National Security Archive (DNSA) collection of declassified “Snowflakes” memos…
Briefing Book 735
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya
Washington D.C., December 18, 2020 – Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan was born on November 25, 1895, in Armenia. From a modest background and early revolutionary activity in Armenia he joined the…
Briefing Book 734
By Michael Evans and Megan DeTura
Research Interns: Shane Sullivan and Olivia Mozdzierz
Washington, D.C., December 9, 2020 – Since 2007, the U.S. government has relied on a small coterie of Mexican officials to implement the Mérida Initiative, a wide-ranging U.S. aid program…
News
Edited by Tom Blanton
Washington, D.C., Dec. 1, 2020 – The National Security Archive, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, the American Historical Association, and the Citizens for Responsibility…
Briefing Book 407
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson
Washington, D.C., November 24, 2020 – Jonathan Pollard, the former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst who pleaded guilty to spying for Israel in 1987, was released from parole this week. …
News
Edited by Lauren Harper
Washington D.C., November 17, 2020 - The dust is settling on the 2020 presidential election and the Biden Transition Team - if the General Services Administration will comply - must quickly get…
Unredacted blog
By Megan DeTura As the thirty-first anniversary of the assassination of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador, their housemaid, and her daughter dawns, the search for justice has hit a roadblock. On…
Briefing Book 724
Based on the National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book #482, August 13, 2014
Compiled and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
Editorial assistance by Anya Melyakova and Allison Brady
Special thanks to Sidney Orlov
Remembering Professor Yuri Orlov: Physicist, Human Rights Activist, Soviet Dissident
Wednesday, November 18, 2020, 10:00am to 12:00pm
Past Virtual Event
Briefing Book 733
Edited by William Burr and
Avner Cohen
Washington D.C., November 10, 2020 — After Harvard professor Henry Kissinger met with top Israeli officials in January 1965, he told U.S. diplomats at the Embassy in Tel Aviv of his near…
Briefing Book 732
Edited by Peter Kornbluh and Savannah Bock
Washington D.C., November 3, 2020 - Several days after Salvador Allende’s history-changing November 3, 1970, inauguration, Richard Nixon convened his National Security Council for a formal meeting on…
Briefing Book 731
By Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
Washington, D.C., November 2, 2020 – Declassified highest-level transcripts and diplomatic cables provide new granular detail on the rise to power of Russian President Vladimir Putin 20 years ago,…
Briefing Book 730
Edited by John Prados and
Luke A. Nichter
Washington, DC, November 1, 2020—President John F.
FOIA Audit
Edited by Lauren Harper and Claire Harvey
Update
Washington, D.C. October 27, 2020 – Nearly 60 million Americans have already cast their ballots in the upcoming presidential election. While transparency and accurate…
Briefing Book 729
Compiled and edited by
Cristin J. Monahan
Washington, D.C., October 26, 2020 - In the lead up to the 2020 presidential election, the Cyber Vault has reviewed the respective 2020 platforms of the Democratic and Republican parties and how…
Briefing Book 728
Edited by Peter Kornbluh and Savannah Bock
Washington D.C., October 22, 2020 - On October 23, 1970, one day after armed thugs intercepted and mortally wounded the Chilean army commander-in-chief, General Rene Schneider, as he drove to…
Briefing Book 727
Compiled and edited by Ian Sotnek
Washington, D.C., October 22, 2020 - The Department of Homeland Security describes critical infrastructure as “the physical and cyber systems and assets that are so vital to the United States that…
Briefing Book 726
Update of Briefing Book #41
(April 9, 2001)
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., October 16, 2020 - Over the years, aerial and naval encounters have threatened to destabilize U.S-China relations as the two powers contest each other's rights in international…
Briefing Book 725
Edited by John Prados and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi
Washington, DC, October 9, 2020 – Fifty-three years ago, at 1:15 p.m. on October 9, 1967, Argentine-born revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara was executed in the hills of Bolivia after being…
Special Exhibit
A Joint Project of the Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and the National Security Archive
Unredacted blog
The other day I was working on a posting about John F. Kennedy’s decisions on the Vietnam war, and I had occasion to include one of the “President’s Daily Briefs” (PDBs), the super top secret…
Unredacted blog
National Security Archive Partners with Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting on FOIA Litigation by Megan DeTura As Mexico marks the sixth anniversary of the tragic disappearance of 43…
Briefing Book 723
Edited by Lauren Harper
Washington, D.C., September 24, 2020 - When White House lawyers tried to block publication of former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s book, The Room Where it Happened, a…
Briefing Book 722
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., September 16, 2020 – The NATO nuclear stockpile arrangements that have persisted since the Cold War were initially negotiated during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations,…
Briefing Book 721
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington, D.C., September 15, 2020 – On September 15, 1970, during a twenty-minute meeting in the Oval Office between 3:25 pm and 3:45 pm, President Richard Nixon ordered the CIA to foment a…
Briefing Book 713
Editado por Kate Doyle y Peter Kornbluh
Traducido por Celeste Cabral
Asistente de investigación: Megan DeTura
Becarios de investigación: Olivia Mozdzierz y Shane Sullivan
Version actualizada: 11 de septiembre de 2020
Briefing Book 713
Edited by Kate Doyle and Peter Kornbluh
El Salvador Project director: Kate Doyle
Research Assistant: Megan DeTura
Research interns: Olivia Mozdzierz, Shane Sullivan
Sep 11, 2020 Update
Washington D.C., September 11, 2020 – In a highly-anticipated, and long-awaited ruling, the National Court of Spain today convicted a retired Salvadoran military colonel for acts…
Briefing Book 720
By Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
Washington, D.C., September 9, 2020 – Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev quickly decided that joint action with the United States was the most important course for the USSR in dealing with Saddam…
News
Compiled and edited by Cristin Monahan and Ian Sotnek
Washington D.C., September 8, 2020 – Now that the Republican and Democratic parties have officially confirmed President Donald J. Trump and former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr as their…
Unredacted blog
Book Alleges Melania Trump Joins Growing List of Trump Administration Officials to Use Personal Email A new book by First Lady Melania Trump’s former adviser, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, alleges that…
Briefing Book 719
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington D.C., September 4, 2020 – “Chile voted calmly to have a Marxist-Leninist state, the first nation in the world to make this choice freely and knowingly,” U.S. Ambassador Edward Korry…
Unredacted blog
A recent declassification decision by the Department of Defense illustrates the agency’s chronic inability to make wise decisions when reviewing classified historical records. In this decision,…
Briefing Book 718
Edited by Michael Evans
Washington, D.C., August 31, 2020 – Under house arrest in a case linking him to a feared paramilitary bloc, former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe Vélez, perhaps the most important…
Unredacted blog
COUP 53: New Documentary on Overthrow of Iran’s Mosaddeq COUP 53, a new documentary that includes declassified documents obtained by the National Security Archive to help re-examine the…
Briefing Book 717
Edited by Malcolm Byrne
Washington, D.C., August 17, 2020 – Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service – MI6 – took part in the 1953 kidnapping of the chief of police of Tehran, Iran, according to a recently recovered…
Unredacted blog
A recent declassification decision at the Department of Defense, in response to a mandatory declassification review appeal by the National Security Archive, demonstrates that over-classification and…
Briefing Book 716
Edited by William BurrOriginally posted - August 5, 2005First update - April 27, 2007Second update - August 4, 2015Third update - August 7, 2017
To mark the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the National Security Archive is updating and reposting one of its most popular e-books of the past 25…
Unredacted blog
Trump Administration Redacts Transition Meeting Notes Thanks to the 2015 Presidential Transitions Improvement Act amendments to the 1963 Presidential Transition Act, each presidential…
Unredacted blog
By Claire Harvey The National Security Archive, with our partners at the scholarly publisher ProQuest, is publishing a new collection of declassified President’s Daily Briefs (PDBs) from the…
Briefing Book 715
Edited by Carlos Osorio and Peter Kornbluh
Washington D.C., July 21, 2020 – Forty-four years after the Argentine military began disappearing thousands of citizens following the March 24, 1976, coup, human rights investigators have located one…
Briefing Book 714
Edited by William Burr
Recent debates over U.S. nuclear weapons stockpiles in Western Europe make it worth looking at how those forces got there in the first place. In the 1950s, when fear of Soviet military power was…
News
Washington, D.C., July 21, 2020 - The National Security Archive is grievously saddened by the sudden passing of Bruce G. Blair on July 19, 2020. A co-founder of Global Zero and a research…
Unredacted blog
Judge Grants DOJ Extension in Mueller Report FOIA Case Federal Judge Reggie B. Walton is granting the Department of Justice a one-week extension to provide answers justifying redactions it made to…
Briefing Book 712
Edited by John Prados and Luke A. Nichter
Washington, DC, June 25, 2020 — Portions of a long-secret government blueprint for expansive surveillance of domestic protest movements during the Nixon presidency have just been released,…
News
by the National Security Archive
Washington, D.C., June 19, 2020 – As President Trump escalates attempts to quash publication of former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s book, The Room Where it Happened, on the grounds that it…
Briefing Book 711
Edited by Robert A. Wampler, Ph.D.
Washington, D.C., June 18, 2020 – American and South Korean assessments of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il shifted during the course of negotiations in the 1990s over the North’s controversial…
Unredacted blog
OIP Report Says Fed Has Improved FOIA Processing There is a new leader at the helm of the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy – but scant evidence in its latest summary of annual…
Briefing Book 709
by William Burr and Malcolm Byrne
Washington, D.C., June 4, 2020 - To mark the 31st anniversary of the massacre at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, June 4, 1989, the National Security Archive today reposts its special exhibit of…
Briefing Book 707
Compiled and edited by Thomas Blanton and Svetlana Savranskaya
Washington, D.C., June 2, 2020 – The Washington/Camp David summit 30 years ago today brought Presidents George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev together for three days of intense discussions of the…
Briefing Book 706
Translated by Anna Melyakova, edited by Svetlana Savranskaya
Washington D.C., May 25, 2020 –The National Security Archive marks what would have been Anatoly Sergeyevich Chernyaev’s 99th birthday today with the publication for the first time in English of his…
Briefing Book 705
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., May 22, 2020 – Seventy-five years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki marked the start of the atomic era, questions about the value, danger, and morality of nuclear weapons…
News
Edited by Tom Blanton and Lauren Harper
Washington, D.C., May 18, 2020 – The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals today ruled against the National Security Archive’s lawsuit to restore the routine disclosure, under the Freedom of Information Act (…
Briefing Book 704
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya, Sarah Dunn and Brooke Lennox
Top Secret Chernobyl:The Nuclear Disaster through the Eyes of the Soviet Politburo, KGB, and U.S. Intelligence
Volume 2
by Svetlana Savranskaya
Briefing Book 703
Edited by Lauren Harper
Washington, D.C., May 13, 2020 - The Office of Management and Budget is currently accepting comments on proposed revisions to its uniform FOIA Fee Guidelines, which date from 1987…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
Washington D.C., May 11, 2020 – For the past few years the National Security Archive Cyber Vault project has been identifying and collecting records on USCYBERCOM through several methods including…
Unredacted blog
OMB’s Proposed FOIA Fee Guideline Revisions Don’t Go Far Enough The Office of Management and Budget is currently accepting comments on proposed revisions to its uniform FOIA Fee Guidelines,…
Briefing Book 702
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Matthew Evangelista.
Translations and editorial assistance by Sarah Dunn.
Washington D.C., April 15, 2020 - As the coronavirus puts at risk Russia’s celebration of Victory Day on May 9, 2020, with its huge military parade on Moscow’s Red Square, we are reminded of another…
News
by Lauren Harper and Wendy Valdes
The COVID-19 public health crisis is having an unprecedented impact on the American work force, including the federal government and its FOIA and MDR offices.
Some agencies are making submitting…
Briefing Book 701
Edited by William Burr
Washington D.C., April 10, 2020 - The NPT is appropriately acknowledged as a critical means of protecting global security against the danger of unchecked nuclear proliferation. But the…
Briefing Book 700
Edited by John Prados and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi
Washington, DC, April 6, 2020 – Cold War concerns about another Communist Cuba in Latin America drove President John F. Kennedy to approve a covert CIA political campaign to rig national elections in…
Unredacted blog
Read his 1999 Interview with the Archive on Arming the Afghan Mujahideen Against Soviet Occupation By Claire Harvey Frank Anderson, the architect of the CIA’s Afghan Task Force in charge of arming…
Unredacted blog
Appeals Court Rules in Favor of Forever Secrets A federal appeals court in Georgia has ruled “that federal judges do not have the authority to unseal federal grand jury records, except for a limited…
Unredacted blog
Sunshine Week Round-Up GAO Report Released Today marks the end of this year’s Sunshine Week, the annual, week-long celebration of access to information. To mark the occasion, Senators Patrick…
Briefing Book 699
Edited by William BurrUpdate for Briefing Book #371 originally posted on March 1, 2012
Washington D.C., March 16, 2020 - During the Cold War, false alarms of missile attacks were closely held matters although news of them inevitably leaked. Today the National Security Archive revisits…
Unredacted blog
By Claire Harvey The National Archives and Records Administration oldest pending FOIA request is about to turn 26 years old, according to NARA’s 2019 Fiscal Year Annual FOIA Report. To put this delay…
Briefing Book 698
Edited by Carlos Osorio
Washington, D.C., March 10, 2020 - Franklin Allen “Tex” Harris , the former political officer who took charge of reporting on human rights at the U.S. Embassy in Argentina between 1977 and 1979…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
A USCYBERCOM Fusion Cell assigned to evaluate the impact of the 2010 WikiLeaks release of classified Department of State cables determined that information in the cables revealed U.S. intelligence on…
Unredacted blog
Court Rejects Archive Lawsuit over Trump’s Abuse of Records Law U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson made clear that her ruling in the Archive’s lawsuit seeking to compel the White House to…
Briefing Book 697
Edited by Michael Martelle and Ian Sotnek
Washington D.C., February 19, 2020 - Reporting last week in The Washington Post and Germany’s ZDF public television channel mentioned a 1951 meeting between Crypto AG’s Boris Hagelin and…
News
Edited by Lauren Harper
Washington, D.C. February 11, 2020 - U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson made clear yesterday that her ruling in the Archive’s lawsuit seeking to compel the White House to preserve…
Briefing Book 696
Compiled and edited by Peter Kornbluh and Carlos Osorio
Washington D.C., February 11, 2020 - The U.S. intelligence community actively monitored for decades the diplomatic and military communications of numerous Latin American nations through encryption…
Unredacted blog
CBP Now A “Security Agency” With Broad FOIA Carve-Outs The Trump administration has designated Customs and Border Protection (CBP) a “security agency”, a move that puts CBP in the same category as…
Briefing Book 695
Edited by James E. David
Washington, D.C., February 5, 2020 – In the eyes of U.S. intelligence and the military services, the greatest threat to American national security during the early Cold War was the emerging Soviet…
Unredacted blog
ICE Denied “Fugitive alien FOIA Requesters Access to the FOIA Process” Judge William J. Martinez of the US District Court for the District of Colorado has ruled that Immigration and Customs…
Briefing Book 694
Edited by William Burr
Washington D.C., January 22, 2020 - On 24 February 1972 Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird’s inbox included a Joint Chiefs of Staff message concerning the ongoing efforts by military planners to…
Briefing Book 693
Edited by Michael Martelle
Washington D.C., January 21, 2020 - Today the National Security Archive is releasing 6 USCYBERCOM documents obtained through FOIA which shed new light on the campaign to counter ISIS in cyberspace.…
Unredacted blog
National Security Archive’s New Declassified Documents Publication Offers Historical Context for Current Crisis As 2020 gets underway, tensions between the United States and the Islamic Republic of…
News
Washington D.C., January 13, 2020 - Ten years ago, the National Security Archive was deeply saddened to learn that our friend and former colleague, Lisa Mbele-Mbong, was killed in the collapse of the…
Unredacted blog
Unredacted Ukraine Emails Cast Doubt on Exemption 5 Invocation A recent Just Security article from Citizen and Responsibility for Ethics in Washington’s (CREW) Anne Weismann provides a powerful…
Briefing Book 692
Edited by Malcolm Byrne
Washington, D.C., December 19, 2019 – For 40 years, since the first year of the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, the United States and Iran have been the bitterest of political…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
Washington, D.C., December 16, 2019 – A US Navy office involved with drone warfare raised a series of concerns in 2017 about Defense Department use of drones sold commercially by the Chinese…
News
Edited by Alexander Neumann
Washington D.C., December 13, 2019 – After several massive multi-agency federal law enforcement investigations, the shutdown of the “Silk Road” online black-market site and its immediate…
Unredacted blog
Rumsfeld Memos Play Key Role in “The Afghanistan Papers” Donald Rumsfeld’s “snowflakes” – memos that the former Secretary of Defense was as fond of sending subordinates as President Trump is of…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Archive, in conjunction with our partners at the scholarly publisher ProQuest, is publishing a new set of documents offering an unprecedented look into United States policy…
News
Edited by Ian Sotnek and Alex Neumann
Washington, D.C., December 6, 2019 – The GridEx Exercises are a series of biennial grid security exercises designed to evaluate the response of the electricity sector to a cyber incident, strengthen…
Briefing Book 691
Edited by Tom Blanton and Svetlana Savranskaya
With research and editorial assistance by Andrei Shenin and Sarah Dunn
Washington D.C., December 5, 2019 – Cooperative threat reduction by the U.S., Ukraine, and the Russian Federation successfully eliminated the world’s third largest nuclear weapons force in the 1990s…
Unredacted blog
by Olivia Mozdzierz New York, November 26, 2019 – Representatives of a community of Mexican ejidatarios (communal landowners) from north-central Mexico met recently with the National Security Archive…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
Washington D.C., November 26, 2019 – In September 2018 the National Security Archive filed a FOIA request with the United States Cyber Command for a 2016 briefing on operational strategy given to the…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle and Ian Sotnek
Washington D.C., November 21, 2019 – Hours before a shutdown deadline, President Trump today signed a short-term spending bill that will keep the government open until the end of December 2019. The…
Unredacted blog
Glomar Denial Handed Second Loss in the Courts this Month The District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that the FBI can’t issue a Glomar response to an ACLU FOIA request…
Briefing Book 690
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., November 20, 2019 – In the late 1950s, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles worried about the hit to America’s global political standing if the U.S. stationed nuclear weapons, some…
Briefing Book 313
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Malcolm Byrne (with document advice from William Burr and Tom Blanton)
Washington D.C., November 19, 2019 – One hundred years after the birth of Anatoly Dobrynin, one of the most effective ambassadors of the 20th century, the former dean of the Washington diplomatic…
News
Edited by Kate Doyle
Research assistance: Megan DeTura
Washington, D.C., November 18, 2019 – The Historical Archive of the National Police of Guatemala (AHPN) is in trouble. This unparalleled collection of Guatemalan police records, renowned throughout…
News
Edited by Ian M. Sotnek
Over the past few years surveillance using IMSI-catchers has become a significant issue for law enforcement and counter-intelligence. The International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) serves as the…
News
Edited by Lauren Harper
Washington, D.C., November 11, 2019 – A military judge presiding over the Guantanamo trial of alleged USS Cole bomber Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri cited a cable released to the National Security…
Unredacted blog
Archive, CREW, Historians Sue Pompeo, State Department for violating FRA The National Security Archive, together with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the Society for…
News
by Lauren Harper and Tom Blanton
Washington D.C., November 5, 2019 - The National Security Archive, together with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the Society for Historians of American Foreign…
Briefing Book 689
Edited by Malcolm Byrne
Washington D.C., November 4, 2019 – On November 4, 1979, a group calling itself the Students Following the Line of the Imam stormed the gates of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seized control of the…
Unredacted blog
EPA Tries to Blame Bad FOIA Regulations on Advisory Committee The Environmental Protection Agency is trying to blame a recommendation from the FOIA Federal Advisory Committee for its controversial…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
A May 2019 report by Blake Sobczak at E&E news revealed that a Western power utility company was hit with a denial of service attack on March 5 2019. The report stated that the attack did not…
Briefing Book 688
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., October 30, 2019 – The current crisis with Turkey over Syria has raised questions, yet to be resolved, about the security of 50 U.S. nuclear weapons stored at Incirlik Air Base.…
Unredacted blog
A few war stories and bits of advice before I leave my job as Director of the FOIA Project at the National Security Archive to begin a new role as the FOIA Director for the Washington Post: If the…
Unredacted blog
ISOO’s FY2018 Classification Report to the President The Information Security Oversight Office’s 2018 Report to the President is now online – but contains considerably less information than…
Book By Hope Harrison
News
Edited by Malcolm Byrne
A new documentary film offers fresh historical material and perspectives on the 1953 coup in Iran. COUP 53, directed by award-winning Iranian-born film-maker Taghi Amirani, is an…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
From 1972-1995 the United States Congress maintained the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) to provide analysis to lawmakers on issues related to technology. By the time the office was de-funded…
News
by Tom Blanton
Washington D.C., October 4, 2019 — U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson yesterday ordered the White House to preserve all records relating to meetings and phone calls with foreign leaders…
Briefing Book 687
Edited by John Prados and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi
Washington, DC, October 3, 2019 – When the Soviet Union put nuclear missiles in Cuba nearly 60 years ago, American officials refused to believe that at least one Soviet motivation was the defense of…
News
by Tom Blanton
Washington, D.C., October 2, 2019 – The Justice Department has pledged that the White House will preserve records of President Trump’s conversations with foreign heads of state while a federal judge…
News
by Tom Blanton
Washington D.C., October 1, 2019 – The National Security Archive together with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations…
Unredacted blog
UPDATED BELOW WITH FULLY DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENT The Department of State has declassified a cable on the November 9, 2011 kidnapping and November 12 rescue of Washington Nationals star catcher…
Unredacted blog
State Dept. Calls DOD’s FRUS Efforts Negligent and Egregious For the second year in a row, the State Department’s Historical Advisory Committee (HAC) takes the Defense Department to task for its poor…
Unredacted blog
By Megan DeTura Today marks the fifth anniversary of the forced disappearances of 43 students from Ayotzinapa, Guerrero. In a case that has become a rallying cry throughout Mexico and the broader…
Briefing Book 686
Edited by William Burr, Avner Cohen, and Richard Wolfson
Washington D.C., September 22, 2019 – An unidentified flash on 22 September 1979 in the far South Atlantic had a “90% plus” probability of being a nuclear test, according to a CIA finding from…
Briefing Book 685
Edited by Peter Kornbluh and Santiago Mendoza
Washington D.C., September 20, 2019 — In the aftermath of the September 21, 1976, car-bombing that killed former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and his colleague, Ronni Moffitt, in…
Unredacted blog
By Michael Martelle In November of 2016 USSTRATCOM authorized USCYBERCOM, then a component command, to begin executing offensive cyber operations against the Islamic State in support of…
Unredacted blog
“A Poignant Moment” With KSM Between Interrogation Sessions The CIA cable’s author called the incident with accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed “a poignant moment;” in it, a frog jumped…
Briefing Book 684
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., September 9, 2019 – Seventy years ago, on 9 September 1949, Director of Central Intelligence Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter handed President Harry Truman a carefully worded report of…
Briefing Book 683
Edited by Michael Martelle
Washington D.C., September 5, 2019 - Recently declassified materials from U.S. Cyber Command provide new details about an important component of cyber operations – the targeting process – as well as…
Unredacted blog
Courts Can Force Agencies to Post Records in FOIA Reading Rooms The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that courts can force federal agencies to post records online to their FOIA reading…
Briefing Book 682
Edited by:
Brad Simpson, Founder and Director of the National Security Archive’s Indonesia and East Timor Documentation Project, Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies, University of Connecticut
Varsha Venkatasubramanian, PhD Candidate, University of California, Berkeley
Washington, D.C., August 28, 2019 – The U.S. government was aware for months that the Indonesian military had created, and was arming and directing paramilitary militias in East Timor in the leadup…
Briefing Book 681
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya, Sarah Dunn, Brooke Lennox with Alla Yaroshinskaya
Washington, D.C., August 15, 2019 – Documents from the highest levels of the Soviet Union, including notes, protocols and diaries of Politburo sessions in the immediate aftermath of the Chernobyl…
Briefing Book 680
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., August 9, 2019 – Several previously unknown Henry Kissinger memoranda of telephone conversations – or telcons – from October 1973, uncovered by the National Security Archive,…
Unredacted blog
Judge Orders State to Process 5,000 Pages a Month in Khashoggi Case – 4,358 Pages More than Average Monthly Schedule Judge Paul Engelmayer for the Southern District Court of New York has ordered the…
News
Edited by Jonathan Lehrfeld
The Olympic Games are being held in Tokyo, Japan, during the summer of 2020. In light of widespread concerns about a potential cyber threat from Russia, the Cyber Vault is posting a variety of…
Briefing Book 679
By Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
Washington D.C., August 2, 2019 – The Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty negotiated by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 not only eliminated an…
News
Edited by Lauren Harper
Washington D.C., August 2, 2019 - The Secret Service has just released nearly 150 heavily-redacted pages concerning a Chinese delegation’s visit to President Trump’s winter White House, Mar-a-…
Unredacted blog
Advisory Panels in Peril? The JASON Defense Advisory Panel, which advises the U.S. government on defense science and technology matters, is the latest advisory panel the Trump administration is…
Unredacted blog
DEA’s Pain Pill Database Released The Drug Enforcement Administration’s controlled substances database – otherwise known as the Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System, or ARCOS – is a…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
First fielded in the 1970s, Global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) like the U.S.’s Global Positioning System (GPS), Europe’s Galileo, and Russia’s GLONASS have become critical to modern societies…
Briefing Book 678
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., July 16, 2019 – The latest addition to the award-winning publications series The Digital National Security Archive provides a trove of important historical documentation on global…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
In 2013, cybersecurity experts Jason Healey and Karl Grindal released A Fierce Domain, an edited volume covering major "wake-up calls" in cyber from 1986-2012. Thanks to a generous donation by…
Briefing Book 677
Edited by Michael Martelle
After a series of events starting in the late 1980s gradually awakened the US Department of Defense to the seriousness of threats to computer networks, the US military assembled the first joint task…
Briefing Book 676
Edited by Dr. Robert A. Wampler
Washington, D.C., June 28, 2019 - A long-standing mutual security treaty between Japan and the United States commits each country to undertake significant military and additional obligations for the…
Briefing Book 675
Edited by Robert Wampler
Washington, D.C., June 27, 2019 – Recently declassified U.S. documents posted to mark the 60th anniversary year of the Dalai Lama’s flight out of Tibet depict sharp divisions among Chinese…
Unredacted blog
Trump and Putin’s G20 Meeting Puts Spotlight on the PRA President Trump will be meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin this Friday at the G20 meetings in Osaka, Japan, and the pressure is on…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Archive, working with our partners at ProQuest, is publishing a rich new compilation of documents on nuclear nonproliferation policy during the presidencies of Dwight D.…
Unredacted blog
Proposed CIA Exemption Will Make It Harder for Historians to get Agency Information A provision in the pending intelligence authorization bill would allow the CIA to indefinitely withhold…
Unredacted blog
Emails Released through FOIA Show Special Relationship between Transportation Dept. and State of Kentucky FOIA-released records obtained by American Oversight and provided to Politico illuminate how…
Briefing Book 674
Edited by William Burr
Update for Briefing Book #43 originally posted in April 2001
Washington, D.C., June 11, 2019 – “Launch-on-warning,” a feature of U.S. nuclear warfighting strategy since the late 1970s, has frequently faced intensive criticism because of the high risk of…
Unredacted blog
Year after year, the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy (OIP) issues a summary of annual agency FOIA reports that misinterprets FOIA performance across the federal government to the…
News
Edited by William Burr
Today the National Security Archive publishes a special exhibit on the 30th anniversary of the massacre at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, 4 June 1989. To mark an event that decisively…
Unredacted blog
Trump Memo “Effectively Amends” EO 13526 to Transfer Limited DNI Authority to AG Barr President Trump recently signed a presidential memo that “effectively amends” Executive Order 13526 on…
Briefing Book 673
Edited by Carlos Osorio, Silvia Tandeciarz and Johanna Weech
Washington D.C., May 30, 2019 – On August 20, 1976, Argentine security personnel dynamited the bodies of thirty people – ten women and twenty men – who had been detained by the…
News
Update for Guatemala Police Archive under Threat posting
Edited by Kate Doyle
Washington, D.C., May 30, 2019 – The National Security Archive joins our international and Guatemalan colleagues in calling for the protection of the Historical Archive of the National Police (…
Briefing Book 672
Translated by Anna Melyakova, edited by Svetlana Savranskaya
Washington D.C., May 25, 2019 - The National Security Archive marks what would have been Anatoly Sergeyevich Chernyaev’s 98th birthday today with the publication for the first time in English of his…
Unredacted blog
FOIA Shows Sailors Created “Rape List” That CO Failed to Properly Address A FOIA request from Military.com won the release of a 74-page investigation into a “rape list” created by members of the USS…
Unredacted blog
Trump’s Secrecy will “Blast a Huge Crater” in work of Historians if not Checked The Washington Post Editorial Board weighed in on the National Security Archive’s lawsuit against the Trump…
Unredacted blog
A June 16, 2014 CIA “FLASH FYSA [For Your Situational Awareness] email to the Office of the Director of the National Clandestine Service [ODNCS] warned of a “Possible Future Washington Post Article…
News
Edited by Rosemary Tropeano
The U.S.-Japan Security Consultative Committee convened last April for the first time since August 2017. The two governments agreed that a cyber attack could, in certain circumstances, constitute an…
News
Edited by Tom Blanton and Lauren Harper
Washington, D.C., May 7, 2019 – The National Security Archive today joined Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (…
News
Edited by Lauren Harper and Tom Blanton
Washington, D.C., May 3, 2019 - The National Security Archive, along with 15 other media organizations, filed a “friend of the court” brief on April 29 in the lawsuit Barr v. Redacted…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
Our present understanding of how USCYBERCOM conducts operations in cyberspace comes either through anecdotal examples such as JTF-ARES/OPERATION GLOWING SYMPHONY or through broad doctrine as…
Briefing Book 671
Edited by William Burr and Avner Cohen
Washington D.C., May 2, 2019 - During 1963, President John F. Kennedy was preoccupied with issues such as Vietnam, the nuclear test ban negotiations, civil rights protests, and Cuba. It is less…
Unredacted blog
FOIA Reporting Shows Serious Problems in Michigan Prisons Indefatigable FOIA reporting from the Detroit Free Press reveals several alarming trends in Michigan’s state-run prisons – a spike in…
News
Edited by Rosemary Tropeano
The National Security Agency (NSA) has formally recommended terminating its controversial phone and text surveillance program, according to the Wall Street Journal.[1] The program has been frequently…
Unredacted blog
Exemption 4 Scope Awaits SCOTUS Ruling On Monday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media. The case, which is the first the justices…
News
Edited by Rosemary Tropeano
Washington D.C., April 24, 2019 – The Tallinn Manual 2.0 is the second edition of NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence’s analysis on the application of international law to…
News
Edited by Tom Blanton
Update for Briefing Book #670, originally posted April 18, 2019
Washington D.C., April 22, 2019 - Black blotches mar the surface of the Mueller Report like measles cases tracked on a map of Brooklyn. Some 176 of the 448 pages feature at least one…
Briefing Book 670
Edited by Tom Blanton, Malcolm Byrne, Lauren Harper
Washington D.C., April 18, 2019 – The National Security Archive has published hundreds of examples over the years of “dubious secrets” where U.S. government censors blacked out documents that had…
Unredacted blog
FOIA Request Shows Al-Nashiri Trial Judge Secretly Sought DOJ Position In a remarkable turn of events, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit “threw out every single pre-trial order issued…
Briefing Book 669
Edited by Carlos Osorio and Peter Kornbluh
Washington D.C., April 12, 2019 – In late May 1976, the secret police chieftains of six Southern Cone military regimes gathered at a clandestine summit in Santiago, Chile, to create a “new unit,…
Unredacted blog
Declassification Diplomacy: Trump Administration Turns Over Massive Collection of Intelligence Records on Human Rights and Argentina Today in a diplomatic ceremony hosted by U.S. Archivist David…
Briefing Book 668
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., April 10, 2019 — South Korea’s bid to acquire a nuclear weapons capability posed a complex challenge to the Ford administration during the mid-1970s, according to recently…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
Beginning in 1997 the Department of Defense Information Assurance Technology Analysis Center (IATAC) published quarterly newsletters on information assurance with the stated goal of supporting U.S.…
Unredacted blog
Bicameral, Bipartisan Letter Seeks GAO Review of FOIA Compliance Representatives Elijah Cummings and Jim Jordan were joined by Senators Dianne Feinstein, Patrick Leahy, Chuck Grassley, and…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
The foundations of today’s internet rest on Cold War-era research and development performed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and researchers associated with the Department of Defense’…
Unredacted blog
Archivist Bill Burr Wins Dubious Honor of Oldest Pending FOIA Request The Archive’s latest FOIA Audit showed that the oldest pending FOIA request government-wide is 25-years-old, that’s old…
Unredacted blog
By Svetlana Savranskaya Thirty years ago today, the Soviet Union had its first real taste of democracy—its first competitive multi-candidate elections, which many people in Russia today still…
News
by Carlos Osorio
Washington D.C., March 24, 2019 - On the 43rd anniversary of the military coup in Argentina, the Argentine government of Mauricio Macri has announced that the Trump Administration will…
Unredacted blog
Army Charges $300K for Water Test Results The Army is trying to charge a FOIA requester $300,000 to release the results of water tests at military installations for a dangerous contaminant that is…
Unredacted blog
“How Can You Say That’s Compliance?” This year’s House Committee on Oversight and Reform Sunshine Week hearing was a strong showing of bipartisan support for FOIA and a desire to address the…
Briefing Book 663
Edited by Robert S. Hopkins, III
Updated by Bruce Blair and William Burr
Washington, D.C., March 13, 2019 - Last month’s posting by Robert S. Hopkins on “How the Strategic Air Command Would Have Gone to Nuclear War” provided incredible detail on SAC procedures during…
FOIA Audit
Audit compiled and written by Lauren Harper, Nate Jones, Tom Blanton, and Tena-lesly Reid
Washington, D.C. March 8, 2019 – Five federal agencies have FOIA requests more than a decade old and one, the National Archives and Records Administration, has a FOIA request more than 25 years old,…
Unredacted blog
Congress Strikes Back at Interior Department’s Bad FOIA Regs Representative Elijah Cummings, D-Md, and Senators Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, recently sent a…
Briefing Book 667
Edited by John Prados and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi
Washington, DC, March 4, 2019 – The covert operations of the Central Intelligence Agency are one element of the forward edge of power in U.S. foreign policy. But the CIA is not a lone ranger,…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
Recent years have seen increased interest in data privacy and answering the question of what sort of data collection, by whom and for what purpose, is legitimate. The U.S.’s Federal Trade Commission…
Briefing Book 666
Edited by Nate Jones
Washington, D.C., February 28, 2019 – The National Security Archive today filed a FOIA lawsuit to compel the Defense Intelligence Agency to release documents likely containing a letter from former…
Unredacted blog
Deloitte Launches FOIA-Processing Software but Improved FOIA Numbers No Guarantee One of FOIA’s perennial head-scratchers is why agency FOIA offices seem able to search for and review only hundreds…
Unredacted blog
By Michael Martelle On February 27th RADM(ret.) Bill Leigher, now the director of DoD Cyber Warfare Programs at Raytheon, compared cyber-attacks to the advent of airpower during an Atlantic Council…
News
by Michael Martelle
A FOIA request by the National Security Archive Cyber Vault has produced the original Operations Order (OPORD) outlining USCYBERCOM support to Operation Inherent Resolve. This document, referenced in…
Briefing Book 665
By Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
Washington D.C., February 27, 2019 – The Soviet Union withdrew its military forces from Afghanistan 30 years ago this month without achieving demilitarization there or the national reconciliation,…
Briefing Book 664
By Robert A. Wampler, Ph.D.
Washington D.C., February 26, 2019 – Prior U.S. administrations from both political parties wrestled intensively with complex security, economic, and diplomatic challenges in trying to rein…
Briefing Book 662
By Tom Blanton and Nate Jones
Washington D.C., February 22, 2019 – The movie VICE, nominated for eight Academy Awards including the best picture Oscar, shows on screen several documents obtained through the Freedom of Information…
Unredacted blog
For Better or Worse, The Obama Library to Depart From Status Quo The National Archives and Records Administration has released its agreement with the Obama Foundation that outlines how the Foundation…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle and Rosemary Tropeano
In February of 2016 thirty five fraudulent orders were sent over the SWIFT network, a telecommunications system linking financial institutions used to exchange information on transactions, to…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
A Cyber Vault study of social media activity by the Internet Research Agency (IRA) during the violent Charlottesville protests in August 2017 demonstrates how the controversial Russia-based…
Briefing Book 661
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., February 12, 2019 – The incoming Reagan administration strongly supported Japan’s interest in reprocessing nuclear fuel for producing plutonium and chose to pull back from President…
Briefing Book 660
Edited by Malcolm Byrne
Washington, D.C., February 11, 2019 – U.S. intelligence analysts and Tehran-based diplomats struggled to come to grips with the tumult of the Iranian revolution, yet still managed at times to provide…
Briefing Book 659
Edited by John Prados and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi
Washington, DC, February 7, 2019 – Attorney-General nominee William P. Barr figured prominently in arguments to limit CIA responsibility to provide notification to Congress about covert actions…
Unredacted blog
State Dept. Worsens FOIA Reading Room The Department of State has inexplicably made its FOIA reading room significantly less user-friendly. The previous version allowed researchers to sort the…
News
Edited by Rosemary Tropeano and Michael Martelle
The Cyber Vault has gathered witness testimony and transcripts for hearings held by the 115th Congress during 2018. These documents are reflective of the scope of the legislative challenges and…
Briefing Book 658
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya
Washington, D.C., February 1, 2019 – Two U.S. ambassadors in the late 1980s warned the U.S.
Unredacted blog
The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, 1979: Declassified Documents Show Moscow’s Fear of an Afghan Flip President Trump’s claim that the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to get rid of…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
Election security has been a pressing issue since the 2016 elections due to concern over foreign interference in the election and possible cybersecurity risks.
According to the U.S. Election…
Briefing Book 657
Edited by Tom Blanton and Svetlana Savranskaya
Washington D.C., January 28, 2019 – President Trump’s claim that the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to get rid of terrorists who were coming over the border is false, according to…
Unredacted blog
No More Deaths Trials Shed Needed Light on Department of Interior’s Immigration Role Assistant U.S. Attorney Anna Wright argued the first of the Trump administration’s three cases against the…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
On January 17, 2019, the Democratic National Committee filed an amendment to their original lawsuit against the Russian Federation, the GRU, Wikileaks, the Trump Campaign, and several…
Unredacted blog
Concerning News from CIA’s Historical Review Panel Requires Clarification Dr. Robert Jervis, chair of the CIA’s Historical Review Panel, recently announced in an H-Diplo posting that the panel did…
News
Edited by Rosemary Tropeano and Michael Martelle
On January 15, 2019, the US Defense Intelligence Agency released its latest edition of the China Military Power report. Among other points, the report discussed China’s reformed command-and-control…
Unredacted blog
Our director Tom Blanton recently gave the keynote speech at the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) 40th anniversary event. ISOO, which is part of the National Archives and Records…
Unredacted blog
FOIA Shows Benefits of Diversity in Congress A Washington Post analysis found that legislators from underrepresented groups “disproportionately advocate for these communities.” For example, “…
Briefing Book 656
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., January 10, 2019 – From the late 1960s until the late 1980s, U.S. government officials worried that Taiwanese leaders might make a “fundamental decision” to develop nuclear weapons…
Briefing Book 655
Edited by Rosemary Tropeano
Washington, D.C., January 9, 2019 – More than 20 years ago, in May 1998, seven hackers from the Boston-based “hacker think tank” L0pht Heavy Industries, appeared alongside Dr. Peter…
Unredacted blog
Choice Magazine, the publishing arm of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL), has named the Digital National Security Archive an “Outstanding Academic Title” for 2018.…
News
Edited by Lauren Harper
Washington, D.C., January 8, 2019 - The National Security Archive, together with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in…
News
Edited by Malcolm Byrne
Washington, D.C., January 7, 2019 – Choice Magazine, the publishing arm of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL), has named the Digital National Security Archive an “…
Briefing Book 654
Edited by Michael Evans
Washington, D.C., December 21, 2018 – Banana executives with Chiquita Brands now the subject of a major criminal investigation in Colombia were instrumental in the development and execution…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Archive, working with our partners at ProQuest, is publishing a new compilation of documents on Soviet-U.S. relations at the end of the Cold War. The 1,911-document…
Briefing Book 653
Edited by James E. David
Washington, D.C., December 17, 2018 – During the dark days of the Cold War, spying on the enemy often took place in broad daylight. Some of the best opportunities for Western intelligence…
Unredacted blog
(B)(3) Exemptions Find Way Into Farm Bill Two proposed (B)(3) exemptions that will prevent the public from knowing information it should have access to are included in the Farm Bill. The carve-…
Briefing Book 652
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., December 11, 2018 – In the Fall of 1966, as part of an ongoing debate about the U.S. troop presence in Western Europe and the role of NATO during the Cold War,…
News
By Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
Washington, D.C., December 10, 2018 – The National Security Archive mourns the passing of Lyudmila Mikhailovna Alexeyeva, our dear friend, colleague and inspiration for all our work documenting human…
Special Exhibit
The Reagan-era Iran-Contra affair lit up the political skies over Washington for well over a year in the late 1980s. The biggest scandal since Watergate, it dominated the news starting in late…
Briefing Book 651
Update to EBB 261
published December 8, 2008
Edited by Dr. Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton
The U.S. and NATO allies worried about losing control of the public narrative of the Cold War in December 1988 after Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s offer of an arms race in reverse in his famous…
Unredacted blog
FOIAonline Still Broken Six Months After Disastrous Redesign Six months ago the would-be government-wide FOIA portal, FOIAonline, was redesigned and the site lost much of its functionality as a…
Unredacted blog
The Air Force Couldn’t Have Sent a More Unprofessional, Unlawful FOIA Response Letter to a Worse Place The Air Force has sent a shockingly informal, candid, unprofessional, and unlawful FOIA response…
Briefing Book 649
Edited by Michael Evans
November 29, 2018 – The formal launch today in Colombia of the Commission for the Clarification of the Truth, Coexistence and Non-Repetition (Truth Commission) is an important step forward in the…
Briefing Book 648
Compiled and edited by Jenny and Sherry Thompson with contribution from Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
The National Security Archive is publishing a set of documents to commemorate the life and achievements of Llewellyn Thompson and highlight the publication of a biography of him written by his…
Unredacted blog
FOIA and Public Universities A recent New York Times article chronicling several instances of big businesses and lobbyist groups weaponizing FOIA to target researchers at public universities has…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle and Rosemary Tropeano
The Cyber Vault has gathered a selection of presidential orders related to communication and cyber policy. They are a complement to other compilations on our site consisting of cyber-related…
Briefing Book 647
Edited by Nate Jones
Washington, D.C., November 5, 2018 – Beginning in 1981, the KGB’s “main objective” became “not to miss the military preparations of the enemy, its preparations for a nuclear strike, and…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
Earlier today Zach Dorfman and Jenna McLaughlin reported on a "catastrophic" failure of a CIA communications system which resulted in the potential compromise of "close to 70 percent of operations"…
Unredacted blog
Long-Sealed Watergate Road Map Released Chief Judge Baryl Howell of the D.C. Circuit recently ordered the disclosure of the long-secret Watergate “Road Map,” which was compiled by Watergate Special…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
The Cyber Vault has gathered below selections from the US Code related to cyber security. These selections are key to understanding the complex delegation of legal authorities governing the actions…
Briefing Book 646
Edited by William Burr
Washington D.C., October 29, 2018 — Sixty years ago, in October 1958, Irish Minister of External Affairs Frank Aiken bought before the United Nations the first version of a resolution addressing the…
Unredacted blog
Judge Tells DHS that FOIA isn’t Battleship U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper sided with the Government Accountability Project in its FOIA lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security,…
News
Edited by Rosemary Tropeano
From 1949 until the late 1960s the Office of Naval Research (ONR) published the Digital Computer Newsletter to “provide a medium for the interchange among interested persons of information…
Briefing Book 645
Edited by Tom Blanton and Lauren Harper
Washington, D.C., October 18, 2018 – The National Security Archive’s Freedom of Information lawsuit against the CIA has won release of the previously censored dates and times on cables sent by…
Unredacted blog
Gina Haspel CIA Torture Cables’ Dates and Times Declassified The National Security Archive’s FOIA lawsuit for cables authored and authorized by CIA director Gina Haspel during her tenure as chief of…
Briefing Book 644
Edited by Robert Wampler
Washington D.C., October 16, 2018 – Recent news reports out of Okinawa underscore the extent to which the long-standing U.S. military presence on the island is a perennial source of…
Briefing Book 643
Compiled and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya
Wasington D.C., October 11, 2018 -The end of the Cold War was a magical moment in international relations, which scholars and diplomats will continue to study and interpret for ages. In addition to…
News
The United States Government Accountability Office has issued a report finding that the Department of Defense’s early adoption of computers and information technology but late prioritization of…
Briefing Book 642
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington D.C., October 5, 2018 – On the 30th anniversary of the historic plebiscite in Chile, the National Security Archive today posted key documents revealing General Augusto Pinochet’s secret…
Unredacted blog
FOIA’s Foreseeable Harm Standard Gets Boost from The Court A recent U.S. District Court for the DC Circuit ruling has given some teeth to the “foreseeable harm” standard codified by the FOIA…
Briefing Book 641
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
Washington, D.C., October 4, 2018 – Twenty-five years ago last night in Moscow, Russian President Boris Yeltsin ordered tanks and airborne troops to shell and storm the “White House,” the Russian…
Unredacted blog
As documents age, the likelihood that they will be released to FOIA requesters should increase. But because of a quirk of the US record keeping system, this is often not the case. Usually…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
Several recent attacks targeting major sea port operations have demonstrated the ability of a cyber-attack to stall maritime shipping:
News 641
Edited by Kate Doyle
Washington D.C., October 2, 2018—Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the notorious Tlatelolco massacre, when the Mexican government killed dozens of students and bystanders protesting the…
Briefing Book 640
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Mary Sarotte
William Burr contributed to headnotes
Washington, D.C., October 2, 2018 – President Bill Clinton saw Russian leader Boris Yeltsin as indispensable for promoting American interests following the collapse of the Soviet Union, often…
Unredacted blog
NARA to Re-Open Public Comment on Controversial ICE Records Schedule The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) will re-open a 15-day public comment period for a controversial…
News
Edited by: Michael Martelle and Rosemary Tropeano
Last week the White House and the Defense Department issued new documents on cyberspace strategy. This posting includes the new issuances and presents them with current national security and strategy…
Briefing Book 632
Edited by William Burr
Online blustering about nuclear “buttons” has brought new attention to the issue of presidential control over nuclear weapons, and to the special satchel or “Football” of emergency and nuclear…
Briefing Book 639
Edited by Robert A. Wampler
Washington, D.C., September 24, 2018 – President George H.W. Bush initially sought a leadership role for the United States on the environment, according to declassified documents obtained and posted…
Unredacted blog
NARA Report Says 98% of Agencies are on Track to Manage Digital Records by 2019 Deadline. Really? The National Archives and Records Administration’s Federal Agency Records Management 2017 Annual…
News
The Cyber Glossary is a compilation of specialized terms to help experts and the public alike navigate the complex field of cybersecurity. This resource combines definitions from a variety of…
Unredacted blog
DC Circuit: Trump Tweets on Investigation Don’t Undercut Glomar The District Court for the DC Circuit is upholding the DOJ’s Glomar response – in which an agency claims it can neither confirm nor…
News
Edited by Mary Curry and William Burr
Washington, D.C., September 10, 2018 – Staffers at the National Security Archive were saddened by the news of Matthew Aid’s untimely passing on August 20, 2018. We had the good fortune to…
Unredacted blog
Guatemalan President Shuts Down UN-Backed Anti-Corruption Probe Guatemalan president Jimmy Morales recently announced he will not renew the mandate of the UN-backed anti-corruption probe, the…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
The United States Department of Justice today unsealed a criminal complaint (here) and arrest warrant for North Korean hacker Park Jin Hyok detailing his involvement in numerous cyber operations…
Unredacted blog
NARA Could Have Troubleshot the USPS’ Release of Abigail Spanberger’s Security Clearance Application by Processing the FOIA Request Itself The confusion is only growing surrounding the Post Office’s…
Unredacted blog
State’s Historical Advisory Committee Report Slams DOD’s FRUS Performance The State Department’s Historical Advisory Committee (HAC) takes the Defense Department’s Office of Prepublication and…
Briefing Book 638
Edited by William Burr
U.S. nuclear war plans during the Johnson administration included the option of a retaliatory strike against nuclear, conventional military, and urban-industrial targets with the purpose of removing…
News
Edited by Kate Doyle
Washington, D.C., August 13, 2018—Guatemala’s renowned Historical Archive of the National Police (AHPN) is in crisis after its director Gustavo Meoño Brenner was abruptly removed in one of a series…
Briefing Book 637
Edited by Michael Martelle
Washington, D.C., August 13, 2018 – U.S. Cyber Command’s strategy for curtailing ISIL’s ability to exploit the internet may at least partially be paying off, according to an analysis of recently…
Briefing Book 636
Edited by Tom Blanton
Washington D.C., August 10, 2018 – Current CIA director Gina Haspel described graphic acts of deliberate physical torture including the waterboarding of a suspected Al-Qa’ida terrorist under her…
Unredacted blog
Intel.gov’s Tet Declassified A Step Backwards – More Dubious Secrets Did Intel.gov post new, high-quality documents for the first release of its Tet Declassified project? In short, no. The National…
Briefing Book 635
Edited by Danielle Siegel
Washington, D.C., August 8, 2018 – U.S. allies from Europe and the Persian Gulf warned the Clinton administration that it would be “very dangerous” and “pose risks for the entire region” if Iran were…
Unredacted blog
In one of his last actions as Director of National Intelligence, in December 2016 James R. Clapper announced a new declassification review of secret intelligence records on the Tet Offensive, in…
Unredacted blog
Tet Declassification Project Releases First Batch of Documents The Office of the Director of National Intelligence recently published the first set of documents for its Vietnam War Tet Offensive…
News
Edited by William Burr
Washington D.C., August 1, 2018 - On 31 July 2018, the Japanese Atomic Energy Commission announced that “Japan will reduce the size of its plutonium stockpile.” The move marks a potential…
Briefing Book 634
Edited by Michael Martelle
Washington, D.C., August 1, 2018 – An early classified Defense Department cybersecurity exercise named “Eligible Receiver 97” (ER97) featured a previously unpublicized series of mock terror attacks,…
Briefing Book 597
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact
William Burr: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Japan Announces Policy Change on Plutonium Overhang
Possible Turning Point for Nuclear Nonproliferation Efforts
Internal Debates, Media Coverage, Pressure from Allies and Neighbors, and Economic…
News
Edited by Lauren Harper
Washington, D.C., July 27, 2018 - Federal Judge Katherine Failla agreed with government lawyers and is allowing the Secret Service to hide the White House visitor logs in a FOIA lawsuit brought…
Unredacted blog
Emails Shed Light on Contentious Census Question Redacted Commerce Department emails released as part of an ongoing lawsuit show that the Trump administration discussed adding a citizenship question…
Briefing Book 633
Edited by:
Brad Simpson, Founder and Director of the National Security Archive’s Indonesia and East Timor Documentation Project, Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies, University of Connecticut;
Megan Streit, PhD Candidate, University of Connecticut;
Mark Reyes, PhD Candidate, University of Connecticut;
Susan O’Hara, and Andrew Conroe.
Declassified documents detail US policy in period leading up to, following Suharto’s May, 1998 ouster, knowledge of military involvement in student abductions and killings.
Unredacted blog
OGIS Issues First Advisory Opinion The Office of Government Information Services (OGIS), the federal FOIA Ombuds office, issued its first advisory opinion this week. The substance of the opinion,…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
Robert Mueller, Special Counsel for the US Department of Justice, on Friday, July 13, 2018, indicted twelve Russian intelligence officers for “engaging in cyber operations that involved the…
Book Diane N. Labrosse
Unredacted blog
#TBT Pick – Kavanaugh Ruling Helped CIA Conceal Bay of Pigs History This week’s #TBT pick is chosen with the recent nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh for Supreme Court Justice in mind. Kavanaugh…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
The cyber threat to critical infrastructure (communication, transportation, energy, finance, and vital services) receives a sizeable volume of attention from researchers and policy analysts. This…
News
Edited by Michael EvansResearch assistance by Hannah Lildharrie
Washington D.C., July 9, 2018 – A ranch owned by former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe Vélez and other members of his family was the operational base of a deadly paramilitary group, according to…
Unredacted blog
FBI Tries to Put FOIA Lawsuits on Hold The FBI recently told a government attorney that it is beginning to file “Open America” stays in “all FOIA lawsuits going” forward. This means, according…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
This month the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued an update to Joint Publication 3-12, first published on February 5th 2013. The following changes are prominent:
Unredacted blog
Explore important historical events, like the epic Bay of Pigs disaster, through the lens of little-known or under-explored covert activities in the National Security Archive’s latest digital…
Unredacted blog
ISCAP Directed to Help with FRUS Volume The Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP), which is housed at the U.S. National Archives and charged with – among other things – …
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
The Department of Defense, GSA, and NASA have issued implementation guidance for the ban on Kaspersky products mandated in the 2018 NDAA. This Cyber Brief includes that guidance, the relevant section…
Unredacted blog
NDAA Includes More Unnecessary B3 Exemptions The current version of the National Defense Authorization Act contains four proposed (b)(3) exemptions that will prevent the public from knowing…
News
A National Security Archive FOIA request filed in January of 2016 produced, in late 2017, a Department of Defense memorandum encouraging department heads and combatant commanders to beat the deadline…
Unredacted blog
The Archive’s New CyberWar Map The National Security Archive is thrilled to announce the launch of our interactive CyberWar Map. The Map is both a visualization of state-sponsored cyberattacks and an…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
The National Security Archive’s Cyber Vault Project is announcing the launch of the CyberWar Map. This resource is both a visualization of state-sponsored cyberattacks and an index of Cyber Vault…
Unredacted blog
Washington, DC—Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) took to the floor of Congress yesterday to voice his support for the international organized crime-fighting commission in Guatemala, CICIG. Leahy’s…
Unredacted blog
Nacropolis: Medellín Cartel “Financed” Senate Campaign of Former President Álvaro Uribe, Colombian Senators Told U.S. Embassy State Department cables released to the National Security Archive shed…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
The use of the internet by terrorist organizations has proven to be a vexing problem for policymakers.
Briefing Book 630
Translated by Anna Melyakova
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya
Washington D.C., May 25, 2018 - The National Security Archive marks what would have been Anatoly Sergeyevich Chernyaev’s 97th birthday today with the publication for the first time in English of his…
Briefing Book 631
Edited by Michael Evans, Director, Colombia Documentation Project, National Security Archive
A Colombian senator told the U.S. Embassy in 1993 that the founders of the Medellín drug cartel “financed” the election campaign of then-senator Álvaro Uribe Vélez, according to…
Briefing Book 629
Edited by William Burr
Washington D.C., May 24, 2018 - The controversial Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, requiring "good faith" disarmament measures, arose from the "fear" by non-nuclear weapons states "of…
Unredacted blog
Luis Posada Carriles, CIA-Created “Frankenstein”, Dies at 90 CIA-trained Cuban exile and suspect in the 1976 Cuban jetliner bombing that killed all 73 people on board, Luis Posada Carriles, has died…
News
Edited by Lauren Harper
Washington, D.C., May 23, 2018 - CIA-trained Cuban exile and suspect in the 1976 Cuban jetliner bombing that killed all 73 people on board, Luis Posada Carriles, has died at the age of 90.
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
Israel’s national cyber proficiency goes largely unrecognized to those outside the field of cybersecurity. This week’s Cyber Brief highlights documents from the Vault related to Israel’s…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
On May 13, President Trump announced on Twitter that he was working with President Xi Jinping of China to assist the Chinese telecommunications company ZTE. This announcement surprised many in the…
Briefing Book 628
Edited by Malcolm Byrne
Washington, D.C., May 16, 2018 – Incoming National Rifle Association President Oliver North’s conduct during the infamous Iran-Contra affair featured a pattern of deliberate deception, a…
Unredacted blog
Fact-Checking Haspel’s Nomination Hearing Against the Declassified Record PolitiFact reached out to the National Security Archive’s CIA expert John Prados to help fact-check key claims Gina Haspel…
Briefing Book 627
Edited by Kate Doyle
Washington D.C., May 10, 2018—Five years ago today, one of the most celebrated human rights trials in Latin America came to a stunning conclusion when Guatemalan dictator, retired Army general, and…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has released its report on the use of FISA orders and national security letters during calendar year 2017. This week’s Cyber Brief includes the…
Briefing Book 626
Edited by John Prados, Wendy Valdes, and Tom Blanton
Today’s nomination hearing for Gina Haspel to be CIA director provides an opportunity for the agency and Haspel to fill in the blanks on the CIA “black sites” and interrogation program. The…
Unredacted blog
Mulvaney Moves to Hide Important Consumer Complaint Database Mick Mulvaney, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is trying to take a database intended to hold financial…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
In light of significant recent developments on the Korean Peninsula, this week’s brief highlights North Korean cyber-operations. While Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program has drawn the most attention…
News
Edited by Lauren Harper and Tom Blanton
The National Security Archive filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) against the CIA today in federal district court in Washington. The case seeks 12 specific cables from November and…
Briefing Book 625
By Tom Blanton and John Prados
The Trump administration’s nominee to be CIA director, Gina Haspel, personally supervised the torture of a CIA detainee in 2002 leading to at least three waterboard sessions, subsequently drafted the…
Unredacted blog
Gina Haspel’s CIA Torture File The Trump administration’s nominee to be CIA director, Gina Haspel, personally supervised the torture of a CIA detainee in 2002 leading to at least three waterboard…
News
Eddited by Michael Martelle
The National Institute of Standards and Technology has released its newest iteration of critical infrastructure cybersecurity framework. Today’s brief includes this document (Version 1.1), two…
Briefing Book 624
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington D.C., April 20, 2018 – Back-channel diplomacy, conducted by an ABC News reporter named Lisa Howard resolved a potential crisis with Cuba in mid-1964, according to documents posted…
Unredacted blog
FOIA Federal Advisory Committee Recs Will Help Agency FOIA Shops Pass “Common-Sense Test” An incredulous Senator Chuck Grassley told the Justice Department Office of Information Policy’s Melanie…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
In March of 2018 the Inspector General for the Department of Justice issued a report on the FBI’s statements on its ability to break into the iPhone of Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the attackers killed…
Unredacted blog
By Michael R. Lemov* & Nate Jones** This article originally appeared in the Southwestern Journal of International Law, Volume 24. INTRODUCTION John Moss was an obscure Congressman from a newly…
Unredacted blog
Mexican investigators have obtained dramatic new leads on the 2014 forced disappearance of a group of 43 students from Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, according to an article in the Mexican newspaper Reforma.…
Unredacted blog
FOIA Shows Steep Rise in Military Aviation Crashes A six-month Military Times FOIA investigation shows an alarming trend – accident rates are soaring among the military’s manned warplanes.…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
Omnipresent in discussions of military use of cyber is how cyberspace fits in with the other warfighting “domains” of land, air, sea, and space. This question is vital to several issues facing future…
Briefing Book 623
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., April 6, 2018 – Secret CIA interviews with East bloc scientists and technicians in the mid-1950s yielded invaluable insights into Soviet nuclear capabilities, according to recently…
Unredacted blog
Judge Finds No Legal Basis for Commerce Dept. Attempt to Charge Hundreds of Thousands for Two Data Sets A federal judge has ruled against the Commerce Department and in favor of reporter David…
News
The Cyber Vault has gathered below a compendium of basic documents from certain key cyber-related court cases. Court documents are often crucial to understanding the judicial history of legal…
Unredacted blog
To celebrate Sunshine Week 2018, the National Security Archive’s FOIA Project director Nate Jones talks to the Export Import Bank about the Freedom of Information Act from a requester’s perspective.…
News
President Trump signed the CLOUD Act into law on March 23, 2018, after the act passed through Congress – without a hearing or even a committee review – attached to an omnibus spending bill. As the…
Unredacted blog
NARA Publishes First Unauthorized Destruction Chart This week the U.S. National Archives published its first “unauthorized disposition of federal records” chart. The chart – which includes both open…
News
Michael Martelle
The United States Department of Justice recently announced the indictment of nine Iranian citizens for actions related to cyber-enabled theft of research, data, and intellectual property, a constant…
Disappearing Messaging Apps Are Subject of Ethics Training Thanks to PRA Suit: FRINFORMSUM 3/22/2018
Unredacted blog
Presidential Records Act Case Draws Attention to White House’s Disappearing Messaging Apps The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia’s Judge Christopher Cooper ruled against Citizens for…
Briefing Book 622
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., March 21, 2018 – The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), widely accepted today as a global standard for international nuclear policy, was in fact a source of significant tension…
News
Edited by Malcolm Byrne and Michael Martelle
USCYBERCOM has put flesh on the bones of its skeletal strategy declaration initially released in February 2018. A month later, on March 23, the Command made public a new, 12-page “Command…
Unredacted blog
By Danielle Siegel The National Security Archive posted the most recently-reviewed version of the partially-declassified internal CIA history of the 1953 coup in Iran, “Zendebad, Shah!” this February…
Briefing Book 621
Compiled and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
Washington, D.C., March 16, 2018 – Declassified documents from U.S. and Russian archives show that U.S. officials led Russian President Boris Yeltsin to believe in 1993 that the Partnership for Peace…
Briefing Book 620
Edited by Nate Jones, Tom Blanton, and Emma Sarfity
Washington D.C., March 15, 2018 - A US Foreign Service officer warned that “blatantly illegal” Congressional requests, including the use of a diplomatic pouch to smuggle gemstones and utilizing…
Unredacted blog
OIP’s Position Doesn’t Pass the “Common-Sense Test” This week the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on “The Freedom of Information Act: Examining the Administration’s Progress on Reforms and…
News
Edited by Maichael Martelle
High-profile U.S. government personnel changes are dominating the news this week. Possibly slipping under the radar for many is the pivotal, pending nomination of Lt. Gen. Paul Nakasone to head…
News , Rosemary Award
Edited by Nate Jones, Lauren Harper, and Tom Blanton
For further information, contact 202.994.7000
Washington, D.C., March 12, 2018 - The Secret Service and the White House have emerged as the dubious winners from the hard-fought competition for the National Security Archive’s infamous Rosemary…
Unredacted blog
New FOIA.gov for Sunshine Week The Justice Department just launched the new FOIA.gov to inaugurate Sunshine Week – the national celebration of open government and freedom of information.…
News , FOIA Audit
Audit compiled and written by Lauren Harper, Nate Jones, and Tom Blanton
Web publication by Rinat Bikineyev
For more information, contact Lauren Harper, Nate Jones, or Tom Blanton at 202.994.7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, March 8, 2018 – Two out of five federal agencies claimed that they were either unable or not required to respond to a targeted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
The encryption debate pitting concerns of privacy and civil rights against concerns of law enforcement and national security has grown in significance in recent years. Today’s posting provides a…
Unredacted blog
Just over a year ago, a Freedom of Information Act release by the National Park Service demonstrably proved that the President of the United States was lying about the size of his inauguration crowd…
Briefing Book 619
Edited by Malcolm Byrne and Mark Gasiorowski
For more information contact:
Malcolm Byrne, 202/994-7000 or mbyrne@gwu.edu
Mark Gasiorowski, gasiorowski@tulane.edu
Recently declassified British and CIA documents provide new evidence on the Iran 1953 coup including on the role of Iranian clerics
Unredacted blog
Agencies Still Trying to Weaken the FOIA Federal agencies are still trying to restrict access to information and weaken the Freedom of Information Act in a variety of ways. With Sunshine Week – the…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
While election interference using the information space continues to demand attention, today’s posting examines questions related to the security of election systems themselves.
New to the Cyber…
Unredacted blog
Federal Response to Hawaii Missile False Alert Emails released through the FOIA give a detailed look at how the military responded to the false alert – sent by a Hawaii state official unaware…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
On Friday February 16th, 2018 the United States Justice Department indicted three organizations and thirteen Russian individuals for Conspiracy to Defraud the United States and Conspiracy to Commit…
Unredacted blog
By Jeffrey Kimball and William Burr On July 25, 1969, CIA Director Richard Helms notified Henry Kissinger about a “sensitive” report from an informant regarding remarks South Vietnamese President…
Unredacted blog
NARA OK’s CIA’s Damaging Records Retention Schedule The National Archives and Records Administration formally approved a CIA records retention schedule that allows the agency to destroy information…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
With Russian election hacking still in the news, today’s posting features a recent Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service publication that includes an in-depth analysis of Russia's strategy for using…
Briefing Book 618
Edited by Danielle Siegel and Malcolm Byrne
For further information, contact: Malcolm Byrne, 202/994–7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., February 12, 2018 – A partially-declassified CIA history of the 1953 coup in Iran, released in late 2017, includes an-depth critique of how the agency approached the operation,…
Unredacted blog
9th Circuit Finds FBI Can Withhold Information on Surveillance of Muslim Communities The Ninth Circuit Court ruled last week that the FBI does not have to release thousands of pages of documents in…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
The January 2018 publication of a draft of the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) has raised questions about modern concepts of deterrence and the potential link between cyber and…
Briefing Book 617
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact William Burr: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
US Government preoccupation with West German nuclear potential contributed to US nonproliferation policy in 1950s and 1960s
Unredacted blog
From Otis Pike to Devin Nunes – Vastly Different Goals Drove Congressional Efforts to Release Secrets If you’ve been watching television, YouTube, listening to radio, streaming on your monitor…
Unredacted blog
FOIA Shows Concern at HUD that Carson was Flouting Ethics Rules A FOIA request by the Washington Post won the release of a two-page memo voicing concerns from the Department of Housing and Urban…
News
After a six-year fight with the Department of Defense, the researchers at the National Security Archive obtained thousands of memos written by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. NPR's Kelly…
Briefing Book 616
Edited by James E. David
For more information, contact: James E. David at davidjj@si.edu
or The National Security Archive at: 202-994-7000, nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., January 31, 2018 – Like so many treasure hunters, beachcombers, and curio shoppers, U.S. military and intelligence operatives have for decades scoured the planet for access to…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
This report assesses the impact of multiple emerging technologies including advanced networking, quantum computing, autonomous learning, virtual/augmented reality, biometric identification and…
Unredacted blog
Rumsfeld Snowflakes Come in From the Cold On February 27, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told Deputy Secretary Rudy de Leon that “The word ‘homeland’ is a strange word. ‘Homeland’…
News
Edited by Michael Martelle
Cyberspace strategy for Strategic Command
Briefing Book 615
Edited by Nate Jones
Washington D.C., January 24, 2018 - On the day before September 11, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld believed the gravest threat to American national security was Pentagon bureaucracy…
Unredacted blog
Federal Judge Hears Oral Arguments in Presidential Records Act Case Targeting Disappearing Messaging Apps Lawyers for the National Security Archive and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in…
Unredacted blog
Enrico Fermi was the first to create a nuclear chain reaction. He also coined what is now known as Fermi’s Paradox, a question asking, essentially: If, on the grand scale, the probability of…
News
By James G. Blight and janet M. Lang
Department of History
Balsillie School of International Affairs
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Washington, D.C., January 11, 2018 - A new book by long-time colleagues of the National Security Archive, James G. Blight and janet M. Lang, offers a fresh exploration of the 1962 Cuban missile…
Unredacted blog
Officials at State Dept. Joke FOIA Office is ‘Siberia’ “The FOIA office was always the punch line of a joke around here, as in: ‘They’ll send me to the FOIA office,’” this, according to State…
Unredacted blog
Last year, the National Archives and Records Administration approved an outrageous request by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). According to the National Archives Request for Records…
Unredacted blog
Summits Book Wins Choice Award “Outstanding Academic Title 2017” The journal of the Association of College and Research Libraries, Choice magazine, has picked the National Security Archive’…
News
For more information, contact:
Tom Blanton or Svetlana Savranskaya
nsarchiv@gwu.edu, 202 / 994-7000
Washington D.C., January 4, 2018 – The journal of the Association of College and Research Libraries, Choice magazine, has picked the Archive’s most recent book, by Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas…
News
Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton
Washington, D.C., December 20, 2017 – The National Security Archive mourns the passing this week of our dear friend, colleague, and inspirational partner Arseny Borisovich Roginsky, a founder…
Briefing Book 614
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington D.C., December 15, 2017 - With the approach of the 3rd anniversary of “17-D”—the iconic date of December 17, 2014, when President Barack Obama and President Raul Castro made…
Unredacted blog
Video Won Through FOIA Shows AG Sessions Spar with DOJ Interns Over Marijuana, Gun Control A video obtained by ABC News through the FOIA shows Attorney General Jeff Sessions taking pointed questions…
Briefing Book 613
Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
Western leaders gave multiple assurances against NATO expansion to Gorbachev in 1990-1991 according to declassified American, Russian, British, Germans documents
Unredacted blog
This article originally appeared in Bloomberg. A Q&A with Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, on the historical value of Hillary Clinton’s emails, the sins of Julian…
Briefing Book 612
Edited by Robert A Wampler, PhD
For more information contact: Robert A. Wampler, 202/994-7000 or wampler@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., December 8, 2017 – The Clinton administration made plans for war against North Korea during the 1994 nuclear crisis. While U.S. officials believed they could “undoubtedly win…
Unredacted blog
Foreseeable Harm Standard Tested in Court The Ecological Rights Foundation is suing the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the U.S. District Court of Northern California in what may be the first…
Unredacted blog
This posting originally appeared on the Society for U.S. Intellectual History’s blog. George F. Kennan, cherished State Department diplomat to the Soviet Union and father of the American doctrine of…
Briefing Book 611
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact William Burr: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., November 30, 2017 – U.S. presidents sometimes made nuclear threats in the course of Cold War crises and confrontations, but powerful social norms – not just military…
Unredacted blog
Border Wall Plans in Texas would Disrupt Retirement Community, Wildlife Preserves A FOIA request from the Sierra Club’s borderlands team won the release of documents, which were then shared with the…
News
Washington, D.C., November 14, 2017 – The National Security Archive mourns the passing of our most senior fellow, Dr. Jeffrey T. Richelson, prolific Freedom of Information Act requester and…
Unredacted blog
This post originally appeared on The Wilson Center’s blog, Sources and Methods. The archives of Ukraine are open and they are filled with former Soviet secrets. Anyone conducting research on…
Unredacted blog
Anemic FBI Crime Report Published in Consultation with Public Affairs, not Advisory Board FiveThirtyEight has an excellent article on the FBI’s 2016 Crime in the United States report – “a collection…
Briefing Book 610
Edited by Robert A Wampler, PhD
For more information contact: Robert A. Wampler, 202/994-7000 or wampler@gwu.edu
George H.W. Bush chose diplomacy over military force in dealing with North Korean nuclear crisis in early 1990s, as U.S. balanced relations with allies and China
Unredacted blog
As President Trump hopscotches across East Asia hoping to develop a viable strategy on North Korean nukes with the regional powers, newly posted declassified documents from the George H.W. Bush…
Special Exhibit
Malcolm
Over the years, we've seen countless cases of a government agency or official refusing to declassify a document on national security grounds, only to find out it's already been safely released…
Unredacted blog
DOJ OIP Head Implies New FOIA Portal will be “Better than the Letter of the Law” The FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 mandates the creation of a “consolidated online request portal that allows a member…
Briefing Book 609
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact William Burr: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Declassified documents describe founding of IAEA including US demand for leadership role plus safeguards system and deep Soviet skepticism over agency effectiveness
Briefing Book 608
Edited by John Prados
For More Information Contact:
John Prados,
202/994 – 7000
US dropped prosecution of Chicago Tribune for espionage during World War II for leaking that US Navy knew about Japanese plans to attack Midway Island
FOIA Federal Advisory Committee Highlights Email Preservation, FOIA Searches: FRINFORMSUM 10/19/2017
Unredacted blog
FOIA Federal Advisory Committee Highlights Email Preservation, FOIA Searches The Federal FOIA Advisory Committee met today (video available here and other resources here), with updates from the…
Briefing Book 607
Edited by Brad Simpson, Founder and Director of the Indonesia and East Timor Documentation Project, Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies, University of Connecticut
For further information, contact: 609-751-8206
U.S. government knew Indonesian Army was engaged in mass murder against Communists starting in 1965; U.S. supported suppression of left-leaning labor movement
Briefing Book 606
Edited by William Burr and Peter Kornbluh
For more information contact: Peter Kornbluh, peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
The United States planned for the military occupation of Cuba in 1962 with a temporary American military governor in charge, according to newly declassified documents
Unredacted blog
ICE FOIA Library Still Down U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement took down its FOIA library on October 3 “for review” – and has yet to reactivate the site. MuckRock’s Emma Best drew…
Unredacted blog
FOIA Details Pruitt’s Deep Industry Ties, Costly Security Detail A FOIA request from American Oversight has won the “most detailed look” to date at Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief…
News
Edited by Lauren Harper
For further information, contact 202.994.7000
“There is no system for keeping track of Presidential visitors at Mar-a-Lago,” according to the government’s October 4, 2017, court filing in response to a National Security Archive Freedom of…
News
for further information contact: nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., October 2, 2017 - The National Security Archive's senior analyst, Peter Kornbluh, has been inducted into "the order of Bernardo O'Higgins." Chile's Ambassador Juan Gabriel…
Unredacted blog
FOIA Shows Immigration Judges Reassigned to Border Lack Work While Backlog Grows at Home A FOIA request to the Justice Department’s Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) shows that a Trump…
Briefing Book 605
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact William Burr: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., September 25, 2017 – The National Security Agency’s (NSA) own official history conflated two different constitutionally "questionable practices" involving surveillance of U.S.…
Unredacted blog
Congress Surreptitiously Undermines FOIA Congress is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and members of congress are under no obligation to make their records public. But…
Briefing Book 604
Edited by Lauren Harper and Tom Blanton
For further information, contact 202.994.7000
Washington, D.C., September 15, 2017 - The Department of Homeland Security today released exactly two pages of Mar-a-Lago presidential visitor records in response to a Freedom of Information Act (…
Unredacted blog
FOIA Request Helps Show What Steps NGA Taking to Reduce Overclassification The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is going beyond the Executive Order on classification to improve the…
Briefing Book 603
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
(with assistance from Jackson duPont)
for further information contact: peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington D.C., September 11, 2017 - Forty-four years after the U.S. - supported military coup, the Santiago Museum of Memory and Human Rights has inaugurated a special exhibit of declassified…
News
Edited by Lauren Harper and Tom Blanton
For more information, contact Lauren Harper or Tom Blanton 202.994.7000
The widely anticipated release of Mar-a-Lago visitor records for President Trump’s first six weeks in office has been delayed until noon on Friday, September 15, at the request of the…
Unredacted blog
Tomorrow Deadline for Mar-a-Lago Records Release Tomorrow is the deadline for the Department of Homeland Security to release all responsive, non-exempt records of presidential visits to Mar-a-Lago in…
Unredacted blog
Will ‘Still Interested’ Letters Surge as End of FY 2017 Approaches? The Office of Government Information Services has a timely blog on the use of “still interested” letters, reminding agencies of the…
Briefing Book 602
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact William Burr: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Officials in 1960s Sought Studies of “Longer-term Consequences of Nuclear Attacks on the Health of People or on Their Living Environment”
Unredacted blog
FOIA Helps Show How Conservative TV Giant Could Find its Way Into 7 out of 10 Homes FOIA requests to the Federal Communications Commission won the release of hundreds of pages of documents showing…
Unredacted blog
The Department of Defense and military agencies use the foreign policy exemption in Executive Order 13526 to deny or heavily excise documents that are well over 50 years old. According to…
Unredacted blog
Federally-Funded Private Prisons Should be Subject to FOIA The National Security Archive joined a large coalition of open government groups calling for the passage of legislation that would apply…
Briefing Book 601
Edited by Malcolm Byrne and Mark Gasiorowski
For more information contact: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., August 8, 2017 – The British Foreign Office approached the Truman administration on more than one occasion in late 1952 to propose a coup to overthrow Iranian Prime Minister…
Unredacted blog
To commemorate the anniversary of the atomic bombings of Japan in August 1945, the Nuclear Vault is adding two documents to the posting: The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II: A Collection of…
Unredacted blog
CBP Response to Travel Ban Under Renewed Scrutiny Thanks to FOIA Request Documents released through the FOIA confirm that the agency ordered its employees to stonewall members of Congress and lawyers…
Unredacted blog
FCC Says No Written Documentation on Claimed DDoS Attack that Crashed Public Comments System during Net Neutrality Controversy The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is in Unredacted’s hot seat…
Unredacted blog
CIA Overclassification Jeopardizes Hmong Veterans’ Fight for Military Burial Journalist James Eli Shiffer has a must-read piece in the Minneapolis StarTribune on Hmong veterans who fought for the…
Briefing Book 600
Edited by William Burr with Susan Gillett
For more information contact William Burr: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., July 20, 2017 – During a frank conversation with Washington Post reporter Murrey Marder in early 1967, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey said that “he is no longer sure he was…
Unredacted blog
The CIA is positioned to begin destroying a large number of potentially important documents, including classified information related to the Agency’s official actions abroad, investigative files from…
Briefing Book 599
Edited by Lauren Harper and Tom Blanton
For further information, contact: 202.994.7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., July 17, 2017 – The Department of Homeland Security will release the visitor logs for President Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort by September 8, according to a court order filed…
Unredacted blog
This article was originally published by the Atlantic Council. Sixty-four years on, the effects of the 1953 coup in Iran continue to resonate inside Iran and outside. Last month, the State…
Unredacted blog
Trump’s Deregulation Teams Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, interviews, and public records helped The New York Times and ProPublica identify 71 appointees to the Trump administration’s…
Unredacted blog
A blistering 2008 Central Intelligence Agency legal settlement of $350,000 to the National Security Archive’s pro bono lawyers, paid after losing a Freedom of Information Act case, led to the…
Unredacted blog
FOIA at 51 The Freedom of Information Act turned 51 this July 4, and the public is still fighting tooth-and-nail for its right to know decades after the law went into effect. This calendar year alone…
Unredacted blog
Public Access to CRS Reports Public access to Congressional Research Service reports is mandated in the House’s Legislative Branch Appropriations Committee bill for 2018, which passed out of…
Unredacted blog
Survey results analyzed in a Secret December 20, 2012, FBI Counterterrorism Division report shed some light on the Bureau’s insights about homegrown violent extremists. The report, released to the…
Unredacted blog
Drastic Cuts Coming to State’s FOIA Shop The State Department’s FOIA shop, which is heavily reliant on Limited Non-Career Appointment (LNA) Foreign Service Officers with decades of experience in…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Archive, working with our partners at ProQuest, is publishing a new compilation of documents on the Iraq war, one of the most consequential events in recent history—for the…
Unredacted blog
The U.S. Military History Group awarded Nixon’s Nuclear Specter: The Secret Alert of 1969, Madman Diplomacy, and the Vietnam War, with an Honorable Mention for the 2016 Captain Richard…
Unredacted blog
When gunmen shot and killed Mexican columnist, investigative reporter, and author Javier Valdez Cárdenas in Culiacán, Sinaloa on May 15, a chill went through newsrooms everywhere. Not only was he the…
Briefing Book 598
Edited by Malcolm Byrne
For further information, contact: Malcolm Byrne, 202/994–7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., June 15, 2017 – The State Department today released a long-awaited “retrospective” volume of declassified U.S. government documents on the 1953 coup in Iran, including records…
Unredacted blog
DOD Trying to Expand FOIA Exemptions for Third Year in a Row The Defense Department is seeking – for the third time in three years – a new FOIA exemption that, if approved, would allow the agency to…
Unredacted blog
Now is the Time for Archivist to Call the Torture Report a Federal Record The Trump Administration reportedly is returning copies of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the…
Unredacted blog
The Trump Administration reportedly is returning copies of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s torture program to Congress. The pernicious move, which would effectively hide the…
Briefing Book 596
Edited by John Prados and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi
For further information, contact: John Prados, 202/994–7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., June 2, 2017 – The Ford administration came close to igniting a constitutional showdown with Congress more than 40 years ago over demands by a House panel known as the Pike…
Briefing Book 595
Edited by Robert A. Wampler, PhDFor more information contact: Robert A. Wampler, 202/994-7000 or wampler@gwu.edu
U.S.-ROK Relations during the Carter Years Faltered over Troop Withdrawals, Human Rights, an Assassination, and a Coup.
Unredacted blog
Pollard’s Parole Restrictions Will Not be Laxed A federal appeals court rejected Jonathan Pollard’s petition to ease his parole requirements and reasserted that it acted within its rights to require…
Unredacted blog
This post was originally published by The Wilson Center. How a lunch in Rio de Janeiro confirmed a US diplomat’s hunches about Brazilian nuclear weapons research The history of nuclear…
Unredacted blog
SCOTUS Won’t Hear Mugshots Case, Keeping Federal Mugshots Secret The Supreme Court left a July 2016 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which says that federal mugshots don’t need to be…
Briefing Book 594
Translated by Anna Melyakova
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya
For more information, call or email: 202.994.7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., May 25, 2017 –The National Security Archive marks what would have been Anatoly Sergeyevich Chernyaev’s 96th birthday today with the publication for the first time in English of…
News
In recognition of the extraordinary challenges facing Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, the National Security Archive took out this full-page advertisement in The New York Review…
Briefing Book 593
Edited by Michael Evans
Research assistance by Emily Taylor and Julian Moreno
This is the fourth and final article in a series published by the National Security Archive in collaboration with VerdadAbierta.com
For further information, contact: mevans@email.gwu.edu Twitter: @colombiadocs
Washington, D.C., May 18, 2017 – The National Security Archive’s Chiquita Papers collection represents key evidence behind a “communication” calling on the International Criminal Court…
Briefing Book 592
Edited by Tatiana Navarrete, Michael Evans y Juan Diego Restrepo E.
Research assistance: Emily Taylor
For further information, contact: mevans@email.gwu.edu Twitter: @colombiadocs
The FARC, the ELN, and to a lesser extent, the EPL, along with their dissident offshoots and political allies all profited from Chiquita’s security payments. Newly declassified documents on this…
Briefing Book 591
Edited by Dr. Ronald D. Landa
Introduced by Malcolm Byrne
For more information: nsarchiv@gwu.edu, 202.994.7000
Washington D.C., May 10, 2017 – The United States’ cautious response to the unexpectedly powerful popular uprising in Hungary in 1956 grew out of the Eisenhower administration’s policy of “…
Unredacted blog
By Michael Martelle A FOIA request filed by the National Security Archive’s Intelligence Analyst, Dr. Jeffrey Richelson, has won the partial release of documents on the US’s cyber offensive against…
Unredacted blog
Anonymous Phone Call Threatens Violence if Bankruptcy Lawyer Keeps Bothering Trump; FBI “Inadvertently” Claims Call Investigation Still Ongoing in Response to Records Request FOIA releases from the…
Unredacted blog
Newly declassified documents demonstrate the continuing haphazard application of United States secrecy regulations. The progress of declassification remains a one step forward-two steps back dance,…
Briefing Book 590
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson
For more information, contact: 202-994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., May 3, 2017 – A Rand Corporation 1967 paper predicted many of the cyber dilemmas faced by policy makers today, and a 2017 expanded analysis of the “GRIZZLY STEPPE” hacking by…
Briefing Book 589
Edited by Michael Evans
For further information, contact: mevans@email.gwu.edu Twitter: @colombiadocs
Washington, D.C., May 2, 2017 – Chiquita’s Colombia-based staff questioned the company’s payments to illegal armed groups, and asked whether Chiquita had gone beyond extortion and was directly…
Briefing Book 588
Edited by Carlos Osorio
For further information, contact Carlos Osorio: cosorio@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., April 27, 2017 – The infamous Southern Cone collaboration known as “Operation Condor” considered establishing “field offices” in the United States and Europe, and Condor members…
Unredacted blog
The CIA’s Homosexual Investigations In 1980, the same year the Democratic Party endorsed a gay-rights platform, the CIA issued a three-page memo on how to “ferret out” homosexuals during…
Briefing Book 587
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
For further information, contact: peter.kornbluh@gmail.com and 202.994.7000
Washington, D.C., April 25, 2017 – Media mogul Agustin Edwards Eastman, who was widely regarded as the Rupert Murdoch of Chile, died on April 24, at age 89, leaving a legacy of close collaboration…
Briefing Book 586
Edited by Michael EvansFor further information, contact: mevans@email.gwu.edu Twitter: @colombiadocs
Washington, D.C., April 24, 2017 - Ten years ago, Chiquita Brands International became the first U.S.-based corporation convicted of violating a U.S. law against funding an international terrorist…
Unredacted blog
Deported DREAMer Files FOIA Suit for Info; Kelly Tells DHS Critics to “Shut Up” And Assume Agency Following Law Juan Manuel Montes, 23, was brought to the United States from Mexico by his parents 14…
Unredacted blog
Below are the National Security Archive’s comments on the Office of Government Information Services’ (OGIS) reviews and reports, submitted in anticipation of OGIS’s public meeting, tomorrow, 4/20, at…
Unredacted blog
FOIA requesters who relied on lists of classified directives published by both the Defense Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to know what documents to file FOIA requests for may now be…
Unredacted blog
The Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP) has justifiably acquired a good reputation for its fairness in making final decisions on mandatory declassification review (MDR) appeals…
Briefing Book 585
Edited by Lauren Harper and Tom Blanton
For further information, contact: 202.994.7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., April 14, 2017 – The Trump White House announced today it would no longer disclose the routine visitor logs maintained by the Secret Service and published online by the…
Unredacted blog
Trump Visitor Logs Lawsuit The National Security Archive, together with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW…
Briefing Book 584
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact
William Burr: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., April 12, 2017 – The Ford administration had to use a combination of approaches to keep South Korea’s Park dictatorship from going forward with a suspected nuclear weapons program…
Briefing Book 583
Edited by Lauren Harper, Nate Jones, and Tom Blanton
For further information, contact: 202.994.7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., April 10, 2017 – The National Security Archive, together with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in…
Unredacted blog
Australia Fears FOI Release would “Educate…Potentially Illegal Immigrants” An Australian FOI request and subsequent court case has won the release of documents on “Australia’s asylum seeker turnback…
Unredacted blog
The following was published in Survival: Global Politics and Strategy (Vol 59 No 2). War Scare Sir, In ‘Able Archer 83: What Were the Soviets Thinking’ (Survival, vol. 58, no. 6, December 2016–…
Unredacted blog
By Swetha Kareti, Nate Jones, and Sean Moulton Download the PDF version of this report here. The National Security Archive and the Project on Government Oversight developed and circulated an…
Unredacted blog
Court Says FOIA’s Exemption 5 Protections for “Inter-Agency” Communications Don’t Apply to Foreign Agencies The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FOIA’s Exemption 5 – the oft-abused “…
Briefing Book 582
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact
William Burr: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., March 22, 2017 – President Park Chung-hee reportedly instructed South Korean scientists to build nuclear bombs by 1977, according to a secret report to Secretary of State Henry…
Unredacted blog
Houston, We Have a Problem if 3 out of 5 Agencies Ignore New FOIA Law Three out of five of all federal agencies are flouting the new law that improved the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and…
Unredacted blog
This posting initially appeared in Volume 49 of NACLA Report on the Americas. Poet, musician, theater director, teacher, and activist, Víctor Jara was the creative heart of the movement in…
News
Washington, D.C., March 13, 2017 – The National Security Archive mourns the passing of our dear friend, mentor, inspiration, and colleague, Anatoly Chernyaev, in Moscow at the age of 95.
Anatoly…
News , FOIA Audit
Audit compiled and written by Lauren Harper, Nate Jones, and Tom Blanton
Web publication by Rinat Bikineyev
For more information, contact Lauren Harper, Nate Jones, or Tom Blanton at 202.994.7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, March 11, 2017 – Three out of five of all federal agencies are flouting the new law that improved the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and required them to update their FOIA…
Unredacted blog
ProPublica Uses FOIA to Win List of 100s of Trump Hires FOIA requests from ProPublica have, along with a list of names provided by the Office of Personnel Management, won…
Unredacted blog
Body Cam Footage Won through FOIA Shows Tucson Police Shoving 86-Year-Old Woman to Ground at Immigration Protest Police body camera footage obtained from a FOIA request submitted by Tucson News Now…
Briefing Book 581
Edited by Dr. Ronald D. Landa
For more information: nsarchiv@gwu.edu, 202.994.7000
Washington, D.C. February 28, 2017 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower ruled out military intervention in Eastern Europe early in his administration, despite campaign rhetoric about rolling back world…
Unredacted blog
FOIA Request Reveals Anwar al-Awlaki’s Role in Failed 2009 Bombing A federal judge’s order that the FBI conduct a line-by-line review of documents on radicalized American imam Anwar al-Awlaki’s role…
Unredacted blog
Scottish FOI Releases Shed Light on Local Law Enforcement Dealings with Trump Team Scottish police have released 49 documents in response to FOI requests on “its dealings with Trump…
Briefing Book 580
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact
William Burr: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C. February 15, 2017 – The Air Force chief of staff told the Joint Chiefs at a September 1971 meeting that in a nuclear war the United States “could lose two hundred million people…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Archive and the Project on Government Oversight are distributing a survey for both FOIA processors and FOIA requesters on how agencies conduct searches. The goal of the…
Unredacted blog
Air Force lieutenant general and director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Leonard H. Perroots has died. I first learned of Perroots while reading the declassified President’s Foreign…
Unredacted blog
Regulations Undercut OGIS’ Role as Go-To FOIA Experts The Office of Government Information Services has published a proposed rule change to its regulations in the Federal Register. A part of its…
Unredacted blog
By Swetha Kareti, @swethak13 The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is the only cabinet level agency that was able to meet President Obama’s 2009 instruction to …
Unredacted blog
Missile Defenses Then and Now A declassified Strategic Air Command History from 1968, recently cited in former SAC commander-in-chief Lee Butler’s memoirs, sheds light on the role of anti-ballistic…
Briefing Book 579
Edited by Dr. Ronald D. Landa
For more information: nsarchiv@gwu.edu, 202.994.7000
Washington, D.C. February 7, 2017 – CIA covert aid to Italy continued well after the agency’s involvement in the 1948 elections – into the early 1960s – averaging around $5 million a year,…
Unredacted blog
DHS IG to Investigate Implementation of Executive Order on Immigration The Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General, heeding requests from Illinois senators Tammy…
Unredacted blog
DOJ’s Pustay Refuses to Answer Questions During 2017’s First FOIA Advisory Committee Meeting The FOIA Federal Advisory Committee held its first meeting of 2017 today. Chaired by the Office of…
Briefing Book 578
Edited by Tom Blanton and Svetlana Savranskaya
For more information: nsarchiv@gwu.edu, 202.994.7000
Washington D.C., January 23, 2017 – The historic summit meetings between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and two U.S. presidents, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, built an intensive learning…
Condor Verdict In, FOIA Requests to the FCC Just Got More Difficult, and More: FRINFORMSUM 1/19/2017
Unredacted blog
Operation Condor Verdict – Life Imprisonment This week a tribunal in Rome sentenced two former heads of state and two ex-chiefs of security forces from Bolivia and Peru, as well as a…
Briefing Book 577
Edited by Carlos Osorio
For further information contact Carlos Osorio: cosorio@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., January 17, 2017 – A tribunal in Rome, Italy, today sentenced two former heads of state and two ex-chiefs of security forces from Bolivia and Peru, and a former…
Unredacted blog
Dos Erres Arrest in Maryland Federal agents arrested 54-year-old Jose Mardoqueo Ortiz Morales in Maryland last week for suspected involvement in the Guatemalan Special Forces brutal murder of more…
Unredacted blog
This a version of this article originally appeared in The Federalist, Newsletter of the Society for History in the Federal Government. The Presidential Records Act of 1978 (PRA) established that…
Unredacted blog
DOJ Updates FOIA Regulations The Justice Department updated its FOIA regulations in accordance with the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, which was signed into law by President Obama on June 30, 2016,…
Briefing Book 576
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton
Washington, D.C., December 25, 2016 – On Christmas Day 25 years ago, the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, stepped down and the hammer-and-sickle flags over the Kremlin were…
Briefing Book 573
Edited by Tom Blanton and Svetlana Savranskaya
For more information: nsarchiv@gwu.edu, 202.994.7000
Washington D.C., December 18, 2016 – Previously secret transcripts of the summit meetings between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev from 1985 to 1988, and then George H.W. Bush with Gorbachev from…
Briefing Book 575
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact
William Burr: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Ronald Reagan and Nuclear War: The SIOP Briefing and IVY LEAGUE 82*
Briefing Book 574
Edited by James E. David
For more information, contact:
James E. David, davidj@si.edu or
The National Security Archive 202/994-7000, nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., December 20, 2016 – Soviet missile and space programs were among the most frequent topics briefed to the president of the United States by U.S. intelligence during the…
Unredacted blog
Today, Colombians mark 25 years of impunity for members of the police implicated in the December 16, 1991, killing of 20 members of the Colombian Nasa-Paez indigenous group in the…
Book By Svetlana Savranskya and Thomas Blanton
“[T]his book offers the reader an exceptional chance to be ‘a fly on the wall’ at U.S.-Soviet summits ... This is exciting reading and a real textbook on the skill of statesmanship for new…
Unredacted blog
Release to One, Release to All – Law Enforcement Carve-out Citing Mosaic Theory a Slippery Slope The Department of Justice is seeking comments on the “Release to One, Release to All” policy prepared…
Briefing Book 572
Edited by Carlos Osorio and Peter Kornbluh
For further information, contact:
Carlos Osorio: cosorio@gwu.edu
Peter Kornbluh:
peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington D.C., December 14, 2016 - Operation Condor, the trans-border, multinational effort by Southern Cone secret police services to track down and “liquidate” opponents of their regimes in…
Unredacted blog
The Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation (FAFG) has confirmed the identification of one of the victims associated with the notorious “Death Squad Diary,” or Diario Militar, a Guatemalan…
Briefing Book 571
Edited by Tom Blanton and Svetlana Savranskaya
For further information, contact:
Svetlana Savranskaya: 202.994.7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., December 12, 2016 – Newly declassified documents show that the risk of nuclear proliferation at the end of the Soviet Union in 1991 was even greater than publicly known at the…
Unredacted blog
Untrustworthy Elections A 2007 Ohio Secretary of State review to assess the security of electronic voting systems used in the state discovered that “all of the studied systems possess critical…
Unredacted blog
This morning the Archive’s Executive Director, Tom Blanton, is testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for its hearing on “Examining the Costs of Over-…
Unredacted blog
These comments will be presented to the Public Interest Declassification Board for its December 8 meeting and were initially published on the PIDB’s blog, Transforming Classification.…
Briefing Book 569
Edited by Nate Jones
Washington, D.C., December 6, 2016 – On November 9, 1983, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization launched a nuclear war against its nemesis, the Warsaw Pact, after NATO military commanders…
Briefing Book 570
Edited by William Burr and Avner Cohen
For more information contact
William Burr: 202/994-7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Anver Cohen: 831/647-6437 (office) and 202/489-6282 (cell)
Washington, D.C., December 8, 2016 - A CIA-sponsored panel of well-respected scientists concluded that a mysterious flash detected by a U.S. Vela satellite over the South Atlantic on the…
Unredacted blog
Chiquita Terrorist Funding A federal judge in Florida ruled that “victims of Colombian paramilitary death squads funded by Chiquita” have a right to have their case heard in the United States rather…
Briefing Book 568
Edited by Lauren Harper
For further information, contact: 202.994.7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., December 2, 2016 – 250 years ago today, two centuries before the United States enacted the Freedom of Information Act, the Swedish Parliament passed the Ordinance on Freedom of…
Briefing Book 567
Edited by Malcolm Byrne
For further information, contact: 202.994.7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., November 25, 2016 – Exactly thirty years ago, President Ronald Reagan announced to the nation – after weeks of denials – that members of his White House staff had engaged in a web…
Unredacted blog
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) released just three lines of unredacted text in response to the National Security Archive’s FOIA request for information on a phone surveillance program the…
Unredacted blog
Transparency and Donald Trump In the nine days since Donald Trump won the presidential election reports have surfaced that he considered seeking top secret clearances for his three oldest children,…
Briefing Book 566
Edited by Corina Snitar
For further information, contact: 202.994.7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
The first sign of the long-suppressed dissatisfaction of the Hungarian people with a repressive and an economically inefficient regime appeared on October 6, 1956, at the ceremonial reburial of Laslo…
Unredacted blog
CIA Decennial Review – No New Categories Removed from Swath of Operational Files The CIA likely did not take the opportunity during its third decennial review to remove any categories of records from…
Unredacted blog
The National Security Archive, working with our partners at ProQuest, just published a new compilation of documents on the President’s Daily Briefs (PDBs) from the Kennedy and Johnson…
Unredacted blog
CIA Forced to Release Bay of Pigs History Agency Once Said Would “Confuse the Public” if Declassified “After more than twenty years, it appears that fear of exposing the Agency’s dirty linen, rather…
Briefing Book 565
Edited by
Roger J. Mattson, Avner Cohen, and William Burr, editors, Israeli Nuclear History Series
For more information contact
Roger Mattson: rdmattson@gmail.com
William Burr: 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu.
The NUMEC Affair: Did Highly Enriched Uranium from the U.S. Aid Israel's Nuclear Weapons Program?
Document collection and introduction by Roger J. Mattson, PhD
Unredacted blog
“Able Archer 83: The Secret History of the NATO Exercise That Almost Triggered Nuclear War,” Nate Jones’s new book on how the United States “may have inadvertently placed our relations with the…
Book By Nate Jones
Briefing Book 564
Compiled and edited by Lauren Harper and Thomas Blanton
For further information, contact:
Thomas Blanton: 202.994.7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C. October 31, 2016 - The CIA today released the long-contested Volume V of its official history of the Bay of Pigs invasion, which it had successfully concealed until…
Unredacted blog
508 Should Not Be Distorted to Undermine FOIA This week an expert panel comprised of representatives from the Access Board and the General Services Administration addressed the FOIA Advisory…
Unredacted blog
Archive FOIA Project Director and author of the new book, Able Archer 83: The Secret History of the NATO Exercise That Almost Triggered Nuclear War, Nate Jones, recently presented the four key…
Unredacted blog
Good FOIA Fee Guidance from OIP The Department of Justice Office of Information Policy (OIP) has issued good FOIA fee guidance that clearly lays out for agencies the limitations the FOIA Improvement…
Unredacted blog
Recently the National Archives sent the National Security Archive a decision letter on a Freedom of Information Act request that the present author filed in 1994. It might not be the Archive’s…
Unredacted blog
On July 15, 1969, Honduran radio networks, using the country’s recent World Cup qualifier loss to El Salvador as pretext for violence, encouraged listeners “to grab machetes or other weapons and move…
Unredacted blog
It is past time for the State Department to release its Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) volume on the 1953 Iran Coup. Malcolm Byrne – the National Security Archive’s Deputy Director and…
Briefing Book 563
Compiled and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton
Research assistance from Tal Solovey and Nadezhda Smakhtina
Web design by Rinat Bikineyev
For further information, contact:
Svetlana Savranskaya: 202.994.7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C. October 12, 2016 – Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s radical proposal in January 1986 to abolish nuclear weapons by the year 2000 met with derision on the part of many U.S. officials…
Briefing Book 562
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya
For further information, contact:
Svetlana Savranskaya: 202.994.7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., October 7, 2016 -Thirty years ago, a Soviet nuclear submarine with about 30 nuclear warheads on board sank off U.S. shores north of Bermuda as Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan…
Unredacted blog
The CIA has changed its rules for access to classified historical CIA records three times since 2011. Two changes, from September 2011 and August 2016, concern 32 CFR Part 1909’s rules governing…
Briefing Book 202
Updated
Edited by Peter Kornbluh and Yvette White
For further information, contact:
Peter Kornbluh: 202.374.7281 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., October 6, 2016 - On the 40th anniversary of the mid-air terrorist bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner over the Caribbean, the National Security Archive today called…
Briefing Book 561
Compiled and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton
Research assistance by Tal Solovey and Nadezhda Smakhtina
Additional documentation provided by William Burr
Web design by Rinat Bikineyev
For further information, contact:
Svetlana Savranskaya: 202.994.7000 and nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., September 30, 2016 – The unilateral nuclear withdrawals announced by President George H.W. Bush 25 years ago this week drew an eager response from Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev…
Unredacted blog
News
Edited by Lauren Harper and Tom Blanton
Design by Rinat Bikineyev
For more information, contact Lauren Harper, 202.994.7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
FreedomInfo.org, the National Security Archive’s sister site that is a one-stop portal for RTK developments around the world, has an extended list of this year’s RTK success stories here.
There are…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 560
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
For further information, contact:
Peter Kornbluh: 202-374-7281 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington D.C., September 23, 2016 – A CIA special intelligence assessment in 1987 concluded that Chilean General Augusto Pinochet ordered an “act of state terrorism” on the streets of Washington, D…
Briefing Book 559
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact:
William Burr at 202/994-7000 ornsarchiv@gwu.edu.
Washington D.C., September 14, 2016 - President Richard Nixon may never have even read the President’s Daily Briefs partially declassified and released by the CIA with great fanfare on August 24…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 558
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
For further information, contact:
Peter Kornbluh: 202-374-7281 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington D.C., September 9, 2016 – Forty-three years after the U.S.-supported military coup in Chile, the Central Intelligence Agency continues to withhold information on what it knew about…
Unredacted blog
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 557
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact:
William Burr at 202/994-7000 ornsarchiv@gwu.edu.
U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy toward Iceland, 1951-1960
Washington, D.C., August 15, 2016 – During the Cold War the United States never deployed nuclear weapons in Iceland but a recently…
Briefing Book 556
Edited by Peter Kornbluh and Carlos Osorio, with research support fromAdeline Hite
For further information, contact:
Carlos Osorio: cosorio@gwu.edu
Peter Kornbluh: peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington, D.C., August 11, 2016 – In September 1980, the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires transmitted a detailed six-page cable, entitled “The Tactic of Disappearance,” to the State Department.…
Unredacted blog
Unredacted blog
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 555
Edited by William Burr with Stav Geffner
For more information contact:
William Burr at 202/994-7000 ornsarchiv@gwu.edu.
Washington, D.C., July 22, 2016 - U.S. atomic tests in Bikini Atoll in July 1946 staged by a joint Army-Navy task force were the first atomic explosions since the bombings of Japan a year…
Unredacted blog
Unredacted blog
Unredacted blog
Book By John Prados
Briefing Book 553
Edited by William Burr with Stav Geffner
For more information contact:
William Burr at 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu.
The Atomic Tests at Bikini Atoll, July 1946*
Washington, D.C., July 1, 2016 - Seventy years ago this month a joint U.S Army-Navy task force staged two atomic weapons tests at Bikini atoll in the…
Briefing Book 554
Edited by Tom Blanton and Lauren Harper
For more information, call or email:
The National Security Archive, 202.994.7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington DC, July 1, 2016 - Fifty years ago on July 4, 1966, Lyndon Johnson signed the landmark Freedom of Information Act while vacationing at his Texas ranch. But the event does not even…
Unredacted blog
News 20160630
Edited by Tom Blanton, Nate Jones, and Lauren Harper For more information, contact Nate Jones, 202.994.7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
At 4:00 PM today President Barack Obama signed the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 (S. 337) into law. The bipartisan, bicameral bill – introduced by Senators John Cornyn, Chuck Grassley, and Patrick…
Briefing Book 552
Edited by Steve Everly
For more information, call or email:
Steve Everly, severly90@gmail.com
The National Security Archive, 202.994.7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington DC, June 23, 2016 – Recently discovered British documents posted today by the National Security Archive provide a new and revealing account of the CIA’s role in a top-secret plan to…
Unredacted blog
News 20160613
Edited by Lauren Harper and Tom Blanton; Design by Rinat Bikineyev; For more information, contact Lauren Harper, 202.994.7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington DC, June 13, 2016 – Today the National Security Archive celebrates the Freedom of Information Act’s upcoming 50th birthday by highlighting 50 of the year’s biggest news stories made…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 551
Edited by Carlos Osorio and Peter Kornbluh
For more information, call or email: 202.994.7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., May 27, 2016 - As a federal tribunal in Buenos Aires announced guilty verdicts in the historic prosecution of eighteen Argentine military officers for participating in the…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 550
Translated by Anna Melyakova, edited by Anna Melyakova and Svetlana Savranskaya
For more information, call or email: 202.994.7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, May 25, 2016 – Today the National Security Archive is publishing – for the first time in English – the diary of Anatoly S. Chernyaev covering the year 1976, along with edits and…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 549
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact:
William Burr at 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu.
Washington D.C., May 18, 2016 - Recently declassified State Department intelligence reports – posted today – illuminate a range of important questions about nuclear weapons in world…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 548
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
Web production by Rinat Bikineyev
For more information, call or email: 202.994.7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., May 12, 2016 – The legendary Moscow Helsinki Group celebrates its 40th anniversary today, marking four decades since the day in 1976 when dissident physicist Yuri…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 547
Avner Cohen and William Burr, editors
For more information contact:
Avner Cohen at 202-489-6282 (mobile), 831-647-6437 (office) or avnerc@miis.edu
William Burr at 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu.
Washington, D.C., April 21, 2016 - President John F Kennedy worried that Israel’s nuclear program was a potentially serious proliferation risk and insisted that Israel permit periodic…
Briefing Book 538
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
The SAC [Strategic Air Command] Atomic Weapons Requirements Study for 1959, produced in June 1956 and published today for the first time by the National Security Archive www.nsarchive.org, provides…
News
For more information, contact Jeffrey Richelson, 202.994.7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., March 30, 2016 – The National Security Archive is pleased to announce the launch of its new Cyber Vault project web site.
The growing prominence of cyber…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 546
Edited by Carlos Osorio
For more information, contact:
Carlos Osorio: 301-442-7551 or cosorio@gwu.edu
Washington, March 23, 2016 – Reinforcing the Obama administration’s planned “comprehensive effort to declassify” historical records on Argentina’s dirty war, the National Security Archive today…
Briefing Book 545
Edited by Carlos Osorio and Peter Kornbluh
For more information, contact:
Carlos Osorio: 301-442-7551 or cosorio@gwu.edu,
Peter Kornbluh: 202-374-7281 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington, March 18, 2016 – As President Obama prepares to go to Argentina next week on the 40th anniversary of the military coup, the National Security Archive hailed his decision to…
News , FOIA Audit
Alert compiled and written by Lauren Harper
Analysis and editing by Lauren Harper, Nate Jones, Malcolm Byrne, and Tom Blanton
Web publication by Rinat Bikineyev
For more information, contact Lauren Harper, 202.994.7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Department of the Treasury's Comptroller, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) are among a handful of agencies that have already admitted they will…
Unredacted blog
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 544
Compiled and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
For more information, contact: National Security Archive
202.994.7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., March 2, 2016 – Marking the 85th birthday of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org) today posted a…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 543
Edited by John Prados and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi
For more information, contact John Prados:
202.994.7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, February 29, 2016 – The Gerald Ford White House significantly altered the final report of the supposedly independent 1975 Rockefeller Commission investigating CIA domestic…
Briefing Book 0542
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
For more information, contact Peter Kornbluh:
202.994.7000 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington D.C., February 26, 2016 – With covert support from the CIA, James Donovan, who is the central figure in the Oscar-nominated movie, “Bridge of Spies,“ conducted the first secret…
Briefing Book 541
Edited by William Burr, Barbara Elias*, and Robert Wampler
For more information, contact National Security Archive: 202.994.7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu.
Washington, D.C., February 19, 2016 – For the first time, the U.S. government has officially declassified the fact that the United States stored nuclear weapons on Okinawa during the Cold War.…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 540
Compiled and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton
Web programming by Rinat Bikineyev; series editing by Malcolm Byrne
For more information, contact: 202.994.7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., February 5, 2016 – The top leaders of the Soviet Union discussed the case of controversial CIA spy Adolf Tolkachev during the Politburo meeting on September 25, 1986, according…
News 20160126
Contact202-994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., January 26, 2016 - The National Security Archive mourns the passing of Gen. William Y. Smith, one of the Archive's original board members and longest supporters, on January 19, 2016…
Briefing Book 0539
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson
For more information, contact: 202-994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., January 20, 2016 - U.S. military activities in cyberspace have been surprisingly widespread over the years, occurring mainly out of the public eye. Given the sensitivity of…
News 20151218
For more information, contactPeter Kornbluh 202/994-7000, peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington, DC, December 18, 2015 - On the first anniversary of the historic breakthrough in U.S.-Cuban relations, the National Security Archive announced that the book, Back Channel to Cuba: The…
Briefing Book 537
Edited by Robert A. Wampler, PhD Robert A. Wampler, 202/994-7000 or wampler@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., December 11, 2015 – The Clinton administration came to office in 1993 determined to restore the United States as the preeminent global protector of the environment, but saw its…
Unredacted blog
Declassified Docs Show Reagan and H.W. Bush Sought Strong American Leadership on Climate Change, NSL Contents Revealed, and Much More: FRINFORMSUM 12/3/2015
DECEMBER 3, 2015
tags: b(5), Climate…
Briefing Book 536
Edited by Robert Wampler
Washington, D.C., December 2, 2015 – Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush actively promoted measures to combat climate change, with Reagan in 1987 overruling objections within his own…
Briefing Book 535
Tom Blanton and Emily Willard
Special thanks to Michael Dobbs and Sarah Chaney Reichenbach
The Srebrenica Conference
International Decision-Making in the Age of Genocide: Srebrenica 1993-1995
"Critical Oral History" Conference Marks 20th Anniversary of Srebrenica Massacre.
Lessons from…
Briefing Book 534, Sourcebook 534
Jeffrey T. Richelson
Related links
The U.S. Intelligence Community, 7th edition (Westview, 2015)
By Jeffrey T. Richelson
The Pentagon’s Spies
Updated July 6, 2015
The Record on Curveball
November 5, 2007
Underground…
Briefing Book 533
Edited by Nate Jones, Tom Blanton, and Lauren Harper For more information, contact202-994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., October 24, 2015 – The newly released Soviet "War Scare" report - previously classified "TOP SECRET UMBRA GAMMA WNINTEL NOFORN NOCONTRACT ORCON" and published today after a 12-year…
Briefing Book 531
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., 14 October 2015 - In July 1984, U.S. customs agents arrested a Pakistani national, Nazir Ahmed Vaid, at Houston International Airport for trying to purchase krytrons--useful for…
Briefing Book 532
Edited by Peter Kornbluh Peter Kornbluh - 202/374-7281 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Related links
CIA Acknowledges Ties to Pinochet’s Repression
Report to Congress Reveals U.S. Accountability in Chile
September 19, 2000
OSCARS: DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS TELL HISTORY BEHIND BEST…
News 20151007
For more information, contactMichael Evans 202/994-7029, mevans@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, October 7, 2015 - U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Earl Anthony Wayne said that “evidence of heavy-handed police tactics” was “strong and disconcerting” after a 2011 clash with student…
Briefing Book 530
Compiled and edited by Tom Blanton and Lauren Harper For further information, contact 202.994.7000, nsarchiv@gwu.edu.
Washington, D.C., September 16, 2015 - Today the CIA and the LBJ Library are releasing online a collection of 2,500 declassified President’s Daily Briefs (PDBs) from the Kennedy and Johnson…
Briefing Book 529
Compiled and edited by Scott Shane Scott Shane is a national security reporter for The New York Times and author of Objective TroyA Terrorist, A President, and the Rise of the Drone, published in September 2015. For further information, contact 202.994.7000, nsarchiv@gwu.edu.
Related Materials
The Lessons of Anwar al-Awlaki
Four years after the United States assassinated the radical cleric in a drone strike, his influence on jihadists is greater than ever. Was there a…
Briefing Book 528
Edited by Tom Blanton and Svetlana Savranskaya
For more information, contact Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton: 202.994.7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu.
Related Materials
Nunn-Lugar Revisited
U.S.-Russian cooperation on threat reduction from the Soviet Union in 1991 to Syria in 2013
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 447
Project…
Briefing Book 527
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Related links
NASA's Secret Relationships with U.S. Defense and Intelligence Agencies
April 10, 2015
U.S. Reconnaissance Satellites: Domestic Targets
April 11, 2008
U.S. Satellite Imagery, 1960-…
Briefing Book 526
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., August 19, 2015 – President Gerald Ford was "offended" and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger "almost blind with rage" over Israeli negotiating behavior in 1975, according to newly…
News 20150813
For more information, contactPeter Kornbluh202/374-7281 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington D.C., August 13, 2015 – On the eve of Secretary of State John Kerry’s historic trip to Havana tomorrow to raise the American flag over the newly reopened U.S. Embassy, the National…
Briefing Book 525
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
August 4, 2015- A few months after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, General Dwight D. Eisenhower commented during a social occasion “how he had hoped that the war might have ended…
Briefing Book 524
202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
The Washington Post article "America classifies way too much information - and we are all less safe for it" By Tom Blanton July 31 at 8:06 PM Tom Blanton is director of the National Security Archive…
Briefing Book 523
Edited by Peter Kornbluh Peter Kornbluh - 202/374-7281 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington D.C., July 31, 2015 – General Augusto Pinochet refused to accept a police report identifying his own military as responsible for burning two teenage protesters alive in July 1986,…
Briefing Book 522
Edited by John Prados and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi For more information, contactJohn Prados - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., July 20, 2015 - Forty years ago this year, Congress’s first serious inquiry into CIA abuses faced many of the same political and bureaucratic obstructions as Senate investigators…
News 20150717
ContactMichael Evans, mevans@email.gwu.edu, (202) 236-9112, Angela Bradbery, abradbery@citizen.org, (202) 588-7741
Washington, D.C., July 17, 2015 - In an important victory for transparency and corporate accountability, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., has ruled that the U.S. Securities and Exchange…
News 20150714
Edited by Thomas Blanton
Washington, D.C., July 15, 2015 - The newly released grand jury testimony by Ethel Rosenberg's brother David Greenglass suggests he committed perjury on the witness stand in the Rosenberg spy trial,…
Briefing Book 521
Edited by Malcolm Byrne and William Burr For more information, contactMalcolm Byrne or William Burr – 202 / 994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., July 14, 2015 -- Four decades ago -- in the mid-1970s -- U.S. and Iranian officials haggled over a range of concerns that uncannily prefigured similar clashes that surfaced prior to…
Briefing Book 520
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Related Postings
Torture Report Finally Released
December 9, 2014
The Pentagon’s Counterspies
September 17, 2007
The Interrogation Documents
July 13, 2004
More Archive Resources on U.S.…
Briefing Book 519
Edited by Tom Blanton and Emily Willard 202-994-7000 Tom Blantonnsarchiv@gwu.edu Emily Willardewillard@gwu.edu
IN THE NEWS
International Decision-Making in the Age of Genocide: Srebrenica 1993-1995
"Critical Oral History" Conference Marks 20th Anniversary of Srebrenica Massacre.
Declassified U.N. Cables…
Briefing Book 518
By William Burr Bill Burr is a senior analyst at the National Security Archive, where he directs the Archive's nuclear history documentation project. See the Archive's Nuclear Vault resources page. For more information, contactWilliam Burr at 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., June 29, 2015 – Long before Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities – based on gas centrifuge technology – became the center of international negotiations, the U.S. tried to deny…
News 2015
202-994-7000 Tom Blantonnsarchiv@gwu.edu Emily Willardewillard@gwu.edu
June 28, 2015 The Hague, The Netherlands Leading decision-makers from more than a dozen countries will gather in The Hague from June 29 to July 1 to consider the failure of the international…
Briefing Book 517
By William Burr and Jeffrey P. Kimball Bill is Senior Analyst at the National Security Archive, where he directs the Archives nuclear history documentation project. See the Archives Nuclear Vault resources page; Jeff is professor emeritus, Miami University, and author of Nixon's Vietnam War and The Vietnam War Files. For more information, contactWilliam Burr at 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu Jeffrey Kimball at 513/523-3640 or jpkimball@miamioh.edu
Washington, D.C., May 29, 2015 — President Richard Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger believed they could compel "the other side" to back down during crises in the Middle East…
Briefing Book 516
Translated and edited by Anna Melyakova Anna Melyakova 202/994-7000 or annamelyakova@gmail.com
"Anatoly Chernyaev's diary is one of the great internal records of the Gorbachev years, a trove of irreplaceable observations about a turning point in history. There is nothing else quite like it,…
The National Security Archive and Historical Associations Win Lawsuit for David Greenglass Testimony
News 20150519
For more information, contactTom Blanton 202/994-7000 Lauren Harper, Associate FOIA Project Director 202/994-7045 nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., May 19, 2015 - The National Security Archive together with leading U.S. historical associations today won a petition for the release of key remaining grand jury records from the…
Book <p>By William Burr and Jeffrey P. Kimball</p>
Briefing Book 515
Edited by Michael Evans Michael Evans 202/994-7029 or mevans@gwu.edu
Related Links
Migration Declassified
The Archive's blog on Mexico, migration, and human rights
"Mexican Authorities Implicated in Violence, but U.S. Security Aid Continues to Flow"
By Cora Currier…
Briefing Book 514
Edited by Carlos Osorio Carlos Osorio 202/994-7000 or cosorio@gwu.edu Peter Kornbluh 202/374-7281 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
In the News
La evolución del Cóndor
Director del prestigioso Proyecto Documentación Cono Sur del Archivo de Seguridad Nacional en Washington, habló en el juicio en Buenos Aires.
Por Alejandra…
Briefing Book 513
Edited by David Coleman For more information, contactDavid Coleman, david@historyinpieces.com, 703/942-9245 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu, 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., April 28, 2015 – President Lyndon Johnson regretted sending U.S. troops into the Dominican Republic in 1965, telling aides less than a month later, "I don't want to be an intervenor…
Briefing Book 512
By Toby McIntosh and William Burr McIntosh is Editor of FreedomInfo.org , published by the National Security Archive . Burr is Senior Analyst at the National Security Archive, where he directs the Archive's nuclear history documentation project. See the Archive's Nuclear Vault resources page. For more information, contactToby McIntosh or William Burr at 202 / 994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C. April 24, 2015 - The nuclear inspection agency that is central to the current Iran negotiations is flunking international transparency norms, according to a report posted today by…
Briefing Book 511
Tom Blanton/Emily Willard, nsarchiv@gwu.edu, 202.994.7000
Washington, DC, April 16, 2015 – Newly declassified Clinton White House e-mails and notes detail a decisive U.S. role in the tragic pullout of United Nations peacekeepers during the first two weeks…
Briefing Book 510
Avner Cohen and William Burr, editors Avner Cohen at 202-489-6282 (mobile) or 831-647-6437 (office) William Burr at 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., April 15, 2015 – The U.S. government first learned of Israel's secret nuclear program at Dimona from an American corporate official talking to U.S. diplomats in Tel Aviv during mid-…
Briefing Book 509
Edited by James E. David James E. David, davidj@si.edu or The National Security Archive 202/944-7000, nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, April 10, 2015 – Furnishing cover stories for covert operations, monitoring Soviet missile tests, and supplying weather data to the U.S. military have been part of the secret side of…
Unredacted blog
tags: Center for Justice and Accountability, El Salvador, Vides Casanova
by The Archive
General Vides Casanova] Credit: Latin America News Dispatch.
General Vides Casanova. Photo Credit: Latin…
Briefing Book 508
Michael Dobbs mdobbs@ushmm.org Emily Willard ewillard@gwu.edu Tom Blanton tblanton@gwu.edu 202/994-7000
IN THE NEWS
Exclusive: Rwanda Revisited
By Colum Lynch, Foreign Policy, April 5, 2015
Declassified U.N. Cables Reveal Turning Point in Rwanda Crisis of 1994
By Mark Landler, The New York Times,…
News 20150326
Carlos Osorio - 202/994-7061 cosorio@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, March 26, 2015 – Carlos Osorio, Director of the National Security Archive's Southern Cone Documentation Project, received a special award from the Argentine Embassy in Washington on…
Briefing Book 507
Ken Ford 215/439-8568, kenneth.w.ford@gmail.com or William Burr 202/994-7000, nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., March 24, 2015 – A new scientific memoir by one of the few surviving participants in the U.S. H-bomb project provides fresh information and insights into the production of the world…
Briefing Book 506
Compiled and edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson
Washington, DC, March 20, 2015 – For decades the Central Intelligence Agency has conducted a major signals intelligence (SIGINT) effort that often placed it in competition with other members of…
Briefing Book 506
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, March 20, 2015 – For decades the Central Intelligence Agency has conducted a major signals intelligence (SIGINT) effort that often placed it in competition with other members of the…
Rosemary Award
For more information contact:
Tom Blanton, Director, National Security Archive - 202/994-7000
Lauren Harper, Associate FOIA Project Director - 202/994-7045
nsarchiv@gwu.edu
The Federal Chief Information Officers (CIO) Council has won the infamous Rosemary Award for worst open government performance of 2014, according to the citation published today by the National…
News 20150318
Tom Blanton, Director, National Security Archive - 202/994-7000, Lauren Harper, Associate FOIA Project Director - 202/994-7045 nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, March 18, 2015 – The Federal Chief Information Officers (CIO) Council has won the infamous Rosemary Award for worst open government performance of 2014, according to the citation…
Briefing Book 505, FOIA Audit 505
Audit authored by Nate Jones and Lauren Harper, data chart compiled by Lauren Harper and linked by Jamie Noguchi, Audit edited by Tom Blanton Nate Jones/Lauren Harper/Tom Blanton 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
In the News
Happy Sunshine Week: National Security Archive names E-Delinquents in 2015 E-FOIA Audit By Ms. Smith, Network World, March 17, 2015
Sunshine Week Column: Posting FOIA releases online…
Briefing Book 504
Compiled and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Anna Melyakova 202/994-7000, nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, March 11, 2015 – Thirty years ago today, in the Kremlin, the Soviet Politburo unanimously elected its youngest member, Mikhail Gorbachev, to the pinnacle of Soviet power — General…
Briefing Book 504
Compiled and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Anna Melyakova
Washington, DC, March 11, 2015 – Thirty years ago today, in the Kremlin, the Soviet Politburo unanimously elected its youngest member, Mikhail Gorbachev, to the pinnacle of Soviet power — General…
Briefing Book 503
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
n the News
Somebody Else Is Suing the State Department—To Get Kissinger’s Phone Calls By Asawin Suebsaeng, The Daily Beast, March 12, 2015
State Department hit with suit for Kissinger records By…
Briefing Book 502
Edited by Lauren Harper
Washington, DC, February 23, 2015 –Documents posted for the first time — in a collaboration between the National Security Archive and VICE News — provide insight into the U.S. government's…
News 20150205
Nate Jones- 202/944-7000, nsarchiv@gwu.edu
As part of the Federal Freedom of Information Act Advisory Committee's mission to "to foster dialog between the Administration and the requester community, solicit public comments, and develop…
Briefing Book 501
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, February 4, 2015 – During much of the Cold War Soviet space activities — civilian and military — were a major focus of U.S. intelligence collection and analysis. As one of the key…
Briefing Book 500
Edited by Emily Willard Research AssistanceKristin Scalzo, Clara Fisher, Sarah Reichenbach, Claire Dailey, & Mikaela Duckworth Emily Willard - 202/944-7000, ewillard@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, January 30, 2015 – Former Ambassador Prudence Bushnell's notebooks provide a never-before-seen view into the inner workings of US diplomacy during one of the international community's…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 498
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., December 23, 2014 – A recently released Sandia Labs film contains fa
Washington, D.C., December 23, 2014 – A recently released Sandia Labs film contains fascinating glimpses into…
Briefing Book 499
Edited by Michael Evans Michael Evans 202/994-7029 or mevans@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, December 22, 2014 – With the Mexican government facing widespread public outrage over the alleged role of police and other officials in the September forced disappearance of 43…
Briefing Book 496
Peter Kornbluh - 202/374 7281, peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington, DC, December 10, 2014 – Almost thirty years after the end of Brazil's military dictatorship, the Comissao Nacional da Verdade [National Truth Commission] today released its long awaited…
Briefing Book 497
For more information, Tom Blanton 202.994.7000, nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., December 9, 2014 – The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence today released the executive summary of its long-awaited "Study of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program…
Briefing Book 495
For more information, contactTom Blanton 202.994.7000 nsarchiv@gwu.edu David Vladeck 202.662.9540 vladeckd@law.georgetown.edu
Previous Postings
More Cold War Espionage Transcripts Unsealed
October 10, 2008
National Security Archive and Historians Secure Long Secret Rosenberg Grand Jury Testimony
September 11, 2008…
Briefing Book 494
Edited by Peter Kornbluh and Justin Anstett For more information, contactpeter.kornbluh@gmail.com or 202 / 374-7281
Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana
By William M. LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh
(University of North Carolina Press, October 2014)
In the News
The…
Briefing Book 493
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Related Links
Studies in Intelligence: New Articles from The CIA's In-House Journal June 4, 2013
Reading the North Korea Tea Leaves April 11, 2013
The Central Intelligence Agency's 9/11 File…
Briefing Book 491
Edited by David E. Hoffman, Svetlana Savranskaya, and Thomas Blanton 202/994-7000, nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, November 17, 2014 – Twenty years ago this week a team of American specialists completed an unprecedented operation known as Project Sapphire, working with the government of Kazakhstan…
Briefing Book 492
Edited by Kate Doyle Research Assistance by Alexandra Smith Kate Doyle 202/994-7000, kadoyle@email.gwu.edu
Washington, DC, November 16, 2014 – Twenty five years have passed since the horrifying murders in El Salvador of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter, during a rampage by Salvadoran…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 490
Thomas Blanton and Svetlana Savranskaya - 202/994-7000, nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, November 9, 2014 – The iconic fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago today shocked international leaders from Washington to Moscow, London to Warsaw, as East German crowds took…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 489
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., October 21, 2014 –The secretive missile-tracking center known as DEFSMAC began at the National Security Agency 50 years ago in order to consolidate the multiple alerts and reports…
News
Tom Blanton, Wendy Valdes
Washington, D.C., October 19, 2014 — Sunday's issue of T: The New York Times Style Magazine features a spectacular orange page designed by the artist Jenny Holzer showcasing the…
Unredacted blog
Pentagon Sees Climate Change as Immediate National Security Risk, CIA Rebel Training Largely Unhelpful, and Much More: FRINFORMSUM 10/16/2014
OCTOBER 16, 2014
tags: CIA rebel training, Climate Change…
Briefing Book 488
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., October 16, 2014 – Fifty years ago today, on 16 October 1964, the People's Republic of China (PRC) joined the nuclear club when it tested a nuclear device at its Lop Nur test…
Book By Peter Kornbluh and William M. LeoGrande
Unredacted blog
OCTOBER 8, 2014
tags: 9/11, Chiquita Brands International, Eric Holder, National Liberation Army (ELN), Popular Liberation Army (EPL), Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), terrorism,…
Briefing Book 487
Peter Kornbluh - 202/374 7281, peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington, DC, October 1, 2014 – Secretary of State Henry Kissinger ordered a series of secret contingency plans that included airstrikes and mining of Cuban harbors in the aftermath of Fidel Castro…
News 20140926
Peter Kornbluh 202/374-7281 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
A Historic Press Conference at the Pierre WHAT: In July 1975, Henry Kissinger sent two of his deputies to meet with representatives of Fidel Castro at the Pierre Hotel in New York City. It was there-…
Briefing Book 486
Project CollaboratorsKate Doyle, Senior Analyst and Director The Evidence Project, National Security Archive Carlos Osorio, Analyst and Director Southern Cone Documentation Project, National Security Archive Angelina Snodgrass Godoy, Director Center for Human Rights, University of Washington Philip Neff, Coordinator Unfinished Sentences El Salvador, Center for Human Rights, University of Washington National Security Archive Research AssistantsAlexandra Smith, Research Assistant The Evidence Project Emily Willard, Coordinator Genocide Documentation Project Special thanks to Patrick Ball, Executive Director Human Rights Data Analysis Group Kate Doyle kadoyle@email.gwu.edu Angelina Snodgrass Godoy 206/616-3585 agodoy@u.washington.edu
A 1980s-era document from the archives of El Salvador’s military intelligence identifies almost two thousand Salvadoran citizens who were considered “delinquent terrorists” by the Armed Forces, among…
Briefing Book 484
202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Selected as a "Best History Book of the Month" - Amazon Washington, DC, September 16, 2014 – The Predator drone, though best known as the CIA's primary weapon in the war against Al Qaeda, was merely…
Book By Malcolm Byrne
"Choice Outstanding Academic Title"
Briefing Book 485
Edited by William Burr and Avner Cohen William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu Avner Cohen - 831/647-6437 or 202/489-6282В (cell); avnerc@miis.edu
Washington, D.C., September 12, 2014 – During the spring and summer of 1969, officials at the Pentagon, the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the White House debated and…
Briefing Book 483
202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
"At last, the Reagan administration's Iran-Contra affair finally has a comprehensive history worthy of the scandal ... Malcolm Byrne has told the complex story in brilliant fashion." — Seymour Hersh…
Briefing Book 482
Compiled and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton Editorial assistance by Anya Melyakova and Allison Brady Special thanks to Sidney Orlov 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, August 13, 2014 – Marking the 90th birthday of the human rights legend and distinguished physicist Yuri Orlov, the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.…
Briefing Book 481
Compiled and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, July 24, 2014 – Former Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze, who passed away on July 7, brought a new diplomatic style and candor to bear in changing U.S.-Soviet relations in…
Briefing Book 480
William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Reports of the Net Evaluation Subcommittee Washington, D.C., July 22, 2014 – On the morning of 20 July 1961, while the Berlin Crisis was simmering, President John F. Kennedy and the members of the…
Briefing Book 479
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson Jeffrey T. Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, July 20, 2014 – Forty-five years ago, astronaut Neil Armstrong took his "one small step" for mankind, becoming the first person to set foot on the moon. The program that resulted in…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 478
Edited by Peter Kornbluh Peter Kornbluh - 202/374-7281 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington, DC, July 8, 2014 – The Brazilian military regime employed a "sophisticated and elaborate psychophysical duress system" to "intimidate and terrify" suspected leftist militants in the early…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 477
Edited by Malcolm Byrne Malcolm Byrne 202/994-7043 or mbyrne@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, July 2, 2014 – On August 16, 1953, the same day the Shah of Iran fled to Baghdad after a failed attempt to oust Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, the agitated monarch spoke candidly…
Briefing Book 476
Edited by Malcolm Byrne Malcolm Byrne 202/994-7043 or mbyrne@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, June 27, 2014 – During early planning for the 1953 Iran coup, U.S. Ambassador Loy Henderson warned not only that the Shah would not support the United States' chosen replacement for…
News 20140624
Nate Jones/Tom Blanton 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, June 24, 2014 – Congress may actually take action this year to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act, according to the National Security Archive's posting today of the new…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 475
William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
U.S. Nuclear Weapons Safety Issues, 1957-1986 Washington, D.C., June 9, 2014 – A recently declassified report by Sandia National Laboratory, published today by the National Security Archive, provides…
Briefing Book 474
Edited by Robert A. Wampler, PhD Robert A. Wampler, PhD 202/994-7000 or wampler@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, June 5, 2014 – During the North Korean nuclear crisis of the 1990s, the United States and South Korea shared blunt concerns about the possible outbreak of military hostilities with…
Briefing Book 473
Edited by Malcolm Byrne Malcolm Byrne 202/994-7043 or mbyrne@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, June 3, 2014 – Significant cleavages existed within the Chinese political leadership and security apparatus over the decision to use force against student protesters at Tiananmen…
Briefing Book 472
Edited by Michael Dobbs 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
EXPERT OPINION
Declassified U.N. Cables Reveal Turning Point in Rwanda Crisis of 1994
By Mark Landler, The New York Times, June 3, 2014
The United Nations Security Council in Rwanda
By Michael…
News 20140529
202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu; See additional media information at end of posting
Washington, DC, May 29, 2014 – Leading decision makers from the United Nations, Africa, the United States, and Europe will gather in The Hague from June 1 to 3 to consider the failure of the…
Briefing Book 471
Translated and edited by Anna Melyakova Anna Melyakova 202/994-7000 or annamelyakova@gmail.com
Previous Chernyaev Diary Postings
The Diary of Anatoly Chernyaev, 1973
Eigth Installment of Former Top Soviet Adviser's Journal Available in English for First Time
The Diary of Anatoly Chernyaev,…
Briefing Book 470
Peter Kornbluh 202/374-7281 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington, DC, May 23, 2014 – Covert U.S. planning to block the democratic election of Salvador Allende in Chile began weeks before his September 4, 1970, victory, according to just declassified…
Briefing Book 469
Edited by Emily Willard 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, May 21, 2014 – The Arusha Accords, a peace agreement between the Rwandan government and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) signed in August 1993, failed in the worst way peace accords…
News 20140521
202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, May 21, 2014 – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit yesterday joined the CIA's cover-up of its Bay of Pigs disaster in 1961 by ruling that a 30-year-old volume of the CIA's…
Briefing Book 468
Edited by Malcolm Byrne Malcolm Byrne 202/994-7043 or mbyrne@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, May 12, 2014 – As the Iranian revolution crested in 1978-1979, the CIA approved a memoir by Kermit Roosevelt, one of the architects of the 1953 coup against Iran's nationalist prime…
Briefing Book 467
William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., April 21, 2014– Henry Kissinger played a slightly reluctant but nonetheless highly influential role in establishing the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in the mid-1970s, motivated…
Briefing Book 466
Edited by Jake Freyer and Emily Willard 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, April 7, 2014 –The complete series of daily and weekly situation reports (sitreps) written by UN peacekeepers in Rwanda — published today by the National Security Archive for the…
Briefing Book 465
Edited by James G. Hershberg and Peter Kornbluh James G. Hershberg, 202/302-5718 Peter Kornbluh, 202/374-7281 nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, April 2, 2014 – Almost two years before the April 1, 1964, military takeover in Brazil, President Kennedy and his top aides began seriously discussing the option of overthrowing Joao…
Briefing Book 464
Edited by Kristin Scalzo 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, March 31, 2014 – During the months leading up to the genocide in Rwanda, United Nations officials and western diplomats became increasingly concerned by the threat to political…
Briefing Book 463
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7032
Washington, DC, March 27, 2014 – In February 2014, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) posted 300,000 State Department telegrams from 1977 — the first year of the Jimmy Carter…
Briefing Book 462
Malcolm Byrne - 202/994-7000 Tom Blanton - 202/994-7000 Peter Kornbluh - 202/374-7281 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, March 26, 2014 – The passing away of Iran-Contra Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh on March 19, at age 102, is an appropriate occasion to recall some of the extraordinary outcomes…
News , Rosemary Award
For more information contact:
Tom Blanton, Director, National Security Archive - 202/994-7000
Nate Jones, Freedom of Information Coordinator - 202/994-7045
nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, March 24, 2014 – Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has won the infamous Rosemary Award for worst open government performance in 2013, according to the citation…
Briefing Book 461
Edited by Arnaud Siad; translations by Christina Graubert 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
RELATED POSTS
Warnings of Catastrophe
French, US, UN, and Belgian Documents Foreshadow the Genocide in Rwanda 1994.
March 6, 2014
The Rwanda Sitreps
Daily Pleas to New York Detail How International…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 460, FOIA Audit 460
Tom Blanton/Nate Jones/Lauren Harper 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
IN THE NEWS
Obama Administration Official Whitewashes Truth About FOIA By Jason Leopold, Freedom of the Press Foundation, March 17, 2014
Sunshine Week: Transparency issues persist with Obama…
Briefing Book 458
Edited by Michael Dobbs 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, March 6, 2014 – Concerned about the possibility of "a new bloodbath" in Rwanda, the Belgium foreign ministry issued a dramatic diplomatic dйmarche on February 25, 1994, calling for a…
Briefing Book 459
William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., February 28, 2014 – Sixty years ago, on 1 March 1954 (28 February on this side of the International Dateline), on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, the U.S. government staged…
Briefing Book 122
For Further InformationThomas Blanton 202 994-7000 Peter Kornbluh 202 994-7116
Washington D.C. May 12, 2004: CIA interrogation manuals written in the 1960s and 1980s described "coercive techniques" such as those used to mistreat detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq,…
Briefing Book 457
William Burr
Washington, D.C., February 21, 2014 – Inane and contradictory declassification actions on military records of the Cuban Missile Crisis indicate serious flaws in the Defense Department's…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 456
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson Jeffrey T. Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
A major controversy during the administration of President George W. Bush concerned the use or misuse of intelligence with regard to Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs and possible links…
Unredacted blog
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 455
Edited by Emily Willard 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, February 3, 2014 – Three months after its arrival, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) remained ill-equipped and unprepared to respond to the rising threat of…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 454
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7032
Washington, DC, January 24, 2014 – A recently declassified transcript of a telephone conversation (telcon) between Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and President Gerald Ford in December 1975…
Briefing Book 453
Edited by John Prados and Jack Cheevers 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, January 23, 2014 – Forty-six years ago today - well before Edward Snowden was born - the National Security Agency suffered what may still rank as the most significant compromise ever…
Briefing Book 452
Edited by Michael Dobbs Editorial Assistance by Emily Willard 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, January 9, 2014 – Twenty years ago this week, the commander of United Nations peacekeeping forces in Rwanda (UNAMIR) wrote a "Most Immediate" cable to his superiors in New York that…
News 20140103
202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., January 3, 2014 – Marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall later this year, CNN will begin re-airing its monumental, 24 part series — "COLD WAR" — starting…
Book Vojtech Mastny and Zhu Liqun
Briefing Book 451
William Burr or Jeffrey T. Richelson- 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., December 16, 2013 – The Soviet Union assisted the United States in its effort to curb South Africa's nuclear program in August 1977 when Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev…
Briefing Book 450
Edited by Tom Blanton Tom Blanton 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
RELATED POSTS
CIA SUED FOR 'HOLDING HISTORY HOSTAGE' ON BAY OF PIGS INVASION
April 14, 2011…
Briefing Book 449
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton With Anna Melyakova 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, December 11, 2013 – The last Soviet nuclear warheads in Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis did not leave the island until December 1, 1962, according to Soviet military documents…
Briefing Book 448
Edited by Kate Doyle Kate Doyle 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, December 4, 2013 – The landmark report on the Guatemalan police archives, From Silence to Memory: Revelations of the AHPN, has been made available in a new English translation issued…
Briefing Book 446
William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., November 22, 2013 – The arrest of a Pakistani national, Arshed Pervez in July 1987 on charges of illegal nuclear procurement roiled U.S.-Pakistan relations and sharpened divisions…
Briefing Book 447
Edited By Tom Blanton and Svetlana Savranskaya with Anna Melyakova Tom Blanton 202/994 7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, November 22, 2013 – The final shipment of highly enriched uranium from former Soviet nuclear warheads to the U.S. on November 14, and President Obama's award of the Presidential Medal…
Unredacted blog
Judge Rejects Chiquita’s Effort to Block Release of Documents on Terror Payments
NOVEMBER 20, 2013
tags: AUC, chiquita, SEC, Securities and Exchange Commission, terrorism, united self-defense forces…
Briefing Book 445
Edited by Michael Evans and Jesse Franzblau Michael Evans 202/994 7029 or mevans@email.gwu.edu Jesse Franzblau 202/994 7000
Washington, D.C., November 6, 2013 – Four months before the feared Zetas drug cartel kidnapped and murdered 72 migrants in northeastern Mexico, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City said that…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 444
Edited By John Prados John Prados - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., November 1, 2013 – Continued investigation of the presidency of John F. Kennedy further strengthens the view that the origins of U.S. support for the coup which overthrew South…
Briefing Book 302
John Prados - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., December 11, 2009 - At a critical moment in August 1963, President John F. Kennedy saw only negative choices on Vietnam, according to new audio recordings and documentation posted…
Briefing Book 443
Washington, D.C., October 29, 2013 – The CIA's history of the U-2 spy plane, declassified this past summer, sparked enormous public attention to the U-2's secret test site at Area 51 in Nevada, but…
Briefing Book 443
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson
Washington, D.C., October 29, 2013 – The CIA's history of the U-2 spy plane, declassified this past summer, sparked enormous public attention to the U-2's secret test site at Area 51 in…
Briefing Book 442
William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., October 7, 2013 – A nuclear accident never produced a nuclear detonation, but according to a new book by Eric Schlosser every nuclear-tipped missile "is an accident waiting to…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 441
Edited by Matthew M. Aid and William Burr William Burr 202/994 7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu Matthew M. Aid mmaid@rcn.com
Washington, D.C., September 25, 2013 – During the height of the Vietnam War protest movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the National Security Agency tapped the overseas communications of…
Briefing Book 440
Edited by Kate Doyle Kate Doyle 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., September 24, 2013 – On September 20, a Guatemalan tribunal convicted the former director of the National Police of Guatemala, retired Col. Hйctor Bol de la Cruz, and his…
Briefing Book 439
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson Jeffrey T. Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
RELATED LINKS:
Iran's underground nuclear sites not immune to U.S. bunker-busters, experts say
By Joby Warrick, The Washington Post
February 29, 2012
Tunnel vision: U.S. intel…
Briefing Book 437
Edited by Peter Kornbluh Peter Kornbluh - 202/374-7281 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington, D.C., September 11, 2013 – Henry Kissinger urged President Richard Nixon to overthrow the democratically elected Allende government in Chile because his "'model' effect can be insidious…
Briefing Book 436
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson Jeffrey T. Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., September 4, 2013 – Recent press disclosures about National Security Agency (NSA) electronic surveillance activities — relying on documents provided by Edward Snowden — have sparked…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 435
Edited by Malcolm Byrne Malcolm Byrne 202/994-7043 or mbyrne@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., August 19, 2013 – Marking the sixtieth anniversary of the overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, the National Security Archive is today posting recently declassified…
Briefing Book 434
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson Jeffrey T. Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., August 15, 2013 – On 21 February 1955, Richard M. Bissell, a senior CIA official, wrote a check on an Agency account for $1.25 million dollars and mailed it to the home of Kelly…
Briefing Book 438
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson Jeffrey T. Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., August 5, 2013 – Today, on the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology, the National Security Archive posts an update to its 2001…
Briefing Book 54
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson Jeffrey T. Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., September 10, 2001 – Mention of the Central Intelligence Agency generally elicits visions of espionage and covert action operations. It may also produce images of the multitude…
Briefing Book 433
William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., August 2, 2013 – The United States and Soviet Union conducted underground testing that sometimes produced significant "venting" of radioactive gases and particles which crossed…
Briefing Book 432
William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu Avner Cohen - 831/647-6437 or 202/489-6282 (cell); avnerc@miis.edu
Argentine Documents on the Yellowcake Sale
Briefing Book 431
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson Jeffrey T. Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Related Links
Reading the North Korea Tea Leaves April 11, 2013
The Central Intelligence Agency's 9/11 File June 19, 2012
The National Security Agency Declassified March 11, 2005
[…
Briefing Book 430
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya Diary excerpt translated by Anna Melyakova and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya Svetlana Savranskaya - 202/994-7000 or svetlana@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., May 25, 2013 – Today the National Security Archive is publishing — for the first time in English — excerpts from the diary of Anatoly S. Chernyaev from 1973, along with edits and a…
Briefing Book 429
Edited by Emily Willard Emily Willard 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Related Links
The Final Battle: Ríos Montt's Counterinsurgency Campaign
May 9, 2013
Indicted for Genocide: Guatemala's Efraín Ríos Montt
March 19, 2013
OPERATION CONDOR ON TRIAL: LEGAL PROCEEDINGS…
Briefing Book 428
Edited by Nate Jones Assisted by Lauren Harper Nate Jones 202/994-7000 or foiadesk@gwu.edu
Related Links
New Documents Reveal How a 1980s Nuclear War Scare Became a Full-Blown Crisis By Robert Beckhusen, Wired, May 16, 2013
The USSR and US Came Closer to Nuclear War Than We Thought…
Briefing Book 427
Edited by Nate Jones
Assisted by Lauren Harper
For more information contact:
Nate Jones 202/994-7000 or foiadesk@gwu.edu
Related Links
New Documents Reveal How a 1980s Nuclear War Scare Became a Full-Blown Crisis
By Robert Beckhusen, Wired, May 16, 2013
The USSR and US Came Closer to Nuclear War Than We Thought…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 426
Edited by Nate Jones Assisted by Lauren Harper With Document Contributions from Svetlana Savranskaya Nate Jones 202/994-7000 or foiadesk@gwu.edu
Related Links
New Documents Reveal How a 1980s Nuclear War Scare Became a Full-Blown Crisis By Robert Beckhusen, Wired, May 16, 2013
The USSR and US Came Closer to Nuclear War Than We Thought…
Book By Peter Kornbluh
Nueva edición ampliada en el 40 aniversario de la muerte de Salvador Allende.
Briefing Book 425
Edited by Kate Doyle Kate Doyle 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
After weeks of powerful testimony and excruciating procedural wrangling, the trial of former Guatemalan dictator Efraнn Rнos Montt and his intelligence chief Josй Rodrнguez Sбnchez on charges of…
Unredacted blog
by Emily Willard
UPDATE: 7 May 2013, Department of Justice releases less-redacted version of decision. See less-redacted version of decision here. The New York Times is still waiting on a response to…
Sourcebook
The definitive online collection of over 1,000 pages of declassified documents on the 1983 War Scare
Project directed by Nate Jones
Briefing Book 424
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson Jeffrey T. Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Since at least 1997, the National Security Agency (NSA) has been responsible for developing ways to attack hostile computer networks as part of the growing field of Information Warfare (IW),…
Briefing Book 423
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7032
Washington, D.C., April 23, 2013 – China was exporting nuclear materials to Third World countries without safeguards beginning in the early 1980s, and may have given Pakistan weapons design…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 422
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., April 12, 2013 – Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister who passed away this week, built a surprising mutual-admiration relationship with the Soviet leader Mikhail…
Briefing Book 421
Edited by Robert A. Wampler, PhD Robert A. Wampler, PhD 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., April 11, 2013 – For decades, the erratic behavior of North Korea's enigmatic leaders has often masked a mix of symbolic and pragmatic motives, according to declassified documents…
Unredacted blog
News 20130408
Edited by Michael Evans : Michael Evans 202/994-7000 or mevans@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., April 8, 2013 – Chiquita Brands International last week filed a "reverse" Freedom of Information lawsuit to block the release of records to the National Security Archive on the…
Briefing Book 420
Edited by Michael Dobbs Michael Dobbs 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., April 3, 2013 – The U.S. government's Freedom of Information Act reviewers produced four different versions of the same State Department document over a 12-year period, releasing…
News 20130402
Tom Blanton, Director, National Security Archive - 202/994-7000 Nate Jones, Freedom of Information Coordinator - 202/994-7045 nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, April 2, 2013 – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today rejected the Justice Department's "impermissible" "maneuver" that would have kept "FOIA requests bottled up in…
Rosemary Award
For more information contact:
Tom Blanton, Director, National Security Archive - 202/994-7000
Nate Jones, Freedom of Information Coordinator - 202/994-7045
nsarchiv@gwu.edu
The Department of Justice has earned the dubious distinction of winning the infamous Rosemary Award for the second time in a row, for worst open government performance of any federal agency over the…
News 20130315
Tom Blanton, Director, National Security Archive - 202/994-7000 Nate Jones, Freedom of Information Coordinator - 202/994-7045 nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, March 15, 2013 – The Department of Justice has earned the dubious distinction of winning the infamous Rosemary Award for the second time in a row, for worst open government…
News 20130328
Kate Doyle - 202/994-7000 nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, March 28, 2013 – A radio program on the Dos Erres massacre in Guatemala in 1982, which featured National Security Archive senior analyst Kate Doyle, won a prestigious George Foster…
Briefing Book 418
Edited by Joyce Battle and Malcolm Byrne
Archive Electronic Briefing Books Cited in This Posting
THE IRAQ WAR -- PART II: Was There Even a Decision?
October 1, 2010
THE IRAQ WAR -- PART I: The U.S. Prepares for Conflict, 2001
September 22…
Briefing Book 419
Edited by Kate Doyle Kate Doyle 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., March 19, 2013 – The groundbreaking genocide trial of Efraнn Rнos Montt, retired army general and former dictator of Guatemala, opens today with the presentation of the prosecution'…
Briefing Book 417, FOIA Audit 417
Tom Blanton/Nate Jones/Lauren Harper 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
IN THE NEWS Agencies lag on transparency, report says By Josh Hicks, The Washington Post, December 4, 2012 Federal Agencies Are Failing to Uphold Obama's Stated Commitment to Transparency By Rebecca…
Briefing Book 416
Edited by Carlos Osorio Carlos Osorio 202/994-7000 or cosorio@gwu.edu Peter Kornbluh 202/374-7281 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Related Links
Una justicia que trasciende las fronteras
Por Alejandra Dandan, March, 6 2013
STOLEN BABIES: Argentina Convicts Two Military Dictators
July 5, 2012
Kissinger Blocked Demarche on…
Briefing Book 415
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7032
Washington, D.C., March 5, 2013 – The fabled but previously secret State Department intelligence memorandum that predicted, five months in advance, the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, has now emerged from…
Briefing Book 414
Edited by Robert A. Wampler, PhD Robert A. Wampler 202/994-7000 or wampler@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., February 28, 2013 – U.S. officials had hopes thirty years ago that a political liberalization and economic reform program China had initiated in Tibet could lead to real…
Unredacted blog
Beijing’s 1980’s Tibetan Thaw – Missed Opportunity or Doomed to Fail?
FEBRUARY 28, 2013
tags: China, Nixon, Tibet
by Bob Wampler
"Police Attention: No distributing any unhealthy thoughts or objects…
Briefing Book 413
Edited by Peter Kornbluh Peter Kornbluh - 202/374-7281 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington, D.C., February 22, 2013 – Chilean ruler General Augusto Pinochet intended to use violence to annul the October 1988 plebiscite that ended his lengthy military dictatorship, according to…
Briefing Book 412
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7032
The Clinton Administration and the Indian Nuclear Test That Didn't Happen — 1995-1996 Washington, D.C., February 22, 2013 – In the last months of 1995, U.S intelligence agencies detected signs of…
Briefing Book 411
Edited by Peter Kornbluh Peter Kornbluh - 202/374-7281 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington, D.C., January 18, 2013 – The U.S. government has "between five to seven different transition plans" for Cuba, and the USAID-sponsored "Democracy" program aimed at the Castro government is…
Briefing Book 410
Edited by Nate Jones and Lauren Harper with Documents from Jeffrey T. Richelson and Barbara Elias Nate Jones, Freedom of Information Coordinator 202/994-7045 nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, January 17, 2013 – The poster for the blockbuster movie Zero Dark Thirty features black lines of redaction over the title, which unintentionally illustrate the most accurate take-away…
Briefing Book 407
Washington, DC, December 14, 2012 – When Naval Investigative Service analyst Jonathan Pollard spied for Israel in 1984 and 1985, his Israeli handlers asked primarily for nuclear, military and…
Briefing Book 235
Edited by Jeffrey Richelson Jeffrey Richelson - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., November 9, 2007 - In anticipation of the planned launch of the final Defense Support Program (DSP) satellite tomorrow evening, which was originally scheduled to be orbited in…
Briefing Book 20130108
Jeffrey T. Richelson - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., January 8, 2013 - As the United States prepares to transition this month from Cold War-era missile detection programs to a more sophisticated infrared platform, recently declassified…
Briefing Book 409
Edited by Malcolm Byrne and Svetlana Savranskaya 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., December 21, 2012 – On December 12, 1979, the Soviet Politburo gathered to formally approve the decision made several days earlier to send a "limited contingent" of Soviet forces…
Briefing Book 408
Edited by Michael Evans Michael Evans 202/994-7029 or mevans@gwu.edu
Colombian Army "Facilitated" Paramilitary Operation at Miraflores "From Beginning to End" "Big-Time Narco" Carranza one of the "Best Known" Paramilitaries in Colombia but "Content to Operate Behind…
Briefing Book 406
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7032
Washington, D.C., December 12, 2012 – As late as 1968, the U.S. government had plans in place to fire an automatic "full nuclear response" against both the Soviet Union and China in the event of the…
News 20121207
Tom Blanton or Nate Jones- 202/994-7000 or foiadesk@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., December 7, 2012 – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit yesterday rejected the CIA's attempt to shortcut the National Security Archive's lawsuit under the Freedom of…
Briefing Book 405, FOIA Audit 405
Tom Blanton/Nate Jones/Lauren Harper 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
IN THE NEWS
Updated December 6, 2012
Agencies lag on transparency, report says By Josh Hicks, The Washington Post, December 4, 2012
Federal Agencies Are Failing to Uphold Obama's Stated Commitment…
Book By Sergo Mikoyan, and translated and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya
Briefing Book 404
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson Jeffrey T. Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, November 27, 2012 – In the forty years since the first launch of a commercial imagery satellite – LANDSAT – in 1972, U.S. official policy has shifted dramatically from imposing…
Briefing Book 403
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7032
Washington, D.C., November 19, 2012 – For decades, U.S. command-control-and-communications (C3) systems were deeply vulnerable to nuclear attack, according to a recently declassified Pentagon study.…
Unredacted blog
by Emily Willard
-Notes from the Evidence Project-
Today marks the 23rd anniversary of the massacre of six Jesuit Priests in El Salvador, along with their house keeper and her 16 year-old daughter…
Briefing Book 402
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Malcolm Byrne 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., November 12, 2012 – The U.S.-Soviet rivalry in the Third World created splits within the Carter administration and fundamental confusion in the Kremlin over the nature of U.S.…
Briefing Book 401
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7032
Washington, D.C., November 6, 2012 – The U.S. intelligence community predicted India's nuclear bomb in 1964 but mistakenly concluded Israel had "not yet decided" to go nuclear, according to newly…
Special Exhibit
In November 1962, Cuba was preparing to become the first nuclear power in Latin America—at the time when the Kennedy administration thought that the Cuban Missile Crisis was long resolved and the…
Briefing Book 400
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya, Anna Melyakova and Amanda Conrad 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, October 27, 2012 – The Cuban Missile Crisis continued long after the "13 days" celebrated by U.S. media, with U.S. armed forces still on DEFCON 2 and Soviet tactical nuclear weapons…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 399
Edited by Thomas Blanton, William Burr and Svetlana Savranskaya 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, October 24, 2012 – Extreme temperatures, equipment breakdowns, and the reckless deployment of nuclear torpedoes aboard Soviet submarines near the quarantine line during the Cuban…
Unredacted blog
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 398
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7032
The Pentagon during the Cuban Missile Crisis Part II. Day-By-Day Washington, DC, October 19, 2012 – Notes, office calendars, and daily journals from Pentagon top secret files published today for the…
Briefing Book 397
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7032
The Pentagon during the Cuban Missile Crisis Part I. New Documents Washington, DC, October 16, 2012 – Fifty years after President Kennedy considered invading Cuba to take out Soviet missiles during…
Briefing Book 396
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya Svetlana Savranskaya - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, October 13, 2012 – Contrary to U.S. myths of a strategic Soviet offensive towards warm water ports on the Persian Gulf or Indian Ocean, it was "mission creep" that led the Soviet…
Book By James Blight, janet Lang, Hussein Banai, Malcolm Byrne and John Tirman
“For those seeking to understand the roots of modern enmity between the U.S. and Iran, Becoming Enemies is a truly unique and wonderful resource.” – Karim Sadjadpour
Briefing Book 394
Edited by Malcolm Byrne Malcolm Byrne - 202/994-7000 or mbyrne@gwu.edu
Advance Praise for Becoming Enemies For those seeking to understand the roots of modern enmity between the U.S. and Iran, Becoming Enemies is a truly unique and wonderful resource. — Karim Sadjadpour…
Briefing Book 395
Edited by Peter Kornbluh Peter Kornbluh - 202/374-7281 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington, DC, October 12, 2012 – On the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, new documents from the Robert Kennedy papers declassified yesterday and posted today by the National Security…
Briefing Book 393
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya Svetlana Savranskaya - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, October 10, 2012 – In November 1962, Cuba was preparing to become the first nuclear power in Latin America—at the time when the Kennedy administration thought that the Cuban Missile…
Briefing Book 392
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson Jeffrey T. Richelson - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., October 4, 2012 – Today, the National Security Archive posts the fourth in a series of electronic briefing books concerning secrecy and satellite reconnaissance - one of the most…
News 20121001
Media InquiriesKaren Lynch – karen@armageddonletters.com, 401/354-9465
Washington, DC, October 1, 2012 – The Armageddon Letters - a transmedia project (multiplatform storytelling) launched on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis - takes…
Briefing Book 391
National Security ArchiveMalcolm Byrne/ Svetlana Savranskaya, 202.994.7000, svetlana@gwu.edu International MemorialArsenii Roginsky/ Gennadii Kuzovkin/ Natalya Petrova, 7 (967) 271-4171, natalia.petrova@gmail.com
Moscow, Russian Federation, 18 September 2012 – The first-ever Web publication of previously secret U.S. documents on Soviet dissidents, matched with reports and letters by the dissidents themselves…
Briefing Book 390
William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., September 14, 2012 – The National Security Archive is today posting - for the first time in its essentially complete form - one of the most controversial nuclear policy directives…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 389
Edited by Barbara Elias-Sanborn Barbara Elias-Sanborn - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., September 11, 2012 – In the wake of the State Department's recent designation of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Haqqani Network as a terrorist organization, declassified documents posted…
Briefing Book 388
Jeffrey T. Richelson - 202/994-7000 nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., September 7, 2012 – Eleven years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, how concerned Americans should be over threats of nuclear terrorism remains a subject of vigorous…
News 20120905
Tom Blanton - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, September 5, 2012 – The online magazine ForeignPolicy.com today published an extraordinary CIA document on the recent Iraq war which the National Security Archive obtained through a…
News 20120815
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Malcolm Byrne (With grateful appreciation to James G. Blight and janet M. Lang); Svetlana Savranskaya - 202/994-7000 Malcolm Byrne - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, August 15, 2012 – High hopes for a "reset" of U.S.-Soviet relations in the late 1970s were shattered by ingrained suspicions and negative international trends to which both sides…
Special Exhibit
Starting in the early 1990s, the Carter-Brezhnev Project brought together not only policy veterans from the U.S. and USSR, but scholars from several institutions, with three main sponsors - the…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 385
William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., July 23, 2012 – The possibility that highly motivated countries, such as Iran in today's environment, could secretly build gas centrifuge plants to produce highly enriched uranium…
Briefing Book 387
Compiled and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya, Tom Blanton and Anna Melyakova Web production by Rinat Bikineyev and Jamie Noguchi. Research and editorial assistance by Anya Grenier and Julia Noecker. Special thanks to the Memorial Society, Archive of the History of Dissent, Moscow. For more information202.994.7000, nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Moscow, Russian Federation, July 20, 2012 – Marking the 85th birthday of Russian human rights legend Lyudmila Alexeyeva, the National Security Archive today published on the Web a digital collection…
Briefing Book 386
Edited by Jeffrey T Richelson Jeffrey T Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., July 19, 2012 – A new Web resource posted today by the National Security Archive offers a wide-ranging compilation of declassified records detailing the operations of a key…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 384
Edited by Robert A. Wampler Robert A. Wampler - 202/994-7000
A new book and newly-released documents illuminate the history of U.S. efforts to deal with the Korean security dilemma during and since the Cold War. Among the key "lessons learned" are the limits…
Briefing Book 383
Carlos Osorio - 202/994-7000 cosorio@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., July 5, 2012 –An Argentine tribunal today convicted two former military leaders for their roles in the kidnapping and theft of dozens of babies of executed and disappeared political…
News 20120704
Nate Jones/Tom Blanton - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, July 4, 2012 – Marking the 46th anniversary of President Johnson's signing the Freedom of Information Act, the National Security Archive today posted a compilation of 46 news…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 385
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., July 23, 2012 – The possibility that highly motivated countries, such as Iran in today's environment, could secretly build gas centrifuge plants to produce highly enriched uranium…
Briefing Book 382
Robert A. Wampler, PhD - 202/994-7000 wampler@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., June 20, 2012 –The National Security Archive announces the publication of its latest digital compilation of declassified records on U.S. ties with a critically important global…
Briefing Book 381
Edited by Barbara Elias-Sanborn with Thanks to Archive Senior Fellow Jeffrey T. Richelson Barbara Elias-Sanborn - 202/994-7000 belias@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., June 19, 2012 – The National Security Archive today is posting over 100 recently released CIA documents relating to September 11, Osama bin Laden, and U.S. counterterrorism…
Briefing Book 380
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson and William Burr
Washington, D.C., May 29, 2012 - A secret exercise in 1986 by a U.S. government counter-terrorist unit uncovered a host of potential problems associated with disrupting a nuclear terrorist plot…
Briefing Book 380
Jeffrey T. Richelson William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., May 29, 2012 - A secret exercise in 1986 by a U.S. government counter-terrorist unit uncovered a host of potential problems associated with disrupting a nuclear terrorist plot in…
Briefing Book 379
Svetlana Savranskaya - 202/994-7000
Translated and edited by Anna Melyakova and Svetlana Savranskaya "Anatoly Chernyaev's diary is one of the great internal records of the Gorbachev years, a trove of irreplaceable observations about a…
News 20120510
Peter Kornbluh - 202/374-7281 peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington, DC, May 10, 2012 – More than year after the National Security Archive sued the CIA to declassify the full "Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation," a U.S. District Court judge…
Briefing Book 378
Kate Doyle - 646/670-8841 kadoyle@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., May 3, 2012 – On April 25, 2012, Kate Doyle, senior analyst and director of the Guatemala Documentation Project at the National Security Archive, provided expert witness testimony…
Briefing Book 377
William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., April 27, 2012 – Tensions between the United States and Pakistan rose through the 1980s over intelligence reports that suggested to U.S. officials that Pakistani leader Zia ul-Haq…
Briefing Book 377
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., April 27, 2012 – Tensions between the United States and Pakistan rose through the 1980s over intelligence reports that suggested to U.S. officials that Pakistani leader Zia ul-Haq…
Briefing Book 376
Tom Blanton/Nate Jones - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., April 26, 2012 – The former Liberian president Charles Taylor today became the first head of state since Nuremberg convicted by an international court for crimes against humanity,…
Briefing Book 375
202/994-7000 nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., April 10, 2012 – The "FBI's most valued secret agents of the Cold War," brothers Morris and Jack Childs, together codenamed SOLO, reported back to J. Edgar Hoover starting in 1958…
News 20120403
Tom Blanton - 202/994-7000 nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, April 3, 2012 – The State Department today released a February 2006 internal memo from the Department's then-counselor opposing Justice Department authorization for "enhanced…
Briefing Book 374
Edited by Carlos Osorio, Sarah Christiano and Erin Maskell With the collaboration of Anne Morel and Marcos Novaro Carlos Osorio - 202/994-7061 cosorio@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., April 1, 2012 – The United States secretly supported the United Kingdom during the early days of the Falklands/Malvinas Island war of 1982, while publicly adopting a neutral stance…
Briefing Book 373
Kate Doyle - 646/670-8841 kadoyle@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, March 23, 2012 -- Today marks the 30th anniversary of the coup that propelled General Efraín Ríos Montt to power and launched the most violent period of the 36-year internal armed…
Briefing Book 372
Jeffrey T. Richelson - 202/994-7000 nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., March 23, 2012 – A central element of the current debate over how to deal with Iran's nuclear program has focused on the possible difficulty of destroying the Qom underground…
News 20120312
Nate Jones - 202/994-7000 foiadesk@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, March 12, 2012 – Attorney General Eric Holder kicked off Sunshine Week 2012 by rehashing widely discredited statistics released by the Department of Justice after it was awarded the…
Briefing Book 371
William Burr - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., March 1, 2012 – During the 2008 campaign, Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama debated the question: who was best suited to be suddenly awakened at 3 a.…
Rosemary Award
For more information contact:
Tom Blanton, Director, National Security Archive - 202/994-7000
Nate Jones, Freedom of Information Coordinator - 202/994-7045
nsarchiv@gwu.edu
The U.S. Department of Justice has won the infamous Rosemary Award for worst open government performance over the past year, according to the citation posted on the Web today by the National Security…
Briefing Book 370
Edited by Matthew M. Aid Matthew M. Aid - 202/994-7000 nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Purchase Intel Wars: The Secret History of the Fight Against Terror at Amazon. Review of Intel Wars by Dina Temple-Raston, The Washington Post, February 17, 2012. Other posts by Matthew Aid Project…
News 20120203a
Barbara Elias-Sanborn - 202/994-7000 belias@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, February 3, 2012 – As the U.S. searches for opportunities to negotiate with the Taliban while simultaneously targeting key Taliban leaders with drone strikes, a new article published…
News 20120203
Kate Doyle - 646/670-8841 kadoyle@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, February 3, 2012- Kate Doyle, director of the Evidence Project at the National Security Archive, and Fredy Peccerelli, the forensic anthropologist of the Fundaciуn de Antropologнa…
Briefing Book 369
Edited by James G. Hershberg James G. Hershberg - 202/994-7000 jhershb@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., January 15, 2012 – Casting new light on one of the most controversial and enduring mysteries of the Vietnam War, a new book using evidence from long-hidden communist sources…
News 20111222
Tom Blanton - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, December 22, 2011- The new E-Book series by bestselling thriller writer James Grady features the National Security Archive as the scene of a key plot sequence, and also as the…
Briefing Book 368
Michael Evans - 202/994-7029 mevans@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C. , December 16, 2011 - A Colombian army general acquitted today in one of the country's most infamous human rights cases "actively" collaborated with paramilitary death squads…
Briefing Book 367
William Burr - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., December 5, 2011 – India's "peaceful nuclear explosion" on 18 May 1974 caught the United States by surprise in part because the intelligence community had not been looking for signs…
Briefing Book 366
Edited by Peter Kornbluh and Erin Maskell Peter Kornbluh - 202/374-7281 peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington D.C., November 30, 2011 – Thirty-eight years after the military coup in Chile, a Chilean judge has formally indicted the former head of the U.S. Military Group, Captain Ray Davis, and a…
Briefing Book 365
Peter Kornbluh - 202/374-7281 Malcolm Byrne - 202/994-7043 nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., November 25, 2011 – President Ronald Reagan was briefed in advance about every weapons shipment in the Iran arms-for-hostages deals in 1985-86, and Vice President George H. W. Bush…
Briefing Book 364
Tom Blanton - 202/994-7068 Svetlana Savranskaya - 202/994-7190 nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., November 22, 2011 - Marking the 20th anniversary of the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Gorbachev Foundation hosted a two-day conference in Moscow on November 10-11, co-organized by…
Briefing Book 363
Kate Doyle - 646/670-8841 kadoyle@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., November 22, 2011 - The bodies of two men whose disappearance in 1984 was recorded in the notorious Guatemalan "death squad diary" have been located on a former military base…
Briefing Book 362
John Prados - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., October 28, 2011 - CIA director William Colby rebuffed criticisms from senior Agency operators about disclosure of CIA misdeeds by describing the difference between "bad secrets," "…
Book By Robert A. Wampler
Briefing Book 361
William Burr - 202/994-7000
Annex A. Reproduction of DVD Box (front and back) Annex B. Table of Contents Annex C. List of Interviewees
What follows is a subjective report on some highlights of the 4 DVDs with a sometimes…
Briefing Book 360
Michael Evans - 202/994-7029 mevans@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., September 29, 2011 - Twelve years after the assassination of beloved Colombian journalist and political satirist Jaime Garzуn, a newly-declassified State Department cable, published…
Briefing Book 359, Special Exhibit 359
Edited By John Prados John Prados - 202/994-7000
What Were the 11 Missing Words? Enter the National Security Archive’s Reader Contest! Washington, DC, September 16, 2011 - For the first time ever, all three major editions of the Pentagon Papers are…
Briefing Book 358
Barbara Elias - 202/994-7000 belias@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, September 11, 2011 - In October 2001 the U.S. sent a private message to Taliban leader Mullah Omar warning that "every pillar of the Taliban regime will be destroyed," [Document 16]…
Briefing Book 357
By Svetlana Savranskaya and Anna Melyakova Svetlana Savranskaya - 202/994-7000 or by email
Washington D.C., August 19, 2011 -The hardline coup d’etat 20 years ago today in Moscow surprised its plotters with unexpected resistance from Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, from Russian…
Briefing Book 356
Rebecca Hamilton - 202/994-7000 www.fightingfordarfur.com hamilton@newamerica.net
Washington, DC, August 17, 2011 - A secret June 25, 2004 Department of State memo entitled “Genocide and Darfur” written by William Taft IV, the legal advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell,…
Briefing Book 355
By Peter Kornbluh Peter Kornbluh - 202/374-7281 or by email
Washington, D.C., August 15, 2011 - In the heat of the battle at the Bay of Pigs, the lead CIA field operative aboard one of the transport boats fired 75mm recoilless rifles and .50-caliber machine…
Briefing Book 354
William Burr - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., August 12, 2011 - Fifty years ago, when leaders of the former East Germany (German Democratic Republic) implemented their dramatic decision to seal off East Berlin from the western…
Briefing Book 353
By Peter Kornbluh Peter Kornbluh - 202/374-7281 or by email
Washington, D.C., August 1, 2011 - Pursuant to a FOIA lawsuit filed by the National Security Archive on the 50th anniversary of the infamous CIA-led invasion of Cuba, the CIA has released four…
Briefing Book 352
Published jointly with the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., July 27, 2011 - The United States and Great Britain undertook a secret diplomatic campaign in the late 1970s to prevent a major nuclear proliferation threat – Pakistan's attempted…
Briefing Book 351
Compiled by Dan Jenkins and Malcolm Byrne For more information, contactJeffrey Richelson and Matthew Aid (202) 994-7000
Washington, D.C., July 21, 2011 – In 2005, U.S. intelligence agencies monitoring Chinese research into high-power microwave (HPM) and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) radiation speculated that Beijing…
Briefing Book 350
Edited By John Prados John Prados - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., July 12, 2011 - What were the 11 words the government didn’t want you to see? The aspect of the June 13 release of the full Pentagon Papers that has received the most attention is…
Briefing Book 350
Edited By John Prados
Washington, D.C., July 12, 2011 - What were the 11 words the government didn’t want you to see?
Briefing Book 349, FOIA Audit 349
ContactTom Blanton/Nate Jones 202.994.7045 foiadesk@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., July 4, 2011 - Forty-five years after President Johnson signed the U.S. Freedom of Information Act into law in 1966, federal agency backlogs of FOIA requests are growing, with the…
Unredacted blog
by Rachel Hatcher
US Embassy staff report that representatives from both the Salvadoran right and left expressed disapproval of possible international investigations into crimes committed during the…
Briefing Book 348
Edited By John Prados John Prados - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, June 13, 2011 - The complete version of the Pentagon Papers released today by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) includes a substantial amount of information not…
Briefing Book 347
Kate Doyle - 646/670-8841 kadoyle@gwu.edu
Guatemala City, Guatemala, June 7, 2011 - This text is a copy of the speech given by Kate Doyle at the ceremony of the presentation of the report, "From Silence to Memory: Revelations of the…
Unredacted blog
Big Victory for Plaintiffs in Chiquita Paramilitary Suit
JUNE 3, 2011
tags: chiquita, Colombia, human rights, paramilitaries
by Michael Evans
The handwritten notes of Chiquita Senior Counsel Robert…
Briefing Book 346
William Burr - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., May 26, 2011 - The U.S. government secretly helped France develop its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program, and much earlier than previously realized, according to…
Briefing Book 345
By Svetlana Savranskaya and Anna Melyakova Svetlana Savranskaya - 202/994-7000 or by email
"Anatoly Chernyaev's diary is one of the great internal records of the Gorbachev years, a trove of irreplacable observations about a turning point in history. There is nothing else quite like it,…
Briefing Book 344
Barbara Elias - 202/994-7000 belias@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., May 5, 2011 - As the discovery of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, raises fresh questions about U.S.-Pakistan relations, newly released documents show that as early as 1998…
Briefing Book 343
Tom Blanton, Malcolm Byrne, Nate Jones - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., May 2, 2011 - The Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, killed in Pakistan by U.S. special operations forces yesterday, ranked as “one of the most significant financial sponsors of…
Briefing Book 342
By John Prados John Prados - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., April 21, 2011 - The United States Government’s system for the release of classified material into the public domain continues to be riddled with error, ignorance, arbitrary actions…
Briefing Book 341
By Peter Kornbluh Peter Kornbluh - 202/374-7281 or by email
Washington, D.C., April 14, 2011 - Fifty years after the failed CIA-led assault on Cuba, the National Security Archive today filed a FOIA lawsuit to compel the Agency to release its “Official History…
Briefing Book 340
By Michael Evans Michael Evans - 202/994-7029 or by email
Bogotб, Colombia, April 7, 2011 - Confidential internal memos from Chiquita Brands International reveal that the banana giant benefited from its payments to Colombian paramilitary and guerrilla…
News 20110325
Tom Blanton - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, March 25, 2011 - Ron Rosenbaum's new book, How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III, praises the National Security Archive's Nuclear Vault as an "astonishing…
Briefing Book 339
ByKate Doyle and Emily Willard Kate Doyle - 646/670-8841 kadoyle@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., March 23, 2011 - Thirty one years ago tomorrow, El Salvador’s Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was shot and killed by right-wing assassins seeking to silence his message of…
Briefing Book 338, FOIA Audit 338
Tom Blanton / Nate Jones - 202/994-7045 Email - foiadesk@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., March 14, 2011 - The Obama administration is only about halfway toward its promise of improving Freedom of Information responsiveness among federal agencies, according to the new…
Unredacted blog
Unredacted blog
by Emily Willard
The Recovered Documents
Briefing Book 336
William Burr - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., February 19, 2011 - "The Power of Decision" may be the first (and perhaps the only) U.S. government film depicting the Cold War nightmare of a U.S.-Soviet nuclear conflict. The U.S…
Briefing Book 337
ByKate Doyle and Emily Willard Kate Doyle - 646/670-8841 kadoyle@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., February 18, 2011 - Twenty-seven years ago today, Guatemalan labor activist Edgar Fernando Garcнa was shot and kidnapped by government security forces off a street in downtown…
Briefing Book 335
Rebecca Hamilton - 202/994-7000 www.fightingfordarfur.com hamilton@newamerica.net
Washington, DC, February 1, 2011 - The U.S. government’s opposition to the International Criminal Court held up deployments of peacekeeping forces in Sudan and slowed the eventual indictment of…
News 20110128
Kate Doyle - 646/670-8841
Washington, DC, January 28, 2011 - A new documentary film about human rights in Guatemala featuring National Security Archive senior analyst Kate Doyle will have its world premiere at the Sundance…
Briefing Book 316
By Kate Doyle, Jesse Franzblau, and Emily Willard Kate Doyle - kadoyle@gwu.edu Jesse Franzblau -jfranzbl@umich.edu Emily Willard - ewillard@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C. - January 20, 2011 - Jorge Vinicio Sosa Orantes was arrested in Alberta, Canada on January 18, 2011 on charges of naturalization fraud in the United States. Sosa Orantes, 52, is a…
Briefing Book 334
By Peter Kornbluh and Erin Maskell For more information 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., January 11, 2011 - As the unprecedented trial of Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles begins this week in El Paso, Texas, the National Security Archive today posted a series of CIA…
Briefing Book 333
William Burr - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., December 21, 2010 - The Wikileaks database of purloined State Department cable traffic includes revelations, published in the Washington Post and the New York Times about tensions…
News 20101216
Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, December 16, 2010 - Efforts to tighten the secrecy system and crackdown on leakers and the media will be "fundamentally self-defeating," according to Thomas Blanton, executive…
Unredacted blog
Unredacted blog
by Emily Willard
I would like to thank Mr. Kurtz of the National Archives and Records Administration for providing a candid and illuminating response to my previous post of November 17, 2010,…
News 20101209
Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, December 9, 2010 - Friends and family of the late Smith Bagley joined the National Security Archive staff and board on December 9 to dedicate and celebrate the new Smith Bagley…
Briefing Book 331
Tom Blanton - 202/994-7000
NEW - November 24, 2010 - Download the Complete Redacted Report as Released by the Department of Justice (PDF - 16MB) NEW - November 15, 2010 - Download the Complete Unredacted Report as Published in…
Briefing Book 332
Christopher Bright CBright@christopherjohnbright.com www.ChristopherJohnBright.com
Washington, D.C., November 16, 2010 - To counter a Soviet bomber attack, U.S. war plans contemplated widespread use of thousands of air defense weapons during the middle years of the Cold War…
News 20101104
For more information, Tom Blanton 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., November 4, 2010 – President Obama’s new Executive Order on “Controlled Unclassified Information” issued today builds on recommendations from open government groups and the findings…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 330
Edited by John Prados and Christopher Ames
Washington, D.C., October 4, 2010 - For nearly a year before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the British government of Prime Minister Tony Blair collaborated closely with the George W. Bush…
Briefing Book 328
Edited by John Prados and Christopher Ames
Washington, D.C., October 1, 2010 – Contrary to statements by President George W. Bush or Prime Minister Tony Blair, declassified records from both governments posted on the Web today reflect an…
Briefing Book 327
Michael Evans - 202/994-7029 mevans@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., September 29, 2010 - The U.S. ambassador to Colombia reported in 1998 that the "systematic arming and equipping of aggressive regional paramilitaries" was "pivotal" to the military…
Briefing Book 326
Edited by Joyce Battle
Washington, D.C., September 22, 2010 – Following instructions from President George W. Bush to develop an updated war plan for Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered CENTCOM…
Briefing Book 325
Barbara Elias - (202) 994-7000 - belias@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., September 13, 2010 - Pakistani tribal areas where Osama bin Laden found refuge were momentarily open to the Pakistani Army when "the tribes were overawed by U.S. firepower" after 9/…
Briefing Book 324
By Carlos Osorio and Marianna Enamoneta With the Collaboration of Clara Aldrighi Carlos Osoriocosorio@gwu.edu, (202) 994-7061 Clara Aldrighiclara.aldrighi@gmail.com
Washington, D.C., August 11, 2010 - Documents posted by the National Security Archive on the 40th anniversary of the death of U.S. advisor Dan Mitrione in Uruguay show the Nixon administration…
Briefing Book 323
Washington, D.C., August 11, 2010 - The next nuclear policy challenge for the Obama administration, right after Senate action on the New START Treaty, will be Senate ratification of the Comprehensive…
Book By Svetlana Savranskaya, Thomas Blanton and Vladislav Zubok
“Evocative, illuminating, insightful: This volume is a brilliant collection of documents, conversations, and essays. It is absolutely indispensable for under-standing the end of the Cold War…
News 20100729
Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, July 29, 2010 - National Security Archive Director Tom Blanton made a guest appearance on “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central on Tuesday, July 27, to discuss Wikileaks’ release of…
Briefing Book 322
By Robert Wampler, PhD For more information202/994-7000 or wampler@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., June 23, 2010 - Four decades ago, in response to North Korean military provocations, the U.S. developed contingency plans that included selected use of tactical nuclear weapons…
Briefing Book 321
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7032
Washington, D.C., June 16, 2010 - U.S. presidents long before President Obama have sought an international fissile material cutoff off treaty but the reasons they have failed remain with us today,…
Briefing Book 320
Washington, D.C., June 13, 2010 - The Washington summit 20 years ago this month between Presidents George H.W. Bush and Mikhail S. Gorbachev brought dramatic realization on the American side of the…
Briefing Book 319
Michael Evans - 202/994-7029 mevans@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., June 11, 2010 – To mark the first-ever criminal conviction in Colombia's infamous Palace of Justice case, the Archive today posts a selection of key declassified documents…
Briefing Book 318
By Malcolm Byrne Malcolm Byrne - 202/994-7000 / mbyrne@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, May 30, 2010 - A highly confidential U.S. overture to Iran in summer 1999 foundered because the intelligence community and FBI believed members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC)…
Briefing Book 317
By Svetlana Savranskaya Translated by Anya Melyakova For more information202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., May 25, 2010 - Today the National Security Archive publishes its fifth installment of the diary of Anatoly Chernyaev, the man who was behind some of the most momentous…
Briefing Book 315
By David E. Hoffman For more information, contactDavid E. Hoffman hoffmand@washpost.com 202-334-5553 or seewww.thedeadhandbook.com
Washington, D.C., May 6, 2010 - Internal documents reveal that in the final years of the Cold War the top leadership of the Soviet Union debated the cover-up of their illicit biological weapons…
Briefing Book 314
By David E. Hoffman For more information, contactDavid E. Hoffman hoffmand@washpost.com 202-334-5553 or seewww.thedeadhandbook.com
Washington, D.C., April 29, 2010 - Previously unpublished documents from inside the Kremlin shed new light on how Soviet and American scientists breached the walls of Soviet military secrecy in the…
Briefing Book 313
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Malcolm Byrne (with document advice from William Burr and Tom Blanton)
Washington, D.C., April 14, 2010 - Anatoly Fedorovich Dobrynin--the former Soviet Ambassador to the United States who served under five Soviet leaders and six U.S. Presidents, and was a long-time…
Briefing Book 312
Edited by Peter Kornbluh 202/994-7116 office - 202/374-7281 cell - peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington, DC, April 10, 2010 - Only five days before a car bomb planted by agents of the Pinochet regime rocked downtown Washington D.C. on September 21, 1976, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger…
Briefing Book 311
Thomas Blanton and William Burr, editors Thomas Blanton, William Burr202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., April 8, 2010 - The new START Treaty signed today in Prague represents "real" but "modest" cuts in strategic nuclear forces comparable to some Cold War alternatives but still higher…
Briefing Book 310
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7032
Washington, D.C., April 7, 2010 - In a response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the Pentagon claims that "Poodle Blanket" contingency plans from 1961 for a possible confrontation over…
Briefing Book 309
Edited by Carlos Osorio Assisted by Marianna Enamoneta and Miliette Marcos Carlos Osorio - 202/994-7061
Washington, DC, March 30, 2010 - For the first time in Latin America, a judge has sent a former head of state to prison for the crime of an "Attack against the Constitution." In an unprecedented…
Briefing Book 308, FOIA Audit 308
Tom Blanton, National Security Archive Director - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, March 15, 2010 - Despite President Barack Obama's and Attorney General Eric Holder's 2009 memoranda calling for reform in government agencies' administration of the Freedom of…
News 20100312, Rosemary Award 20100312
Tom Blanton - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, March 12, 2010 - The Rosemary Award for worst open government performance, named after President Nixon’s secretary who erased 18 Ѕ minutes of a crucial Watergate tape, this year goes…
Briefing Book 307
By Kate Doyle and Jesse Franzblau Research AssistanceSusana Zavala Orozco Kate Doyle - kadoyle@gwu.edu Jesse Franzblau - jblau@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, March 9, 2010 - A Mexican human rights activist who was orphaned in infancy when her parents disappeared at the hands of government forces filed a petition before the Inter-American…
Book By Patrick Tyler
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 305
Edited by Matthew Aid with William Burr and Thomas Blanton 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., February 12, 2010 - For the first time, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has declassified substantive information on one of its most secret and sensitive schemes, "Project…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 306
Edited by Robert Wampler For more information202/994-7000 or wampler@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., February 2, 2010 - Twenty-nine years ago today, less than two weeks after his inauguration, President Ronald Reagan rolled out the welcome mat at the White House for South Korean…
Unredacted blog
Briefing Book 304
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., January 15, 2010 - To refute early 1960s novels and Hollywood films like Fail-Safe and Dr. Strangelove which raised questions about U.S. control over nuclear weapons, the Air Force…
Briefing Book 303
Edited by Robert Wampler
Washington, D.C., December 18, 2009 - The challenges facing President Obama in the Copenhagen climate negotiations this week directly parallel the domestic and diplomatic constraints that…
News 20091214
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, December 14, 2009 - The National Security Archive (the Archive), Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the White House and the National Archives and Records…
Briefing Book 301
Edited by William Burr wburr@gwu.edu
"Each side took steps to ensure its own security which the other in turn perceived as threatening its security." -- Raymond L. Garthoff (Note 1) Washington, D.C., December 10, 2009 - Thirty years ago…
Briefing Book 300
Editado por Carlos Osorio Asistido por Marianna Enamoneta Carlos Osorio - 202/994-7061 cosorio@gwu.edu English version
Diciembre 8, 2009, Washington, DC - El National Security Archive revela hoy un documento que Jaime Dri, único sobreviviente, conoció directamente sobre la Operación México que forzó a desaparecidos…
Briefing Book 299
Editado por Carlos Osorio Asistido por Marianna Enamoneta Carlos Osorio - 202/994-7061 cosorio@gwu.edu English version
December 3, 2009, Washington, DC - Debido al caso de Jacobo Timerman, el gobierno militar en Argentina casi colapsa, segъn nuevos documentos publicados hoy por el National Security Archive. En el 30…
Briefing Book 298
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton Svetlana Savranskaya/Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., December 3, 2009 - President George H.W. Bush approached the Malta summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev 20 years ago this week determined to avoid arms control topics and…
Briefing Book 299
Edited by Carlos Osorio
Assisted by Marianna Enamoneta
December 3, 2009, Washington, DC - 30 years after the release of Jacobo Timerman, the former newspaper editor and Argentina's most famous political prisoner during the military dictatorship, the…
Briefing Book 297
Kate Doyle - kadoyle@gwu.edu English / Spanish / French
December 2, 2009, Washington, DC - The Guatemalan army, under the direction of military ruler Efraнn Rнos Montt, carried out a deliberate counterinsurgency campaign in the summer of 1982 aimed at…
Briefing Book 296
Svetlana Savranskaya, Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., November 18, 2009 - Secret messages from senior Soviet officials to West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl after the fall of the Berlin Wall led directly to Kohl's famous "10 Points"…
Unredacted blog
by Kristin Adair
A Los Angeles Times article published today features Archive Analyst Kate Doyle discussing the upcoming trial of Salvadoran officials accused in the 1987 assassination of six Jesuit…
Unredacted blog
by Kate Doyle
Unredacted blog
Still Orphans of the Cold War? President Obama’s Decision to Postpone Meeting with the Dalai Lama in Historical Context
NOVEMBER 16, 2009
Briefing Book 295
Barbara Elias - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., November 13, 2009 - Three years before al Qaeda's attacks on the United States on 9/11, U.S. officials detected an alarming shift in the ideological stance of Taliban leader Mullah…
Briefing Book 294
Vilйm Pre?an, Czechoslovak Documentation Centre Thomas Blanton, National Security Archive - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., November 8, 2009 - Just before the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago, even the hardline Czechoslovak Communist leaders called for the opening of the German border, according to…
Briefing Book 293
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton Svetlana Savranskaya/Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., November 7, 2009 - The fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago generated major anxiety in capitals from Warsaw to Washington, to the point of outright opposition to the possibility of…
News 20091102
Barbara Elias belias@gwu.edu
Washington, DC, November 2, 2009 - As Vice President Biden and other high-ranking U.S. officials contemplate a policy of compromise with the Taliban in order to induce them to turn against al-Qaeda,…
Briefing Book 292
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya Svetlana Savranskaya202/994-7190
Washington, D.C., October 30, 2009 - The debate over U.S. policy in the Afghanistan war features striking and troubling parallels with the choices faced by Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev…
Briefing Book 289
Michael Evans - 202/994-7029 mevans@gwu.edu
Updated - October 28, 2009 Secrets and Lies: The U.S. Embassy and Col. Plazas Vega By Michael Evans [The following article was published today in Spanish at Semana.com.] The recent appearance of a…
Briefing Book 291
Edited by Dr. Robert A. Wampler
Washington, D.C., October 13, 2009 - The election of the new Democratic Party government in Japan led by Yukio Hatoyama raises a significant challenge for the Obama administration: the status of…
Briefing Book 290
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton Svetlana Savranskaya / Thomas Blanton202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., October 9, 2009 - Twenty years ago today, crowds of East German demonstrators took to the streets in Leipzig starting their own October revolution that would bring down the Berlin…
Briefing Book 288
Peter Kornbluh - 202/374-7281 peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington, D.C., October 6, 2009 - On the 33rd anniversary of the bombing of Cubana flight 455, the National Security Archive today posted recently obtained CIA records on Luis Posada Carriles, his…
News 20090930
Meredith Fuchs / Kristin Adair - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, September 30, 2009 - At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today on “Advancing Freedom of Information in the New Era of Responsibility,” Archive General Counsel Meredith Fuchs…
Briefing Book 287
Michael Evans - 202/994-7029 mevans@gwu.edu
The United States harbored serious concerns about the potential involvement of Colombian security forces in the February 2000 massacre at El Salado, an attack that occurred while the two countries…
Briefing Book 286
Edited by William Burr*
Washington, DC, September 22, 2009 - Sixty years ago this week, on 23 September 1949, President Harry Truman made headlines when he announced that the Soviet Union had secretly tested a nuclear…
Briefing Book 285
Edited by William Burr and Svetlana Savranskaya
Washington, DC, September 11, 2009 - During a 1972 command post exercise, leaders of the Kremlin listened to a briefing on the results of a hypothetical war with the United States. A U.S. attack…
Briefing Book 284
John Prados - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., August 26, 2009 - The Central Intelligence Agency participated in every aspect of the wars in Indochina, political and military, according to newly declassified CIA histories. The…
Special Exhibit
Posted below is a side-by-side comparison of the Bush and Obama administration versions of the 2004 CIA Inspector General Report on Torture.
News
Washington D.C., August 25, 2009 - Today, the National Security Archive posted a side-by-side comparison of two very different versions of a 2004 report on the CIA's "Counterterrorism…
Briefing Book 283
Kate Doyle - kadoyle@gwu.edu In Guatemala (until Monday, August 24)502 4408-9899 New York office646-613-1440, ext. 238 Research AssistanceSusana Zavala and Emilene Martнnez-Morales NOTEThe article in this briefing book appeared in Spanish in the Mexican newspaper Milenio on August 20, 2009
Washington, D.C., August 20, 2009 - As Mexicans debate last week’s Supreme Court ruling vacating the conviction of 20 men for the Acteal massacre, newly declassified documents from the U.S. Defense…
Briefing Book 282
Peter Kornbluh - 202/994-7116
Washington, D.C., August 16, 2009 - In December 1971, President Richard Nixon and Brazilian President Emilio Garrastazъ Mйdici discussed Brazil’s role in efforts to overthrow the elected government…
Briefing Book 281
Edited by William Burr
Pentagon classification authorities are treating classified historical documents as if they contain today's secrets, rather than decades-old information that has not been secret for years. Today the…
News 20090710
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, July 10, 2009 - Today’s release of a report by several agency inspectors general reinforces the National Security Archive’s argument in our Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that the…
Briefing Book 280
Tom Blanton/Malcolm Byrne - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., July 9, 2009 - Reflecting on the life of Robert McNamara, who passed away this week on July 6th, the National Security Archive is posting this recognition of the extraordinary role…
Briefing Book 279
Edited by Joyce Battle Assisted by Brendan McQuade Joyce Battle - 202/994-7145
Washington, D.C., July 1, 2009 - FBI special agents carried out 20 formal interviews and at least 5 "casual conversations" with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein after his capture by U.S. troops…
News 20090630
Meredith Fuchs/Kristin Adair - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, June 30, 2009 - The Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) yesterday launched a historic Declassification Policy Forum to gather public input as part of an ongoing review of…
Briefing Book 278
Matthew Aid - (202) 994-7000
Washington, D.C., June 19, 2009 - Declassified documents confirm that prior to the launch of the first spy satellites into orbit by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in the early 1960s, the…
News 20090618
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, June 18, 2009 - A report issued by the Air Force Audit Agency that was released to the National Security Archive this week identifies significant mismanagement in the Air Force…
Briefing Book 277
Robert A. Wampler Senior Fellow The National Security Archive
Washington, DC, June 10, 2009 - Last week the world lost a luminary scholar of diplomatic and international history with the passing of Ernest R. May, who served for 20 years on the National Security…
Briefing Book 276
William Burr - 202/994-7032
Recent Actions by Declassification Panel Show Pattern of CIA Overclassification and Tight Grip on Early Cold War History Documents Released Offer New Revelations on October War Intelligence and the…
Briefing Book 275
Svetlana Savranskaya 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, May 26, 2009 - Today the National Security Archive publishes its fourth installment of the diary of Anatoly Chernyaev, the man who was behind some of the most momentous…
News 20090521
Meredith Fuchs / Kristin Adair 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, May 21, 2009 – At a hearing today focusing on the National Archives and Records Administration and the selection of a new Archivist, National Security Archive General Counsel Meredith…
Briefing Book 275a
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7032
Washington, DC, May 1, 2009 - President Obama's recent call for a "world without nuclear weapons" immediately raised questions of how do you get there, what does deterrence actually require before…
Briefing Book 158
?Peter Kornbluh - 202/994-7116 - peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington D.C. April 23, 2009 - Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy sought to lift the ban on U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba in December 1963, according to declassified records re-posted today by…
News 20090414
Thomas Blanton/Meredith Fuchs National Security Archive - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, April 14, 2009 - The plaintiffs and defendants in the pending lawsuit seeking restoration of millions of missing White House e-mails and the installation of an effective e-mail…
News 20090413
National Security Archive - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, April 13, 2009 – Today, the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights announced that "Torturing Democracy" has won a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for domestic…
Briefing Book 274
Peter Kornbluh - 202/994-7116 Kate Doyle - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, April 7, 2009 – As a special tribunal in Peru pronounced former president Alberto Fujimori guilty of human rights atrocities, the National Security Archive today posted key…
News 20090319
Meredith Fuchs, General Counsel, National Security Archive (202) 994-7000?Thomas Blanton, Director, National Security Archive (202) 994-7000
Washington, D.C., March 19, 2009 - Attorney General Eric Holder today released new guidelines for federal agencies on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that reinforce the presumption of…
Briefing Book 273
By Kate Doyle and Jesse Franzblau
Washington, DC, March 17, 2009 – Following a stunning breakthrough in a 25-year-old case of political terror in Guatemala, the National Security Archive today is posting declassified U.S. documents…
News 20090313, Rosemary Award 20090313
the National Security Archive staffThomas Blanton, Kristin Adair 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, March 13, 2009 – The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) today won the fifth annual Rosemary Award for the worst Freedom of Information Act performance by a federal agency. The FBI’…
News 20090226
Ralph Begleiter, University of Delaware (302) 831-2687 Meredith Fuchs, General Counsel, National Security Archive (202) 994-7000 Thomas Blanton, Director, National Security Archive (202) 994-7000
Washington, DC, February 26, 2009 – Today Secretary of Defense Robert Gates lifted a blanket ban on news media coverage of the honor guard ceremonies that mark the return of military casualties from…
News 20090221
Meredith Fuchs/Tom Blanton - 202/994-7000 Sheila L. Shadmand [Jones Day] - 202/879-3939
Washington, D.C., February 21, 2009 - The Justice Department this week missed the opportunity to bring transparency to the controversy over deleted White House e-mail from the Bush administration by…
Briefing Book 272
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton For more information National Security Archive - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., February 15, 2009 – Twenty years ago today, the commander of the Soviet Limited Contingent in Afghanistan Boris Gromov crossed the Termez Bridge out of Afghanistan, thus marking the…
Book By Vladislav M. Zubok
Briefing Book 271
Edited by Dr. Vilйm Pre?an (Czechoslovak Documentation Centre, Prague) and Thomas Blanton (National Security Archive, Washington); Translation and editorial assistance by Todd Hammond and Derek Paton; Research assistance by Dr. Alena Noskovб and Radek Schovбnek; Web production and documents management by Michael Evans, Sue Bechtel, and Patrick Hanlon; For more information National Security Archive - 202/994-7000 Czechoslovak Documentation Centre - www.csds.cz
Washington, D.C., January 26, 2009 - The brutal suppression by Czechoslovak Communist authorities of commemorative ceremonies for "Palach Week" 20 years ago this month marked the beginning of the end…
Briefing Book 270
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson
Washington, D.C., January 23, 2009 - When the 9/11 hijackers crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the U.S. nuclear bomb squad was out of the country on its first foreign…
Briefing Book 269
Peter Kornbluh - 202/994-7116
Washington, D.C., January 22, 2009 - In March 1975, a top aide to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger drafted a secret/nodis report titled "Normalizing Relations with Cuba" that recommended moving…
News 20090121
Meredith Fuchs/Tom Blanton - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., January 21, 2009 - On his first full day in office, President Barack Obama signed an executive order and two presidential memoranda heralding what he called a "new era of openness…
News 20090115
Meredith Fuchs/Tom Blanton - 202/994-7000 Sheila L. Shadmand [Jones Day] - 202/879-3939
Washington, D.C., January 15, 2009 - The federal magistrate judge overseeing the White House e-mail litigation today said the issue had reached "true emergency conditions" with only "two business…
News 20090114
Meredith Fuchs/Tom Blanton - 202/994-7000 Sheila L. Shadmand [Jones Day] - 202/879-3939
Updated Posting - January 14, 2009, 6:00 pm, Washington, D.C. – At a hearing today concerning the risks posed by the presidential transition to the recovery of millions of missing e-mails from the…
Briefing Book 268
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7032
Washington, D.C., January 13, 2009 - During the 1970s the Shah of Iran argued, like current Iranian leaders today, for a nuclear energy capability on the basis of national "rights," while the Ford…
Briefing Book 267
Edited by Jeffrey Richelson Jeffrey Richelson - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., January 12, 2009 - The U.S. government’s secret nuclear bomb squad evaluated more than 100 nuclear extortion threats and incidents between 1974 and 1996 but only a dozen required…
Briefing Book 266
Michael Evans - 202/994-7029 mevans@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., January 7, 2009 - The CIA and senior U.S. diplomats were aware as early as 1994 that U.S.-backed Colombian security forces engaged in "death squad tactics," cooperated with drug-…
Briefing Book 265
Patrick Tyler/National Security Archive202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., January 5, 2009 - American Presidents from Eisenhower to George W. Bush have sought to distinguish themselves from their predecessors with sudden shifts in Middle East policy and…
Briefing Book 264
Edited by Richard A. Moss and Luke A. Nichter, www.NixonTapes.org
Nixontapes.org and the National Security Archive are pleased to bring you the complete phone conversations of Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Henry Kissinger as captured by…
Briefing Book 263
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., December 23, 2008 - Amidst a massive bombing campaign over North Vietnam, Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon candidly shared their evident satisfaction at the “shock…
Briefing Book 262
Editado por Alfredo Boccia y Carlos Osorio Colaboraciуn Editorial de Rosa Palau y Marianna Enamoneta Para mбs informaciуn contactar aCarlos Osorio - 202/994-7061 cosorio@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., diciembre 21, 2008 – El National Security Archive publica hoy evidencias clave del Archivo del Terror de Paraguay que muestran que el Jefe de la Policía Secreta trató de…
Briefing Book 261
Edited by Dr. Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton :(202) 994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington DC, December 8, 2008 - Previously secret Soviet documentation shows that Mikhail Gorbachev was prepared for rapid arms control progress leading towards nuclear abolition at the time of his…
News 20081202
: Kate Doyle - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., December 2, 2008 - National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" yesterday featured Archive senior analyst Kate Doyle in an extensive segment on the infamous 1968 Tlatelolco…
Briefing Book 260
Matthew Aid (202) 994-7000
Washington DC, November 14, 2008 - Forty-six years ago, a month before the Cuban Missile crisis, Soviet leaders put their strategic forces on their “highest readiness stage since the beginning of the…
News 20081112
Thomas Blanton/Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., November 12, 2008 - The Obama administration can act quickly after taking office in January to reverse the secrecy trend of the last eight years and restore openness in the executive…
News 20081110
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000?John B. Williams/Sheila L. Shadmand [Jones Day] - 202/879-3939
Washington D.C., November 10, 2008 - A court ruled today that the National Security Archive may proceed with its effort to force the White House to recover millions of Bush Administration Executive…
Book By Jeffrey T. Richelson
Court Rebukes CIA on Freedom of Information, Recognizes Journalists, Not CIA, Determine What Is News
News 20081105
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., November 5, 2008 - In a striking rebuke to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Judge Gladys Kessler of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia yesterday…
News 20081031
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., October 31, 2008 - In an opinion issued today in a case brought by the National Security Archive, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Privacy Information Center,…
News 20081024
Tom Blanton/Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000?David Vladeck - 202/662-9540
Washington, D.C., October 24, 2008 - Today, in response to a petition filed by the National Security Archive and several historical associations, the National Archives and Records Administration (…
News 20081017
Thomas Blanton/Ilyse Veron - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., 17 October 2008 – The new documentary film on the Bush administration’s interrogation and detention policies, Torturing Democracy, will air on Washington D.C.’s WETA-TV tonight at…
Briefing Book 259
Michael Evans - 202/994-7029
Washington D.C., October 5, 2008 - As Colombian prosecutors begin to reopen investigations against individuals connected to one of the worst massacres in the country’s modern history, the National…
Briefing Book 258
Kate Doyle kadoyle@gwu.edu Susana Zavala zavalasusana@gmail.com
Washington D.C., October 2, 2008 - We have arrived at the fortieth anniversary of the massacre at Tlatelolco with little to report. The events of that terrible day remain shrouded in the kind of…
Briefing Book
by staff
In 2006, fiercely-contested presidential elections with an uncertain outcome rattled Mexico’s openness community. The Federal Institute for Access to Information (IFAI), along with journalists…
Briefing Book 257
Jeffrey T. Richelson - (202) 994-7000
Washington D.C., September 18, 2008 - Today, on the 16th anniversary of the declassification of the fact of the existence of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and National Reconnaissance…
News 20080911
Thomas Blanton or Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000 David Vladeck - 202/662-9535
Washington, D.C., September 11, 2008 – – The Julius and Ethel Rosenberg grand jury transcripts released today as the result of legal action by the National Security Archive and a coalition of…
Briefing Book 255
Peter Kornbluh- (202) 994-7116, peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington D.C., September 10, 2008 - On the eve of the thirty-fifth anniversary of the military coup in Chile, the National Security Archive today published for the first time formerly secret…
Briefing Book 256
Kate Doyle- 202/994-7000
Lima, Peru (September 8, 2008) – National Security Archive Senior Analyst Kate Doyle testified yesterday before Peru’s Special Tribunal of the Supreme Court of Justice in the case against former…
Briefing Book 254
John Prados - (202) 994-7000
Washington D.C., August 22, 2008 - The U.S. intelligence community buckled sooner in 2002 than previously reported to Bush administration pressure for data justifying an invasion of Iraq, according…
Briefing Book 253
Barbara Elias - (202) 994-7000
Washington D.C., August 20, 2008 - On the tenth anniversary of U.S. cruise missile strikes against al-Qaeda in response to deadly terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, newly-…
News 20080729
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000?John B. Williams/Sheila L. Shadmand [Jones Day] - 202/879-3939
Washington D.C., July 29, 2008 - Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola of the U.S. District Court today denied a motion by the White House to reconsider his earlier recommendations and reaffirmed his…
News 20080722
Tom Blanton/Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000 David Vladeck - 202/662-9540
Washington D.C., July 22, 2008 - After hearing arguments today, a federal court in New York decided that the government must release most of the sealed grand jury records from the 1951 indictment of…
Briefing Book
By Michael Dobbs
Washington, DC, July 2, 2008 - Senior Kennedy administration aides claimed incorrectly that U.S. warships had come “eyeball to eyeball” with Soviet missile-carrying ships during the Cuban…
News 20080626
Tom Blanton/Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000 David Vladeck - 202/662-9540
Washington D.C., June 26, 2008 - Responding to a petition filed in January by the National Security Archive and several leading U.S. historical associations for the release of grand jury records from…
Briefing Book
By Michael Dobbs
Washington, DC, June 25, 2008 - American signals intelligence collectors tracked the activation of Soviet air defenses prior to the shootdown of a U.S. spy plane at the peak of the Cuban missile…
Briefing Book
By Michael Dobbs
Washington, DC, June 18, 2008 - The CIA failed to identify the storage bunkers for Soviet nuclear warheads in Cuba during the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis, despite obtaining numerous…
Briefing Book 252
Joyce Battle - (202) 994-7145
Washington D.C., June 13, 2008 - Recently declassified documents show that the U.S. military has long sought an agreement with Baghdad that gives American forces virtually unfettered freedom of…
News 20080611
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., June 11, 2008 - The National Security Archive’s General Counsel today warned that while “the establishment of trusted pathways for information is obviously essential to coordination…
Briefing Book
By Michael Dobbs
Washington, DC, June 11, 2008 - An American spy plane went missing over the Soviet Union at the height of the Cuban missile crisis for one and a quarter hours without the Air Force informing…
Briefing Book
By Michael Dobbs
For more information contact:
Michael Dobbs
www.michaeldobbsbooks.com
Washington, DC, June 4, 2008 - Soviet nuclear-tipped cruise missiles were ready to destroy the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo had the U.S. military persuaded President Kennedy to invade Cuba…
Book By Michael Dobbs
Briefing Book 251
Compiled and edited by Thomas Blanton and Svetlana Savranskaya : For more information, 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Left: President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev on Red Square in front of St. Basil’s Cathedral, May 31, 1988, with interpreter Pavel Palazhchenko to the right. Just out of the picture…
Briefing Book 250
Svetlana Savranskaya - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., May 23, 2008 - Today, the National Security Archive publishes its third installment of the diary of one of the main supporters of Mikhail Gorbachev and strongest proponents of…
News 20080514
Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000
Washington DC, May 14, 2008 - The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is overwhelmed and behind the curve, facing huge increases in both electronic records and classified records,…
News 20080508
Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000
Washington DC, May 8, 2008 - Today's Washington Post devotes the cover of its Style section and a full inside page to the National Security Archive, which the Post calls "the house that FOIA built…
News 20080507
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Washington DC, May 7, 2008 - The National Security Archive's Meredith Fuchs was featured May 5 in a Fox-5 News (WTTG) expose about the FBI's mismanaged secrets. "The Fox News report would make anyone…
News 20080506
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000?John B. Williams/Sheila L. Shadmand [Jones Day] - 202/879-3939
Washington D.C., May 6, 2008 - The White House yesterday admitted to a federal magistrate judge that it has no computer back-up tapes with data written before May 23, 2003, and that it cannot track…
Briefing Book 249
Washington, D.C., April 30, 2008 - The U.S. Air Force expected to use nuclear weapons against China during the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1958, but President Eisenhower required the Air Force to plan…
News 20080424
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000?John B. Williams/Sheila L. Shadmand [Jones Day] - 202/879-3939
Washington D.C., April 24, 2008 - Responding to the National Security Archive's motion in the pending White House e-mail lawsuit, Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola of the U.S. District Court today…
News 20080417
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Today, the White House sought clarification from the court concerning its ability to restore missing records from backup tapes that are currently being preserved. The White House inquiry comes as the…
Briefing Book 229
Edited by Jeffrey Richelson Jeffrey Richelson - 202/994-7000
Update - Washington, D.C., April 11, 2008 – The policy debate over using U.S. reconnaissance satellites to obtain imagery of targets in the United States dates back to the earliest days of spy…
Briefing Book 248
John Prados - (301) 565-0564
Washington D.C., April 9, 2008 - Previously secret U.S. Air Force official histories of the Vietnam war published today by the National Security Archive disclose for the first time that Central…
Briefing Book 247
Emilene Martínez Morales, Jesse Franzblau
Washington D.C., March 20, 2008 – In celebration of Sunshine Week, the National Security Archive's Mexico Project publishes today a new study of Mexico's transparency law: "FOI in Practice: Measuring…
News 20080319, Rosemary Award 20080319
Thomas Blanton, Meredith Fuchs, Kristin Adair, Catherine Nielsen?202/994-7000
Washington DC, March 19, 2008 - As if the sub-prime credit crisis was not enough, the U.S. Treasury Department today won the fourth annual Rosemary Award for the worst performance by a federal agency…
News 20080318
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Washington DC, March 18, 2008 - In an order issued today, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia directed the Executive Office of the President (EOP) to show cause why it…
Briefing Book 246, FOIA Audit 246
the National Security Archive staffThomas Blanton, Meredith Fuchs, Kristin Adair, Catherine Nielsen 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., March 16, 2008 - President Bush’s executive order for a “citizen-centered” and “results-oriented” Freedom of Information system did improve customer service at federal agencies, but…
News 20080304
Michael Evans - 202/994-7029?mevans@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., March 4, 2008 - A senior Colombian guerrilla leader killed in Ecuador last weekend in a cross-border raid by Colombian forces held secret talks with U.S. diplomats ten years ago in…
Book By Andrzej Paczkowski and Malcolm Byrne
“I consider From Solidarity to Martial Law to be a highly successful effort at depicting the events of 25 years ago. These documents also enable us to perceive the path we have traversed since that…
Briefing Book 245
William Burr - 202/994-7032 wburr@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., February 26, 2008 - The United States should use its power to "prevent the reemergence of a new rival" either on former Soviet territory or elsewhere, declared a controversial draft…
News 20080226
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Washington DC, February 26, 2008 - At a hearing today before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, it was disclosed that the White House has received repeated warnings from the…
Briefing Book 244
Peter Kornbluh - 202/994-7116 - peter.kornbluh@gmail.com Carlos Osorio - 202/994-7061 - cosorio@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., February 22, 2008 - Declassified U.S. documents posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive (www.nsarchive.org) show that the U.S. government had detailed knowledge of…
Briefing Book 243
Edited by Michael Evans Michael Evans - 202/994-7029 mevans@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., February 17, 2008 - U.S. espionage operations targeting top Colombian government officials in 1993 provided key evidence linking the U.S.-Colombia task force charged with tracking…
News 20080131
Thomas Blanton/Meredith Fuchs?202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., January 31, 2008 - The National Security Archive, along with several leading U.S. historical associations, today is filing a petition in federal court in New York City for the…
Briefing Book 242
Edited by Brad Simpson Brad Simpson - 609/751-8206 bsimpson@princeton.edu
Washington, DC, January 28, 2008 - As Indonesia buries the ex-dictator Suharto, who died Sunday at the age of 86, the National Security Archive today posted a selection of declassified U.S. documents…
News 20080124
Tom Blanton - 202/994-7000
Park City, Utah, January 24, 2008 – The new documentary “Secrecy,” made by Harvard professors Peter Galison and Robb Moss, premiered this past week at the Sundance Film Festival, featuring National…
Briefing Book 241
Editado por Carlos Osorio y Jesse Franzblau Con la asistencia en investigación de Susana Zavala en Ciudad de México Para más información contactar a Carlos Osorio(202) 994 7061 cosorio@gwu.edu Jesse Franzblau(202) 994-7237 jessefranzblau@gmail.com
Washington D.C., Enero 20, 2008 –Documentos hechos públicos hoy por el National Security Archive revelan como agentes de un escuadrón de inteligencia argentino fueron capturados por el…
News 20080116
Meredith Fuchs/Tom Blanton [National Security Archive] - 202/994-7000 John B. Williams/Sheila L. Shadmand [Jones Day] - 202/879-3939
Washington DC, January 16, 2008 - In response to a federal court order issued last week, the White House late last night refused to acknowledge any missing e-mails, instead stating that it “has…
Briefing Book 240
Edited by William Burr and Jeffrey Richelson William Burr - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, January 14, 2008: In the wake of the Indian "peaceful nuclear explosion" on May 17, 1974 and growing concern about the spread of nuclear weapons capabilities, the U.S. intelligence…
News 20080108
Meredith Fuchs/Tom Blanton [National Security Archive] - 202/994-7000 John B. Williams/Sheila L. Shadmand [Jones Day] - 202/879-3939
Washington DC, January 8, 2008 -In an Order issued today, Magistrate Judge Facciola of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the White House to answer questions about…
News 20071217
Thomas Blanton/Meredith Fuchs/Kristin Adair202/994-7000
Washington DC, January 2, 2008 - In one of his last decisions of the year on Monday, December 31, 2007, President Bush signed into law the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reform bill (S. 2488). The…
Briefing Book 239d
Editado por Carlos Osorio y Mariana Enamoneta Para mas informaciуn contactar aCarlos Osorio(202) 994-7061 cosorio@gwu.edu Peter Kornbluh(202) 994-7116 peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington D.C., December 21, 2007 – On the fifteenth anniversary of the discovery of the Archive of Terror in Paraguay, the National Security Archive posted Spanish-language documents that reveal…
Briefing Book 239
Por Carlos Osorio y Marianna Enamoneta Para mбs informaciуn contactar a:
Carlos Osorio(202) 994-7061 cosorio@gwu.edu Peter Kornbluh(202) 994-7116 peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington, D.C., Diciembre 21, 2007 – En conmemoración del 15 aniversario del Archivo del Terror, el National Security Archive pone hoy en línea el catálogo público de 60,000…
Briefing Book 239c
Editado por Carlos Osorio y Mariana Enamoneta Para mas información contactar a Carlos Osorio(202) 994-7061 cosorio@gwu.edu Peter Kornbluh(202) 994-7116 peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington D.C., Diciembre 21, 2007 – En el marco de la celebraciуn del 15 aniversario del descubrimiento del Archivo del Terror, el National Security Archive publica hoy evidencias que las…
Briefing Book 239b
Editado por Carlos Osorio y Mariana Enamoneta Para mas información contactar a Carlos Osorio(202) 994-7061 cosorio@gwu.edu Peter Kornbluh(202) 994-7116 peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington D.C., Diciembre 21, 2007 –En ocasiуn del 15 aniversario del descubrimiento del Archivo del Terror en Paraguay, el National Security Archive publica nuevas pruebas de la coordinaciуn de las…
News 20071214
Meredith Fuchs/Tom Blanton [National Security Archive] - 202/994-7000 John B. Williams/Sheila L. Shadmand [Jones Day] - 202/879-3939
Washington DC, December 14, 2007 -The National Security Archive yesterday rebutted the government’s argument for dismissal of the Archive’s lawsuit in federal district court seeking to recover 5…
Briefing Book 238
Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton Svetlana Savranskaya or Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., December 10, 2007 - Previously secret Soviet Politburo records and declassified American transcripts of the Washington summit 20 years ago between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet…
Briefing Book 237
Edited by Peter Kornbluh and Jeremy Bigwood : Peter Kornbluh/Jeremy Bigwood- 202/994-7116
Washington, DC, December 10, 2007 : As disgraced former president Alberto Fujimori goes on trial in Lima, Peru, for human rights atrocities, the National Security Archive posted a declassified…
Briefing Book 236
Edited by William Burr
Update - 1 October 2009 - On 11 September 2009, as a sidebar to the posting "Previously Classified Interviews with Former Soviet Officials Reveal U.S. Strategic Intelligence Failure Over Decades,"…
News 20071115
Peter Kornbluh202/994-7116 peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington DC, November 15, 2007 - In the first Congressional hearing held on the controversial case of violent Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles, the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on…
News 20071113
Meredith Fuchs/Tom Blanton, 202-994-7000
Washington DC, November 13, 2007 -A federal judge yesterday ordered the Executive Office of the President to preserve all e-mail backup media in its possession, or under its custody or control, under…
Briefing Book 234
Edited by John Prados John Prados - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, November 5, 2007 - CBS News’ 60 Minutes exposure last night of the Iraqi agent known as CURVEBALL has put a major aspect of the Bush administration’s case for war against Iraq back…
Briefing Book 233
Edited by William Burr
Washington, DC, November 2, 2007 - Then-national security adviser Henry A. Kissinger colluded with Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin to keep the U.S. Secretary of State in the dark about ongoing…
News 20071029
Meredith Fuchs/Tom Blanton, 202-994-7000
Washington DC, October 29, 2007 - The National Security Archive filed a motion on Friday, October 26, seeking expedited discovery against the Executive Office of the President to find out what e-…
Briefing Book 232
Edited by Peter Kornbluh Peter Kornbluh - 202/994-7116
Washington, DC, October 25, 2007 - As a lock of Che Guevara's hair along with photos, captured documents, intelligence intercepts, and original fingerprints relating to the capture, execution and…
News 20071001
Meredith Fuchs202/994-7000
Washington DC, October 1, 2007 - A District Court in the District of Columbia has ruled that an Executive Order issued by President George W. Bush in 2001, which severely slowed or prevented the…
Briefing Book 231
Edited by Jeffrey Richelson Jeffrey Richelson - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, October 1, 2007 - Today the National Security Archive publishes a collection of documents concerning U.S. policy with regard to acknowledging the “fact of” U.S. satellite…
Briefing Book 230
Edited by Jeffrey Richelson Jeffrey Richelson - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, September 17, 2007 - Today the National Security Archive publishes a collection of documents concerning the organization and operations of the Pentagon's Counterintelligence Field…
Briefing Book 228
Edited by William Burr
Washington DC, September 10, 2007 - In the spring of 1991, leaks to the Washington Times on intelligence community discussions of the nuclear activities of the Algerian government and a Chinese…
News 20070905
Meredith Fuchs/Tom Blanton [National Security Archive] - 202/994-7000 John B. Williams/Sheila L. Shadmand [Jones Day] - 202/879-3939
Washington DC, September 5, 2007 - The National Security Archive today sued the White House seeking the recovery and preservation of more than 5 million White House e-mail messages that were…
News 9/5/2007
Thomas Blanton or Meredith Fuchs202/994-7000
Washington, DC, September 5, 2007 --The United States District Court for the District of Columbia today largely rejected the government’s attempt to withhold without explanation all records…
News
Larry Berman, Thomas Burke, Duffy Carolan, Davis Wright Tremaine, Meredith Fuchs, Thomas Blanton
San Francisco, California, 5 September 2007 - The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals this week held that the disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act of two Presidential Daily…
Briefing Book 227
Edited by Barbara Elias Barbara Elias - 202/994-7000 belias@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., August 14, 2007 - A collection of newly-declassified documents published today detail U.S. concern over Pakistan's relationship with the Taliban during the seven-year period leading…
Briefing Book 226
Edited by William Burr
202/994-7000
Washington D.C., August 10, 2007 - The Central Intelligence Agency has lost documents concerning its investigation of the mysterious 1948 murder of CBS reporter George Polk, and destroyed its file on…
Briefing Book 225
Edited by Jeffrey Richelson Jeffrey Richelson - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., July 13, 2007 - Throughout the 1960s and most of the 1970s, while the U.S. government conducted its space reconnaissance program under a veil of absolute secrecy, officials debated…
News 20070712
Meredith Fuchs202/994-7000
Washington DC, July 12, 2007 - At a hearing of the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee, Subcommittee on Intelligence Community Management, on classification of national security information…
News 20070703
Meredith Fuchs202/994-7000
Washington DC, July 3, 2007 - As the 41st birthday of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) approaches, a coalition of groups urged the U.S. Congress to pass a bill - currently locked behind a closed…
Briefing Book 224, FOIA Audit 224
Tom Blanton/Meredith Fuchs, 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., July 2, 2007 - The oldest Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests still pending in the federal government were first filed two decades ago, during the Reagan presidency,…
Briefing Book 223
Edited by Michael Evans Michael Evans - 202/994-7029 mevans@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., July 1, 2007 - As a growing number of Colombian government officials are investigated for ties to illegal paramilitary terrorists, a 1979 report from the U.S. Embassy in Bogotб…
Briefing Book 222
Edited by Thomas Blanton Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000
Update - June 26, 2007, 1 p.m. - The full "family jewels" report, released today by the Central Intelligence Agency and detailing 25 years of Agency misdeeds, is now available on the Archive's Web…
Briefing Book 221
Edited by William Burr
Washington DC, June 15, 2007 - The unfolding controversies over the Iranian and Korean nuclear programs show the extreme difficulty of persuading a government to reverse its nuclear weapons program.…
Briefing Book 220
Svetlana Savranskaya 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, May 25, 2007 - Today the National Security Archive publishes the second installment of the diary of one of the key behind-the-scenes figures of the Gorbachev era--Anatoly Sergeevich…
Briefing Book 218
Edited by Peter Kornbluh Peter Kornbluh - 202/994-7116 peter.kornbluh@gmail.com Marian Schlotterbeck - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., May 3, 2007 (Updated - May 14, 2007) - A Venezuelan employee of Cuban exile and indicted terrorist Luis Posada Carriles conducted surveillance on targets "with a link to Cuba" for…
Briefing Book 219
Edited by Joyce Battle Joyce Battle - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., May 8, 2007 - In January 2003 Defense Department planners recommended the creation of a "Rapid Reaction Media Team" to serve as a bridge between Iraq's formerly state-controlled news…
News 20070503
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Washington DC, May 3, 2007 - The National Security Archive and several other public interest organizations argued yesterday, in an amicus curiae brief filed in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, that…
News 20070416
Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000
Washington DC, April 16, 2007 - Yesterday, Fox News Sunday featured a segment with Chris Wallace interviewing Archive director Tom Blanton. Secret documents featured on the Fox News Sunday show…
Briefing Book 217
Edited by Michael Evans Michael Evans - 202/994-7029 mevans@gwu.edu
Washington D.C., March 29, 2007 - New documents published today by the National Security Archive shed light on recent revelations about the links between bananas and terror in Colombia and the…
News 20070322
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Washington DC, March 22, 2007 - At a hearing of the House Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment on "Over-classification and…
News 20070316, Rosemary Award 20070316
Thomas Blanton/Catherine Nielsen,?National Security Archive - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., 16 March 2007 - The U.S. Air Force today won the third annual Rosemary Award, which recognizes the worst Freedom of Information Act performance by a federal agency. Given annually by…
News 20070314
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Washington DC, March 14, 2007 - National Security Archive General Counsel Meredith Fuchs today testified before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary in support of a FOIA reform bill introduced…
News 3/16/2007
By Tom Blanton
The American ideal of open government has reached critical condition and needs intensive care. We have enough lab results to know the news is bad: *The oldest still-pending Freedom of Information Act…
Briefing Book 216, FOIA Audit 216
Thomas Blanton, Meredith Fuchs, Kristin Adair, Catherine Nielsen 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., 12 March 2007 - Ten years after Congress enacted the Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments (E-FOIA), only one in five federal agencies actually complies with the law,…
Briefing Book 215
Thomas Blanton
Washington D.C., March 7, 2007 - The declassified documents introduced as evidence during the trial of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, provide an almost…
News 20070301
Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000
Washington DC, March 1, 2007 - Since 2001, the government has added five years of delay into the process of releasing presidential records, according to testimony delievered today by Archive…
News 20070214
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Washington DC, February 14, 2007 - National Security Archive General Counsel Meredith Fuchs today told the Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives of the House Committee on…
Briefing Book 214
Edited by Joyce Battle and Thomas Blanton Editorial Assistance by Malcolm Byrne, John Prados, and Justin Snyder; Thomas Blanton/Joyce Battle - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., February 14, 2007 - The U.S. Central Command's war plan for invading Iraq postulated in August 2002 that the U.S. would have only 5,000 troops left in Iraq as of December 2006,…
News 20070207
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Washington DC, February 7, 2007 - The CIA's proposed new rule on Freedom of Information Act processing fees is likely to discourage FOIA requesters while imposing new administrative burdens both on…
Briefing Book 213
Edited by Prof. Vilйm Pre?an (Czechoslovak Documentation Centre), Dr. Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton (National Security Archive) Translations and editorial assistance by Derek Paton Scanning and other research assistance by Catherine Nielsen, Maria Lorena Martinez, Dr. Mary E. Curry, and Petr Blaћek Svetlana Savranskaya/Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000 Czechoslovak Documentation Centre http://www.csds.cz
Washington D.C., January 6, 2007 - The Czechoslovak human rights activists who launched the landmark Charter 77 movement secretly gathered their first 240 signatures on handwritten cards without…
Briefing Book 212
Edited by Peter Kornbluh and Yvette White Peter Kornbluh - 202/374-7281; 202/994-7116 Yvette White - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., December 12, 2006 - As Chile prepared to bury General Augusto Pinochet, the National Security Archive today posted a selection of declassified U.S. documents that illuminate the…
Briefing Book 209
Kate Doyle - 646/670-8841 kadoyle@gwu.edu Research AssistanceJesse Franzblau
Update - December 12, 2006 Communiquй from Authors of the Draft Report of the Special Prosecutor (in Spanish) Click here to read the press release (also in Spanish) The authors of the draft report of…
Briefing Book 211
Malcolm Byrne - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., December 11, 2006 - Twenty-five years ago this week, at 6:00 a.m. on December 13, 1981, Polish Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski appeared on national TV to declare that a state of…
Briefing Book 210
Malcolm Byrne - 202/994-7043 Peter Kornbluh - 202/994-7116 Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., November 24, 2006 - On November 25, 1986, the biggest political and constitutional scandal since Watergate exploded in Washington when President Ronald Reagan told a packed White…
Briefing Book 208
John Prados - 301/565-0564 Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., November 10, 2006 - Bush administration nominee for Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates had a long career in government which showed a notable combination of ambition and caution,…
Briefing Book 207
Introduced by Roger Strother; John Prados - 301/565-0564 or Roger Strother - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., November 4, 2006 - In late April 1999, the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), led by Marine General Anthony Zinni (ret.), conducted a series of war games known as Desert…
Briefing Book 206
: Thomas Blanton/Malcolm Byrne - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., October 31, 2006 - Fifty years ago today the Soviet Presidium overturned its earlier decision to pull its troops out of Hungary in the face of a popular uprising, yet the CIA--with…
Briefing Book 205
Edited by Robert A. Wampler
Washington D.C., October 26, 2006 - A CIA panel of experts concluded in 1997 that North Korea was likely to collapse within five years, according to declassified documents posted today…
News 20061019
Meredith Fuchs/Catherine Nielsen - 202/994-7000
Washington DC, October 19, 2006 - Today the National Security Archive responded to the "Attorney General's Report to the President Pursuant to Executive Order 13,392, Entitled 'Improving Agency…
Briefing Book 204
Kate Doyle, Jefferson Morley, Jesse Franzblau
Washington, DC, October 18, 2006 - The CIA's reliance on high-level informants including the President of Mexico for "intelligence" about the student protest movement in 1968 that culminated in…
Briefing Book 203
Edited by Dr. Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton Svetlana Savranskaya/Thomas Blanton 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C. and Reykjavik, Iceland - President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev almost achieved a deal 20 years ago at the 1986 Reykjavik summit to abolish nuclear weapons, but…
Briefing Book 197
Edited by William Burr For more information: Dr. William Burr/Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000
Cold War Missile Numbers "De-re-classified" On 26 September 2006, the Department of Defense's Washington Headquarters Services duly released, as a result of an administrative appeal, unredacted…
News 20061010
Meredith Fuchs/Catherine Nielsen - 202/994-7000
Washington DC, October 10, 2006 - One in four veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars are filing disability claims, according to records released by the U.S. Department of Veterans' Affairs (VA)…
Briefing Book 202
Edited by Peter Kornbluh and Yvette White Peter Kornbluh - 202/994-7116 - peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington D.C., October 5, 2006 - On the 30th anniversary of the first and only mid-air bombing of a civilian airliner in the Western Hemisphere, the National Security Archive today posted on the…
News 20061001
John Prados - 301/565-0564 Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., October 2, 2006 - For understandable reasons, the George W. Bush administration has shunned comparisons between the war in Iraq and the Vietnam War. But in his latest book, State of…
Briefing Book 201
Kate Doyle 202/994-7000
This new Electronic Briefing Book on the Tlatelolco massacre is based on a collaboration between Proceso magazine and the National Security Archive and launched on March 2, 2003. The collaboration…
Briefing Book 147
Edited by Barbara Elias
"A Comprehensive Strategy to Fight Al-Qaeda"? Rice versus Clinton on January 2001 Clarke Memo Washington, D.C., September 27, 2006 - In a series of recent public statements, Secretary of State…
Briefing Book 200
Jeffrey Richelson 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, September 22, 2006 - The prospects of a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in the early 1990's led China to accelerate its testing schedule and discuss differences within…
Briefing Book 199
Peter Kornbluh 202/374-7281 peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington, DC, September 20, 2006 - On the thirtieth anniversary of the assassination of former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and his American colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt, the National…
Briefing Book 198
Farrah Hassen and Malcolm Byrne
"Iraq is not Afghanistan; U.S. should make commitment to Iraq like Japan and Germany. Note military government idea did not go down well." ?- Overview, Future of Iraq Project "The period immediately…
Briefing Book 196
Edited by Barbara Elias
: Barbara Elias - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC - August 11, 2006 - The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) this week released full transcripts of the air traffic control recordings from the four flights hijacked on…
Sourcebook
The horrific September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon brought all of us here at the Archive feelings of rage at the hijackers, grief for the thousands who were…
Briefing Book 195
Edited by William Burr and Jeffrey Kimball William Burr - 202/994-7000 Jeffrey Kimball - 513/529-5121
Washington, DC - July 31, 2006 - During the past year, indications that the Bush White House was seriously considering a "nuclear option" against Iranian nuclear sites understandably alarmed many in…
Briefing Book 194
Edited by Thomas Blanton Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, 4 July 2006 - Forty years ago on July 4, 1966, Lyndon Johnson signed the landmark Freedom of Information Act while vacationing at his Texas ranch. But the event does not even appear…
Briefing Book 180
Kate Doyle - 646/670-8841 kadoyle@gwu.edu; Research AssistanceEmilene Martнnez Morales
Update - June 19, 2006 Open Letter to the Fox administration from three authors of the draft report (Alberto Lуpez Limуn, Josй Luis Moreno Borbolla and Agustнn Evangelista Muсoz) (in Spanish). After…
News 20060614
Meredith Fuchs/Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000 Patrick J. Carome, 202-663-6000
Washington D.C., 14 June 2006 - The National Security Archive today filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),…
Book By Vojtech Mastny, Sven G. Holtsmark and Andreas Wenger
Briefing Book 193
William Burr 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, 26 May 2006 - Today the National Security Archive announces the publication of the most comprehensive collection ever assembled of the memoranda of conversations (memcons) involving…
Briefing Book 192
Svetlana Savranskaya 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, May 25, 2006 - Today the National Security Archive is publishing the first installment of the diary of one of the key behind-the-scenes figures of the Gorbachev era - Anatoly…
Book Compiled by Gregory F. Domber, Andrzej Paczkowski, Mariusz Jastrząb, Paweł Sowiński
Briefing Book 188
William Burr, Editor 202/994-7032
Washington, DC, April 21, 2006 - Last month the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) put almost 320,000 declassified cables on-line when it opened up State Department document…
Briefing Book 191
Svetlana Savranskaya or Thomas Blanton 202/994-7000
May 12, 2006 - Thirty years ago today, the physicist Yuri Orlov gathered a small group of human rights activists in the apartment of prominent Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov in Moscow to establish…
Briefing Book 190
Jeffrey T. Richelson - 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, May 5, 2006 - Many U.S. government officials and scientists disagreed with the findings of a presidential panel that the double flash signal picked up by a U.S. nuclear detonation…
Book By Jaromír Navrátil et al.
“I am happy that the cooperation between the National Security Archive in Washington and the Czech foundation ‘Prague Spring 1968’ has resulted in this voluminous collection of documents, which, I…
Briefing Book 189
Avner Cohen, 202/489-6282 or National Security Archive, 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, April 28, 2006 - Today the National Security Archive publishes for the first time 30 recently declassified U.S. government documents disclosing the existence of a highly secret policy…
News 20060426
Meredith Fuchs 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., 26 April 2006 - Today the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) released an audit report of the secret historical document reclassification program conducted at the National…
News 20060419
William Burr/Meredith Fuchs 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., 19 April 2006 - Monday, Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein released a declassified Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Central Intelligence Agency, signed in…
News 20060419a
David P. Dean, 202-496-0500 Meredith Fuchs, 202-994-7000
Washington D.C., 19 April 2006 - A federal court today granted partial summary judgment to the National Security Archive finding that the Air Force has violated the Freedom of Information Act and has…
Briefing Book 187
Jeffrey Richelson, Editor 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, April 13, 2006 - Long before India detonated a nuclear device in May 1974, the U.S. Intelligence Community was monitoring and analyzing Indian civilian and military nuclear energy…
News 20060411
Thomas Blanton/William Burr/Meredith Fuchs 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., 11 April 2006 - The National Archives and Records Administration secretly agreed to a covert effort, led by the Air Force, the CIA, and other still-hidden intelligence entities, to…
News 20060407
Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., 7 April 2006 - Only 14 of the full 93 pages of the National Intelligence Estimate that President Bush authorized Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to…
Briefing Book 186
Jeffrey Richelson, Editor 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, March 28, 2006 - The Central Intelligence Agency and National Reconnaissance Office used the nation's spy satellites and spy planes to obtain high-resolution images of the nuclear…
Briefing Book 185
Washington, D.C., March 23, 2006 - On the eve of the 30th anniversary of the military coup in Argentina, the National Security Archive posted a series of declassified U.S. documents and, for the…
Briefing Book 184
Jeffrey Richelson, Editor 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, March 21, 2006 - The U.S. Intelligence Community devoted significant effort to the collection and analysis of intelligence concerning the French nuclear weapons program beginning in…
Briefing Book 183, FOIA Audit 183
Kristin Adair, Freedom of Information Associate?Meredith Fuchs, Archive General Counsel?Thomas Blanton, Archive Director?202/994-7000
Washington D.C., March 14, 2006 - The first-ever government-wide audit of the ways that federal agencies mark and protect information that is unclassified but sensitive for security reasons has found…
Book By Jeffrey T. Richelson
Briefing Book 182, FOIA Audit 182
Barbara Elias, Thomas Blanton, Meredith Fuchs
In an effort to identify the oldest unanswered Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in the federal government, the National Security Archive used the FOIA itself to ask more than 60 federal…
News , Rosemary Award
Thomas Blanton/Barbara Elias,?National Security Archive - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., 13 March 2006 - The Central Intelligence Agency has won the second annual Rosemary Award, recognizing the worst performance by a federal agency in complying with the Freedom of…
Briefing Book 181
Jeffrey Richelson, Editor 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, March 13, 2006 - The U.S. Intelligence Community failed to penetrate the veil of secrecy surrounding the nuclear activities of South Africa's apartheid regime, particularly its…
News 20060313
Meredith Fuchs or Kristin Adair 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., 13 March 2006 - The National Security Archive, along with the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), on March 10 filed a "friend of the court" brief in the United States…
News 182
Barbara Elias, Thomas Blanton, Meredith Fuchs
Washington D.C., March 12, 2006 - The oldest Freedom of Information requests still pending in the U.S. government date back to 1989, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, according to the …
News 20060309
Thomas Blanton or Kristin Adair 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., March 9, 2006 - The Justice Department official who oversaw national security matters from 2000 to 2003 e-mailed his former colleagues after revelation of the controversial…
Briefing Book 179
Edited by Matthew M. Aid Matthew Aid William Burr Meredith Fuchs Thomas Blanton 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., February 21, 2006 - The CIA and other federal agencies have secretly reclassified over 55,000 pages of records taken from the open shelves at the National Archives and Records…
News 20060213
Thomas Blanton or Meredith Fuchs 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., February 13, 2006 - Under pressure from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the Justice Department on February 10 conceded in federal court that it could begin releasing as early…
Briefing Book 178
Thomas Blanton 202/994-7068
Washington, D.C., February 4, 2006 - Despite objections from then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and then-CIA director George H. W. Bush, President Gerald Ford came down on the side of a…
News 20050715
For more information Matthew W.S. Estes, 202-371-7000 Professor Larry Berman 530/752-3076 Thomas R. Burke, Duffy Carolan, Davis Wright Tremaine 415/276-6500 Meredith Fuchs, Thomas Blanton, National Security Archive 202/994-7000
Links
Previously released PDBs
Court documents
Declassified CIA documents on presidential briefings
Previous Postings
19 January 2006
CIA Secrecy Challenged on President's Daily Brief
UC Davis…
Briefing Book 177
Kristin Adair / Thomas Blanton 202 994 7000
Washington, D.C., January 26, 2006 - A secret Pentagon "roadmap" on war propaganda, personally approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in October 2003, calls for "boundaries" between…
Briefing Book 176
Edited by Brad Simpson Director, Indonesia-East Timor Documentation Project 609/751-8206 bsimpson@princeton.edu
Washington, D.C., January 24, 2006 - The final report of East Timor's landmark Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR) has found that U.S. "political and military support were…
Book By Moscow Helsinki Group
Briefing Book 175
Dr. Robert Wampler - wampler@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., December 14, 2005 - Secretary of State James Baker warned in 1991 that Japan's "bitter history" with the Koreas would "inhibit policy coordination," even though "Japan has important…
News 20151209
Peter Kornbluh - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., December 9, 2005 - More than three years before the 9/11 attack on the United States, U.S. officials warned Saudi Arabia that Osama bin Laden "might take the course of least…
News
By Bill Moyers
This is the prepared text of the address delivered on December 9, 2005, by Bill Moyers for the 20th anniversary of the National Security Archive, a non-governmental research institute and library at…
News
Washington, D.C., December 9, 2005 - The National Security Archive celebrates its 20th anniversary today with a special event at George Washington University, headlined by Bill Moyers, with…
News 20051201
John Prados - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., 1 December 2005 - The largest U.S. intelligence agency, the National Security Agency, today declassified over 140 formerly top secret documents -- histories, chronologies, signals…
News 174
Washington, D.C., November 28, 2005 - Today, East Timorese President Xanana Gusmгo transmits to Parliament the final report of East Timor's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR)…
Briefing Book 174
Edited by Brad Simpson
Director, Indonesia-East Timor Documentation Project
For more information contact:
Brad Simpson - 609/751-8206
bsimpson@princeton.edu
Today, as East Timorese President Xanana Gusmão transmits to East Timor's Parliament the 2,500 page final report of the country's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR) …
Briefing Book 173
By William Burr 202/994-7032
Washington, D.C., November 23, 2005 - The nuclear war plans that constitute the Single Integrated Operational Plan have been among the most closely guarded secrets in the U.S. government. The handful…
Briefing Book 172
Svetlana Savranskaya/Tom Blanton 202/994-7000
Washington D.C. November 22, 2005 - Twenty years ago this week the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union concluded their Geneva Summit, which became the first step on the road to…
Briefing Book 171
By Derek Chollet and Bennett Freeman
Washington, D.C., November 21, 2005 - Every work of history is not just a statement about the past, but a reflection of the era -- if not the precise year -- during which it was written. This is…
Briefing Book 170
By Kate Doyle kadoyle@gwu.edu Phone - 646/613-1440, ext. 238 or 646/670-8841 Research AssistanceEmilene Martнnez Morales
Washington, D.C., November 21, 2005 - On July 5, officials from the Guatemalan government's human rights office (PDH - Procuradurнa de Derechos Humanos) entered a deteriorating, rat-infested…
Briefing Book 169
Kate Doyle - kadoyle@gwu.edu Research AssistanceEmilene Martнnez Morales?Additional ResearchCecilia Golombek
Washington, D.C., November 18, 2005 - Investigative journalist Frank Smyth breaks new ground in documenting links between retired Guatemalan military officers and drug trafficking into the United…
Briefing Book 168
Svetlana Savranskaya - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C. October 26, 2005 - Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev, who died in Moscow last week at the age of 81, was probably the best known "architect of perestroika." Soviet ambassador to Canada,…
News 20051021
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., October 21, 2005 - U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer has accepted the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) contention that every single word of a 50-page National Intelligence…
Briefing Book 167
Jeffrey Richelson - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C. October 18, 2005 - The National Security Archive today posted a series of declassified U.S. intelligence documents and other U.S. agency reports on Saddam Hussein's human rights…
News 20051010
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., October 10, 2005 - The National Security Archive, along with other openness advocates, today filed a "friend of the court" brief with the United States Supreme Court asking the…
Briefing Book 166
Michael Evans - 202/994-7029
Washington D.C. October 16, 2005 - Today, the Colombia Documentation Project proudly announces the first in a series of articles to be published in collaboration with Semana, Colombia's leading news…
News 20051013
Washington, D.C., October 13, 2005 - The White House disregarded intelligence projections on post-Saddam Iraq according to a newly-declassified CIA report, "Intelligence and Analysis on Iraq: Issues…
News 20050318
David Dean/Katie Feiock, James & Hoffman, 202/496-0500 Thomas Blanton/Meredith Fuchs, National Security Archive, 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., March 18, 2005 - The National Security Archive today filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against the Department of the Air Force for a…
News 20051006
Washington, D.C., October 6, 2005 - After failing in 2000, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is again seeking an exception from disclosure of vast quantities of important Defense Department…
News 20050928
Washington, D.C., September 28, 2005 - Marking International Right to Know Day, the National Security Archive commended the Department of State for including access to government information as one…
Briefing Book 165
For further informationBarbara Elias - 202/994-7000 Graphics by Jamie Noguchi, Research Assistant
Washington, D.C., September 9, 2005 - Ten minutes after American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA…
Briefing Book 164
Edited by Robert A. Wampler - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C. August 23, 2005 - Next week, if all goes according to plan, the United States will resume six-party talks with North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Russia and host nation China on the…
Pre-9/11 U.S. Attempts to Drive Bin Laden Out of Afghanistan Repeatedly Unsuccessful, Documents Show
Briefing Book 134up
Edited by Barbara Elias; : Barbara Elias202 994-7045 / belias@gwu.edu
Washington, August 18, 2005 - The U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan told a top Taliban official in September 2000 that the U.S. "was not out to destroy the Taliban," but the "UBL [Osama bin Laden] issue is…
Briefing Book 134
Edited by Barbara Elias; Research Assistance by Jamie Noguchi
Washington, August 18, 2005 - UPDATE - The U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan told a top Taliban official in September 2000 that the U.S. "was not out to destroy the Taliban," but the "UBL [Osama bin Laden…
Briefing Book 163
For more informationMalcolm Byrne - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., August 17, 2005: Newly declassified State Department documents show that government experts warned the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) in early 2003 about "serious planning gaps for…
Briefing Book 144
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson
Washington, D.C.: Today, the National Security Archive posts an updated collection of reports, studies, commentaries, and other material concerning the issue of exactly how much authority should be…
Briefing Book 162
Edited by William Burr - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., August 5, 2005 - Sixty years ago this month, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, and the Japanese government…
Briefing Book 161
:?Ralph Begleiter, University of Delaware (302) 831-2687 ?Meredith Fuchs, General Counsel, National Security Archive (202) 994-7000?Thomas Blanton, Director, National Security Archive (202) 994-7000?Daniel Mach, Counsel, Jenner & Block (202) 637-6313
Full Statement of Ralph J. Begleiter (Rosenberg Professor of Communication, Distinguished Journalist in Residence, University of Delaware): "The Pentagon's decision to release these nearly 800 images…
Briefing Book 160
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C. August 3, 2005 - The National Security Archive, along with other secrecy experts, today filed a “friend of the court” brief in a lawsuit challenging the FBI’s authority to issue…
Book By Vojtech Mastny and Malcolm Byrne
"[Mastny] and Byrne are to be congratulated for producing this monumental volume, with a trove of translated documents that is a major boon to both scholars and teachers."
William E. Odom (Lt. Gen…
Briefing Book 159
William Burr - 202/994-7032
Washington D.C. July 1, 2005 - A decision to use nuclear weapons is one of the most politically, militarily, and morally perilous decisions that a U.S. president, or any leader of a nuclear state,…
News 20050629
William Burr - 202/994-7032 - wburr@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., June 29, 2005 - President Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger saw India as a "Soviet stooge" during the South Asia crisis of 1971, downplayed reports of…
Briefing Book 156a
Washington D.C. June 22, 2005 - The senior FBI official now revealed as "Deep Throat" - the Watergate source for Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward - ordered his subordinates to "forcibly remind…
Briefing Book 157
Peter Kornbluh - 202/994-7116 - pkorn@gwu.edu
Washington D.C. June 9, 2005 - Luis Posada Carriles spoke of plans to "hit" a Cuban airliner only days before Cubana flight 455 exploded on October 6, 1976, killing all 73 passengers aboard,…
Briefing Book 156
Richard A. Moss, editor
Washington D.C. June 3, 2005 - There are few references in the surreptitiously recorded Nixon Tapes to W. Mark Felt, the former high-level FBI official recently unmasked as "Deep Throat," but the…
Briefing Book 155
William Burr - 202/994-7032
Washington D.C. June 1, 2005 - The failure of the recently concluded review conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, at a time when the future of the non-proliferation system is in…
Briefing Book 153
Peter Kornbluh - 202/994-7116
Washington D.C. May 18, 2005 - The National Security Archive today posted additional documents that show that the CIA had concrete advance intelligence, as early as June 1976, on plans by Cuban exile…
Briefing Book 154
Vojtech Mastny 202/415-6707 Malcolm Byrne - 202/994-7043
Washington D.C. May 13, 2005 - The Soviet-led Warsaw Pact had a long-standing strategy to attack Western Europe that included being the first to use nuclear weapons, according to a new book of…
News 20050510
Tom Blanton/Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., May 10, 2005 - The D.C. Circuit today issued a unanimous, en banc decision effectively ending the effort by the Sierra Club and Judicial Watch to obtain information about who…
Briefing Book 152
:?Ralph Begleiter, University of Delaware (302) 831-2687 ?Meredith Fuchs, General Counsel, National Security Archive (202) 994-7000?Thomas Blanton, Director, National Security Archive (202) 994-7000?Daniel Mach, Counsel, Jenner & Block (202) 637-6313
Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005 - In response to Freedom of Information Act requests and a lawsuit, the Pentagon this week released hundreds of previously secret images of casualties returning to…
Briefing Book 151
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
Washington D.C., April 12, 2005 - As the Senate Intelligence Committee convenes to consider the nomination of John Negroponte to be Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Archive…
Briefing Book 150
Edited by Tamara Feinstein Intern AssistanceSara Coburn
Washington D.C., March 24, 2005 - The CIA was surprised by Israeli agents' capture of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960, and a subsequent CIA file review uncovered extensive ties…
News 20050317
Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000
Nixon Library to revise exhibits, participate in new Vietnam conference, Donate most pre- and post-presidential materials to National Archives Including "personal/political" 700 hours cut from tapes…
News 20050310
Thomas Blanton
March 10, 2005 TO: Members of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives Committees on Appropriations, Government Affairs, and Government Reform We are writing to request that Congress suspend…
Briefing Book 149
Peter Kornbluh - 202/994-7116 pkorn@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., March 15, 2005 - Washington D.C.: The National Security Archive tonight posted key documents released on March 15 by the Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Committee on…
News 20050315
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to speak with you about the Freedom of Information Act and the necessary reforms that would be enacted by the OPEN Government…
Briefing Book 24
Edited by Jeffrey Richelson
Washington, D.C., March 11, 2005 - The largest U.S. spy agency warned the incoming Bush administration in its "Transition 2001" report that the Information Age required rethinking the policies and…
News 20050302
Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000
Statement by Thomas S. Blanton, National Security Archive, George Washington University March 2, 2005 Hearing on "Emerging Threats: Overclassification and Pseudo-classification" 2154 Rayburn House…
Briefing Book 148
Edited by Barbara Elias
Washington, D.C., February 10, 2005 - February 10, 2005 - As a result of a Freedom of Information Act appeal filed by the National Security Archive, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA)…
Briefing Book 146
Edited by Tamara Feinstein
Washington D.C., February 4, 2005 - Today the National Security Archive posted the CIA's secret documentary history of the U.S government's relationship with General Reinhard Gehlen, the German army'…
News 20050121
Tom Blanton - 202/994-7000 Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., January 21, 2005 - The National Security Archive this week submitted comments on the Central Intelligence Agency's decennial review of the record categories that the CIA has…
Briefing Book 145
Edited by William Burr
Chinese marshal received Top Secret intelligence briefing from Kissinger in 1972, member of four marshals who told Mao "play the American card" in 1969 "History Declassified: Nixon in China"…
Briefing Book 125
Peter Kornbluh 202/994-7116 pkorn@gwu.edu John Dinges 212/854-8774 jdinges@aol.com
Washington, D.C., December 14: With the decision by Chilean judge Juan Guzmбn to indict Augusto Pinochet for ten crimes relating to Operation Condor, the National Security Archive reposted a series…
Briefing Book 143
Jeffrey Richelson 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., December 14: Front page stories in The Washington Post ("New Spy Satellite Debated on Hill," Dec. 11, 2004) and The New York Times ("New Spy Plan Said to Involve Satellite System,"…
News 20041130
ContactMeredith Fuchs (202) 994-7059 Thomas Blanton (202) 994-7068
Washington, D.C., 30 November 2004 - The National Security Archive along with concerned library, journalist, and public interest organizations today filed an amici curiae brief with the United States…
Briefing Book 142
Edited by Dan Lopez, Thomas Blanton, Meredith Fuchs and Barbara Elias? Thomas Blanton202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., November 23, 2004 - President Gerald R. Ford wanted to sign the Freedom of Information Act strengthening amendments passed by Congress 30 years ago, but concern about leaks (shared…
Briefing Book 141
Thomas Blanton202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., November 17, 2004 - Fifteen years ago today, a modest, officially sanctioned student demonstration in Prague spontaneously grew into a major outburst of popular revulsion toward the…
Briefing Book 140
Thomas Blanton202/994-7000
Washington, D.C. October 29, 2004 - The Department of Defense has refused to release the names of military officers in the chain of command over the soldiers charged with prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib…
Briefing Book 139
by William Burr and Robert Wampler 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., 27 October 2004 - The recent passing of Paul Nitze at the age of 97 has brought forth the expected array of obituaries, retrospectives and assessments of his lengthy and often…
News 20041020
Meredith Fuchs (202) 994-7059?Thomas Blanton (202) 994-7068
Washington, D.C., 20 October 2004 - The National Security Archive today filed suit against the Central Intelligence Agency ("CIA") seeking the expedited processing and release under the Freedom of…
Briefing Book 138
:?Meredith Fuchs (202) 994-7059?Thomas Blanton (202) 994-7068
Washington, D.C., 15 October 2004 - On October 15, 1984, President Reagan signed into law the Central Intelligence Agency Information Act of 1984, Pub. L. 98-477, codified at 50 U.S.C. Sec. 431,…
Briefing Book 137
Edited by Barbara Elias Graphics by Jamie Noguchi
Washington, D.C., 14 October 2004 - The Transportation Security Administration this week refused to release the texts or even the titles of five aviation warnings given to airlines just before the 9/…
Briefing Book 136
:?Ralph Begleiter (302) 831-2687?Daniel Mach (202) 637-6313?Meredith Fuchs (202) 994-7059?Thomas Blanton (202) 994-7068
Washington, D.C., 4 October 2004 - Journalism professor Ralph Begleiter of the University of Delaware today filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act in federal district court for copies of the…
Briefing Book 135
Edited by Tom Blanton, William Burr and Peter Kornbluh 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., 1 October 2004 - Secretary of State Henry Kissinger berated top aides for State Department efforts in 1976 to restrain human rights abuses by military dictators in Chile and…
News 20040925
ContactPeter Kornbluh 202 994 7116 pkorn@gwu.edu
WASHINGTON D.C.: For the first time in forty years, CIA and White House documents on covert political intervention in the 1964 Chilean election were declassified yesterday. The documents, which…
Briefing Book 133
Edited by Carlos Osorio and Kathleen Costar; : Carlos Osorio202 994 7061 - cosorio@gwu.edu Peter Kornbluh202 994 7116
Washington, August 27, 2004 - A newly declassified document obtained by the National Security Archive shows that amidst vast human rights violations by Argentina's security forces in June 1976,…
Briefing Book 132
Edited by John Prados Phone202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., 4 August 2004 - Forty years ago today, President Johnson and top U.S. officials chose to believe that North Vietnam had just attacked U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, even…
Briefing Book 131
Michael Evans - 202/994-7000 mevans@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., 1 August 2004 - Then-Senator and now President Бlvaro Uribe Vйlez of Colombia was a "close personal friend of Pablo Escobar" who was "dedicated to collaboration with the Medellнn […
Briefing Book 130
Edited by William Burr
Since it was first created in 1960, the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP)--the U.S. plan for nuclear war--has been one of the most secret and sensitive issues in U.S. national security policy…
News 130
For more information, contact William Burr, 994-7032
The U.S. included so many nuclear weapons in its first missile-age plan for nuclear war that top military commanders called it a "hazard to ourselves as well as our enemy," according to newly…
Briefing Book 127
"All of those up and down the chain of command who bear any responsibility must be held accountable for the brutality and humiliation they inflicted on the prisoners and for the damage and dishonor…
Briefing Book 128
Edited by Brad Simpson simpbrad@isu.edu / 208-282-3870
Washington, D.C. - July 8, 2004 - "You should tell [Suharto] that we understand the problems they face in West Irian," national security adviser Henry Kissinger wrote President Nixon on the eve of…
Briefing Book 129
Washington D.C., 9 July 2004 - The CIA has decided to keep almost entirely secret the controversial October 2002 CIA intelligence estimate about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction that is the subject…
News 20040624
ContactMeredith Fuchs 202-994-7059 Tom Blanton 202-994-7068
Washington D.C., June 24, 2004 - The United States Supreme Court today remanded to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals a case concerning the application of a federal open government law to the Energy…
Briefing Book 126
Edited by Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne For further information Contact Malcolm Byrne 202/994-7043 mbyrne@gwu.edu
On the morning of August 19, 1953, a crowd of demonstrators operating at the direction of pro-Shah organizers with ties to the CIA made its way from the bazaars of southern Tehran to the center of…
News
National Security Archive Collections
This page will present finding aids to the Archive's unpublished, boxed collections as the catalogs are completed and become accessioned. We are proud to…
News , Special Exhibit
Washington D.C., June 17, 2004 - Noted modern artist Jenny Holzer, whose signature "xenon" film projectors have cast monumental light images of texts and truisms on the sides of buildings and…
Briefing Book 125pr
Peter Kornbluh 202/994-7116 pkorn@gwu.edu John Dinges 212/854-8774 Cell202/365-5062 jdinges@aol.com
Washington D.C. June 10: Despite denials by the office of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the argument advanced by Council on Foreign Relations Latin American specialist Kenneth Maxwell…
Briefing Book 124
Edited by Kate Doyle
The Cuban revolution was a shock to the Mexican system. On the international stage, Mexico was forced to negotiate a position toward Cuba that allowed it to preserve some independence from the United…
Briefing Book 123
Edited by Dr. Svetlana Savranskaya
Archive director discusses Kissinger telcons on NPR's
All Things Considered, 27 May 2004
New Kissinger Telcons Released 26 May 2004
Kissinger Telcons on Chile
Telcons Previously Released in Other…
Briefing Book 123
Edited by Thomas Blanton and Dr. William Burr
Washington, D.C., May 26, 2004 - Five years after the National Security Archive initiated legal action to compel the State Department and the National Archives to recover the transcripts of Henry…
Briefing Book 121
Edited by Thomas S. Blanton (Director, National Security Archive)
Two months after the leak of the Pentagon Papers generated front page headlines and a landmark Supreme Court case, TIME magazine reported: "State's Secrets. The Pentagon, it seems, was not the only…
News 20040430
For further informationThomas Blanton/Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000 Scott Nelson - 202/588-1000
Washington, D.C., April 30 - A federal judge's dismissal last month of a landmark open government case was based on two factual misconceptions and deserves re-opening, according to court filings last…
Briefing Book 120
Edited by Kate Doyle
Trying to report intelligently on the Mexican military is like trying to see in the dark - it's all shadowy outlines and no details. The army is famously secretive, opaque, and hostile to public…
Briefing Book 116
By Thomas S. Blanton
Washington, D.C., 12 April 2004 - President Bush on Saturday, 10 April 2004, became the first sitting president ever to release publicly even a portion of his Daily Brief from the CIA. The page-and-a…
News 116pr
For more information: Thomas Blanton, 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., April 8, 2004 - The National Security Archive at George Washington University today called for the public declassification of the controversial President's Daily Brief from August 6…
Briefing Book 119
by William Ferroggiaro
U.S. diplomats and intelligence identified who was perpetrating the killing in Rwanda on the second day of the genocide, according to recently declassified documents posted to the Web today by the…
Briefing Book 118
Edited by Peter Kornbluh peter.kornbluh@gmail.com / 202 994-7116
Washington D.C., 31 March 2004 - "I think we ought to take every step that we can, be prepared to do everything that we need to do," President Johnson instructed his aides regarding preparations for…
Briefing Book 117
by William Ferroggiaro
Ten years ago this week, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Prudence Bushnell visited Rwanda and Burundi. Her visit-one of many visits by State Department and Defense Department…
Briefing Book 97a
Edited by Sajit Gandhi (202) 994-7239 gandhi@gwu.edu
Washington, DC - Pakistan provided millions of dollars, arms, and "buses full of adolescent mujahid," to the Taliban in the 1990's, according to declassified State Department documents obtained by…
Briefing Book 115
Edited by Kate Doyle
The death of former President Josй Lуpez Portillo on February 17 unleashed a torrent of public rage and bitter obituaries in the Mexican press. The most prominent opinion makers called him a…
News 20040311
For further information Contact Meredith Fuchs, General Counsel Thomas Blanton, Executive Director 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., 11 March 2004 - The National Security Archive, together with America's leading library and archival associations and four public interest groups, filed a joint amicus brief today in…
Briefing Book 114
William Burr
Washington D.C., 5 March 2004 - The recent turnaround in Libya's nuclear policies and the many disclosures of Pakistan's role as a super-proliferator of nuclear weapons technology produced…
News 114
For further information Contact William Burr202/994-7032
Washington D.C., 5 March 2004 - Over the course of three presidential administrations, U.S. governmental officials repeatedly pressed the Chinese government to explain whether it was providing any…
Briefing Book 113
For further information Contact Peter Kornbluh202/994-7116
Washington D.C., 26 February 2004 - Diaries, e-mail, and memos of Iran-contra figure Oliver North, posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive, directly contradict his criticisms…
Briefing Book 112
John Dinges 212/854-8774 Cell202/365-5062 jdinges@aol.com
Washington, D.C. - Military officials of Uruguay, who were members of a secret Southern Cone intelligence alliance called Operation Condor, threatened to assassinate U.S. Congressman Edward Koch in…
News 80
Jeffrey Richelson
Washington, D.C. - Almost a year after the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Bush administration faces growing skepticism over its claim that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs…
Briefing Book 80
Edited by Jeffrey Richelson
Between Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, and the commencement of military action in January 1991, then President George H.W. Bush raised the specter of the Iraqi pursuit of nuclear weapons…
Briefing Book 111
Edited by Kate Doyle
Dear President Fox, Something remarkable has happened in Guatemala. You owe it to your country to take notice. On January 20, the Guatemalan Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a senior military…
Briefing Book 110
For further information Contact Peter Kornbluh 202 994 7116 pkorn@gwu.edu
WASHINGTON D.C. - President Richard Nixon acknowledged that he had given instructions to "do anything short of a Dominican-type action" to keep the democratically elected president of Chile from…
Briefing Book 97b
Sajit Gandhi, (202) 994-7000 gandhi@gwu.edu
Washington, DC - The U.S. government pressed the Taliban to expel Usama bin Laden over 30 times between 1996, when the Taliban took Kabul, and the summer of 2001, but the talks were always fruitless…
Briefing Book 109
Edited by Kate Doyle
When the United States government considered the rebellion in Chiapas, it did so through the twin lenses of its primary national interests: money and power. The Zapatista uprising - which exploded on…
Briefing Book 108
Edited by William Burr
Scenarios of nuclear attacks on the United States, whether by terrorist or state adversaries, have assumed that Washington, D.C. would be a major target. A startling article published as the cover…
News 108
William Burr, (202) 994-7032
Washington, D.C. - A nuclear weapon at the "small" end of historic strategic arsenals that exploded over the Pentagon would create a mass fire that would engulf the Washington, D.C. area as far as…
Sourcebook
For more information: 202/994-7000
Thomas Blanton / Malcolm Byrne
Links
CIA Whites Out Controversial Estimate on Iraq Weapons
Saddam Hussein: More Secret History
Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein
The U.S. tilts toward Iraq, 1980…
Briefing Book 107
Compiled and introduced by Malcolm Byrne
Twenty years ago, on December 20, 1983, Donald Rumsfeld, currently the U.S. Secretary of Defense, met with Saddam Hussein during the first of Rumsfeld's two now-famous visits to Baghdad. At the…
Briefing Book 106
by William Burr
In their accounts of the historic February 1972 trip to China, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger focus on the February 21 meeting with Mao Zedong as well as the talks with Zhou Enlai on the Vietnam…
News 106
Washington D.C. 11 December 2003 - Newly declassified documents posted today on the web by the National Security Archive show that President Nixon assured the People's Republic of China during his…
Briefing Book 105
by Kate Doyle
Lucio Cabaсas Barrientos - a native son of Guerrero, school teacher-turned-revolutionary and chief of the small rebel force dubbed the Party of the Poor - was nothing more than an ordinary bandit,…
Briefing Book 104
Edited by Carlos Osorio, Assisted by Kathleen Costar
Washington, D.C., 4 December 2003 - Newly declassified State Department documents obtained by the National Security Archive under the Freedom of Information Act show that in October 1976, Secretary…
Briefing Book 103
Washington D.C. - On the 40th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the eve of the broadcast of a new documentary film on Kennedy and Castro, the National Security Archive today…
Briefing Book 102, FOIA Audit 102
For more informationMeredith Fuchs/Thomas Blanton 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., November 17, 2003 - The oldest Freedom of Information requests that are still pending in the U.S. government date back to the late 1980s, before the collapse of the Soviet Union,…
Briefing Book 101
by John Prados
Washington D.C., November 5, 2003 - A White House tape of President Kennedy and his advisers, published this week in a new book-and-CD collection and excerpted on the Web, confirms that top U.S.…
Briefing Book 100
by Kate Doyle
During Guatemala's protracted and savage internal conflict, which raged from 1963 to 1996, tens of thousands of Guatemalan citizens fled the violence in their country for the safety of Mexico.…
Briefing Book 99
by Kate Doyle
Research AssistanceIsaac Campos Costero Additional ResearchTamara Feinstein and Eli Forsythe
This new Electronic Briefing Book on the Tlatelolco massacre is based on a collaboration between Proceso magazine and the National Security Archive and launched on March 2, 2003. The collaboration…
Briefing Book 98
William Burr, editor
Thirty years ago, on 6 October 1973 at 2:00 p.m. (Cairo time), Egyptian and Syrian forces launched coordinated attacks on Israeli forces in the Sinai and the Golan Heights. Known variously as the…
Briefing Book 97
Edited by Sajit Gandhi
Washington, D.C., September 11, 2003 - Marking the second anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the National Security Archive at George Washington University today posted on the Web a new…
Briefing Book 96
ContactTamara Feinstein - tfeins7i@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., August 28, 2003 - Marking today's release of the final report of the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the National Security Archive posted on the Web 33 of the most…
Briefing Book 95
by Kate Doyle (kadoyle@gwu.edu)Research AssistanceEmilene Martнnez MoralesAdditional ResearchTamara Feinstein and Michael GavinSpecial thanks to John Powers and Ron Sodano of the Nixon Presidential Materials Staff at the National Archives for their guidance and suggestions.
This new Electronic Briefing Book on the Nixon tapes is based on a collaboration between Proceso magazine and the National Security Archive and launched on March 2, 2003. The collaboration grew out…
Briefing Book 94
For more information, 202/994-7000
Washington D.C., 8 August 2003 - The current Bush administration debate over possibly restarting long-halted nuclear weapons tests in order to develop "mini-nuke" "bunker-busters" may be repeating…
Briefing Book 92
by Kate Doyle (kadoyle@gwu.edu) Research AssistanceIsaac Campos Costero
Additional ResearchTamara Feinstein and Emilene Martнnez Morales
This new Electronic Briefing Book on elections in Mexico is the fifth to appear based on a collaboration between Proceso magazine and the National Security Archive and launched on March 2, 2003. The…
Briefing Book 93
Edited by Meredith Fuchs, Barbara Elias, and Thomas Blanton
WASHINGTON, D.C., July 4 - George Washington University's National Security Archive, the leading non-profit user of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, today released its annual Freedom of…
News 20030701
William Burr, editor
Recent issues of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the Guardian (UK) (Note 1) describe a fascinating experiment, sponsored by Lawrence Radiation Laboratory during the mid-1960s, to determine…
News 20030611
Tom Blanton 202/994-7000 Meredith Fuchs 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., June 11, 2003 - The Congress is poised to give the National Security Agency a free pass from complying with the Freedom of Information Act for any NSA "operational" files, even…
Briefing Book 91
by Kate Doyle (kadoyle@gwu.edu)
Research AssistanceIsaac Campos Costero
Additional ResearchTamara Feinstein and Michael Gavin
This new Electronic Briefing Book on elections in Mexico is the fifth to appear based on a collaboration between Proceso magazine and the National Security Archive and launched on March 2, 2003. The…
News 90
Thomas Blanton or William Burr 202/994-7000
Washington DC, May 21, 2003 - The Central Intelligence Agency classified and withheld from a Freedom of Information Act release a 25-year-old joke item in a weekly terrorism report about the…
Briefing Book 90
Edited by Jeffrey Richelson, William Burr and Thomas Blanton
(with contributions from Michael Evans and Robert Wampler)
The National Security Archive's experience with the U.S. government's declassification process has been a varied one, as it should be given the great diversity of its declassification requests during…
Briefing Book 89
by Kate Doyle (kadoyle@gwu.edu)
Research AssistanceIsaac Campos Costero
Additional ResearchTamara Feinstein and Michael Gavin
Special ThanksMichelle Linder, Amnesty International USA, and David M. Lucey
Twenty-five years ago, during the worst years of Mexico's dirty war, a new consciousness began to dawn in the United States about human rights. The U.S. government was in turmoil. The scandals…
News 20030505
Tom Blanton 202/994-7000 Meredith Fuchs 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., May 5, 2003 - The proposed FY 2004 Defense Authorization Act would throw a cloak of secrecy over valuable National Security Agency ("NSA") records now released under the Freedom of…
Briefing Book 88
dited by Jeffrey T. Richelson
The ability of the United States to gather overhead imagery of targets in foreign nations has evolved dramatically over the last sixty years. Modified bombers and fighters used in World War II and…
Briefing Book 87
Edited by Robert A. Wampler
North Korea's nuclear weapons program has moved back to the front pages with the unprecedented acknowledgement by North Korea during talks this week in Beijing that the North has developed nuclear…
Briefing Book 86
by Kate Doyle (kadoyle@gwu.edu)
Research AssistanceIsaac Campos Costero
Additional ResearchTamara Feinstein and Michael Gavin
This new Electronic Briefing Book on Operation Intercept -- the Nixon government's unilateral attempt in 1969 to halt the flow of drugs from Mexico into the United States -- is the second to appear…
Briefing Book 85
Carlos Osorio and Thomas Blanton
The National Security Archive at George Washington University today published declassified U.S.
News 20030320
Barbara Elias - 202 / 994-7000
Washington, D.C., March 20, 2003 - U.S. Army lawyers identified more than 500 Iraqis allegedly guilty of war crimes during the Gulf War period, according to a November 1992 Defense Department report…
Briefing Book 84, FOIA Audit 84
Thomas Blanton202/994-7000
WASHINGTON, D.C., 14 MARCH 2003 - The National Security Archive at George Washington University today released results from the first-ever government-wide audit of federal responses to Freedom of…
Briefing Book 83
Kate Doyle
Washington, D.C., 2 March 2003 - The National Security Archive at George Washington University today published on the Web a presidential audio tapes and set of declassified U.S. White House and State…
News 20030226
For more information, contactTom Blanton 202/994-7000 Meredith Fuchs 202/994-7000
Washington, D.C., February 26, 2003 - The National Security Archive today submitted comments on the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) regulations that detail how the DHS will implement open…
Briefing Book 82
Joyce Battle (202) 994-7145
Washington, D.C., 25 February 2003 - The National Security Archive at George Washington University today published on the Web a series of declassified U.S. documents detailing the U.S. embrace of…
News
Washington, D.C., February 6, 2003 - The National Security Archive yesterday filed an amicus brief in the pending U.S. Supreme Court case, Department of the Treasury v. City…
Briefing Book 81
Edited by
William Burr, National Security Archive and Jeffrey Kimball, Professor of History, Miami University
Today, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published an article, "Nixon's Nuclear Ploy,'' by National Security Archive senior analyst William Burr and Miami University historian Jeffrey Kimball,(1…
Briefing Book 79
Edited by Sajit Gandhi
Washington D.C. - Today, on the 31st anniversary of the creation of Bangladesh, the National Security Archive published on the World Wide Web 46 declassified U.S. government documents and audio clips…
Briefing Book 78
Edited by Joyce Battle
Of the many responses of the Bush administration to the events of September 11, 2001, one of the most significant and most widely discussed was its intensified and greatly expanded propaganda program…
Briefing Book 77
Carlos Osorio and Thomas Blanton
On the 25th anniversary of the disappearance of leaders of the internationally renowned civil disobedience group the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, recently declassified US documents show that the…
Briefing Book 76
Edited by Malcolm Byrne
Forty-six years ago, at 4:15 a.m. on November 4, 1956, Soviet forces launched a major attack on Hungary aimed at crushing, once and for all, the spontaneous national uprising that had begun 12 days…
Briefing Book 75
William Burr and Thomas S. Blanton, editors
Washington, D.C., 31 October 2002-- Forty years ago today, the U.S. Navy forced to the surface a Soviet submarine, which unbeknownst to the Navy, was carrying a nuclear-tipped torpedo. This was the…
Special Exhibit
Press releases, selected documents, photographs, audio clips and other material from the historic conference in Havana.
Formerly secret documents from U.S., Cuban, Soviet and East Bloc archives.…
Briefing Book 74
Jeffrey T. Richelson, editor
Today, October 16, 2002, the National Security Archive publishes on the Web a comprehensive documentary history of U.S. aerial espionage in the Cold War and beyond. This publication comes 40 years to…
News
Thomas S. Blanton, Peter Kornbluh
Havana, Cuba, 12 October 2002, 1 p.m. - During the third session of the historic 40th anniversary conference on the Cuban missile crisis, participants including Cuban president Fidel Castro and…
News
Thomas S. Blanton, Peter Kornbluh
Havana, Cuba, 11 October 2002, 1 p.m. - During the first session of the historic 40th anniversary conference on the Cuban missile crisis, participants including Cuban president Fidel Castro and…
News
Thomas S. Blanton, Peter Kornbluh
Havana, Cuba, 11 October 2002, 5 p.m. - During the second session of the historic 40th anniversary conference on the Cuban missile crisis, participants including Cuban president Fidel Castro and…
News
Thomas S. Blanton, Peter Kornbluh
Havana, Cuba, 10 October 2002 - Senior surviving veterans of the Cuban missile crisis arrived today in Havana for a historic 40th anniversary conference co-organized by the National Security…
News
Thomas S. Blanton, Peter Kornbluh
Washington, D.C., 1 October 2002 – The National Security Archive at George Washington University announced today that the senior surviving veterans of the Cuban Missile Crisis will gather in…
News 20020920
Prof. Dr. Vojtech Mastny Project Coordinator
Generals Jaruzelski, Siwicki, Tuczapski, and 6 other top-ranking Polish insiders of the Soviet military alliance reveal unprecedented details about its functioning and plans against NATO during the…
Briefing Book 73 part 2/2
Edited by Carlos Osorio
Assisted by
Kathleen Costar, research and editorial assistance Florence Segura, research assistance of the National Security Archive
Natalia Federman, research assistance and Spanish translation of CELS
Washington, D.C., 21 August 2002 - State Department documents released yesterday on Argentina's dirty war (1976-83) show that the Argentine military believed it had U.S. approval for its all-out…
Briefing Book 73 part 1/2
Edited by Carlos Osorio; Assisted by Kathleen Costar, research and editorial assistance Florence Segura, research assistance of the National Security Archive
Washington, D.C., 21 August 2002 - State Department documents released yesterday on Argentina's dirty war (1976-83) show that the Argentine military believed it had U.S. approval for its all-out…
Briefing Book 72
Edited by Tamara Feinstein, [Phone202 / 994-7219] Director, Peru Documentation Project
Introduction On the evening of September 14, 2000, Peruvian cable TV station Canal N broadcast a video of Peruvian intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos apparently giving a bribe of $15,000 to…
Briefing Book 71
Edited by Carlos Osorio Director, Southern Cone Documentation Project Phone202 / 994-7061 Research and editing assistanceKathleen Costar, National Security Archive Research and translation assistance Dr. Ariela Peralta, SERPAJ Uruguay, CEJIL USA
Newly declassified documents detail the Nixon administration's broad-gauged efforts to prevent a victory by the leftist “Frente Amplio” in the Uruguayan presidential elections of 1971. The documents…
Briefing Book 68
By Kate Doyle Senior Analyst and director of the Mexico Project, National Security Archive
Mexico City, 10 June 2002—Mexico’s first national freedom of information initiative became the law of the land today, when it was signed by President Vicente Fox Quesada in a ceremony held at the…
Briefing Book 70
William Burr, editor, with Sharon Chamberlain (George Washington University), Gao Bei, and Zhao Han (University of Virginia)
The Lead-Up to Nixon's Trip to China: U.S. and Chinese Documents and Tapes
News 20020515
For further information contact Peter Kornbluh 202 / 994-7116 pkorn@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., May 15 – The National Security Archive at George Washington University today posted on the Web a declassified Presidential Directive, signed by Jimmy Carter, which stated: “I have…
Briefing Book 69
Edited by Michael Evans Director, Colombia Documentation Project Phone202 / 994-7029
Summary and Findings Over the past 15 years, Congress has insisted that U.S. security assistance for Colombia be restricted to combating the drug trade rather than fighting the long-standing civil…
Briefing Book 67
Edited by Peter Kornbluh For Further information Contact Piero Gleijeses - 202 363-3815 (h) Piero Gleijeses - 202 663-5779 (w) Peter Kornbluh - 202 994-7116
NEW BOOK based on Unprecedented Access to Cuban Records; True Story of U.S.-Cuba Cold fear Clash in Angola presented in Conflicting Missions Washington D.C.: The National Security Archive today…
Briefing Book 66
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Last week, President Bush visited Beijing on the anniversary of Richard Nixon's visit in February 1972, the first presidential trip to China.(1) To commemorate further the Nixon trip, the National…
News 20020211
For further information Thomas Blanton, Archive director, 202/994-7068 William Burr, senior analyst, 202/994-7032 Lee Rubin, Mayer Brown & Platt, 202/263-3267
Washington, D.C., February 11 – In answer to a three-year-old National Security Archive request, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) today confirmed that former national security…
Briefing Book 65
Edited by Thomas Blanton and Michael L. Evans
The PBS documentary Bill Moyers Reports: Trading Democracy, which premieres tonight, February 5, at 10 p.m. Eastern time (local times may vary) exposes an obscure provision of the North American Free…
News 20020122
Tamara Feinstein
Washington, D.C., January 22, 2002 – The National Security Archive today published on the World Wide Web forty-one declassified U.S. government documents detailing human rights atrocities over the…
Briefing Book 64
Edited by Tamara Feinstein
On November 21, 2000, the Peruvian Congress voted to remove Alberto Fujimori as president, declaring him morally unfit for office and rejecting his resignation letter sent from Japan—where he had…
Briefing Book 63
The latest phase of military operations in Afghanistan has shifted the emphasis from heavy bombing to more of a “boots on the ground” approach involving hundreds of U.S. special forces units with…
Briefing Book 58
Edited by Dr. Robert A. Wampler
Perhaps the most troubling and terrifying development in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11th is the emergence of biological warfare as a real, instead of a potential, threat for our…
Briefing Book 62
Edited by William Burr and Michael L. Evans
The New Evidence The Indonesian invasion of East Timor in December 1975 set the stage for the long, bloody, and disastrous occupation of the territory that ended only after an international…
News 20011129
Prof. Dr. Vojtech Mastny Project Coordinator
Vienna, Munich, Verona, and other European population and cultural centers were to be “completely destroyed,” according to 1965 Warsaw Pact plans for war in Europe made public today on the Zurich-…
News 20011128
For more information Thomas Blanton, 202/994-7068 Scott Nelson, 202/588-7724
Washington D.C., 28 November 2001- Today the National Security Archive at George Washington University joined the American Historical Association (AHA) and other scholars and public interest groups…
Briefing Book 61
Edited by Robert A. Wampler and Thomas S. Blanton
As noted in Biowar: The Nixon Administration's Decision to End U.S. Biological Warfare Programs, public attention has become intensely focused upon the threat of attack by biological agents, as the…
Briefing Book 60
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Last month's terrorist attacks on the United States generated renewed debate and discussion about ways and means for protecting U.S. domestic territory in the years to come. Believing that national…
Briefing Book 59
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Now living in exile outside of Rome, 87-year old Zahir Shah reigned as king of Afghanistan from 1933 until July 1973, when his cousin, prince Mohammed Daoud Khan, seized power and proclaimed a…
Briefing Book 57
Edited by John Prados and Svetlana Savranskaya
On October 7, the United States launched an attack against targets in Afghanistan in the beginning of what President Bush has promised will be a long campaign against terrorist groups and the states…
Briefing Book 56
William Burr, Editor
In stark contrast to the close U.S.-Russian relationship of today, forty years ago serious tensions over Berlin and Germany and the danger of world war clouded Moscow-Washington relations. Fred…
Briefing Book 55
Edited by Jeffrey Richelson and Michael L. Evans
The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the abortive attack (possibly aimed at the White House or Camp David) that resulted in the crash of a jetliner…
Briefing Book 53
Edited by William Ferroggiaro ContactWilliam Ferroggiaro (202) 994-7045 wferro@gwu.edu
Today the National Security Archive publishes on the World Wide Web sixteen declassified US government documents detailing how US policymakers chose to be “bystanders” during the genocide that…
News 20010809
For further information Thomas Blanton, Archive director, 202/994-7068 William Burr, senior analyst, 202/994-7032 Lee Rubin, Mayer Brown & Platt, 202/263-3267
Washington, D.C., August 9 – The State Department today announced that former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had returned 10,000 pages of transcripts of his telephone conversations conducted…
Briefing Book 51
Edited by Will Ferroggiaro, Sajit Gandhi, and Thomas Blanton
Washington, D.C., July 4, 2001 – George Washington University's National Security Archive, the leading non-profit user of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, today released its first…
Book By Christian F. Ostermann
“This excellent collection of documents ... is an indispensable new source for the study of Cold War history.”
John Lewis Gaddis, Yale University
“The editors, from the National Security Archive…
Briefing Book 50
Edited by Malcolm Byrne
Compiled by Gregory F. Domber
Washington, D.C., June 15, 2001 – Forty-eight years ago, on June 17, 1953, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) erupted in a series of workers' riots and demonstrations that threatened the very…
News 20010613
Contact Christian F. Ostermann 011-49-30-238110 (as of June 13), Malcolm Byrne (202) 994-7043 (e-mailmbyrne@gwu.edu)
Newly published documents on the landmark worker-led uprising of June 1953 in East Germany show that the crisis was far more widespread and protracted than previously believed. The documents,…
Briefing Book 49
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., June 12, 2001 – During the spring and summer of 1969, U.S. government officials watched the ideological and political split between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of…
Briefing Book 48
UPDATED 29 JUNE 2001 - The Secret Briefs and the Secret Evidence
Edited by Thomas S. Blanton
Compiled by John Prados, Eddie Meadows, William Burr, and Michael Evans
For more information contact:
Thomas S. Blanton 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., June 5, 2001 – Thirty years ago this month, President Nixon picked up his Sunday New York Times on June 13, 1971 to see the wedding picture of his daughter Tricia and himself in the…
Briefing Book 47
Edited by Michael Evans Michael Evans 202/994-7029 or mevans@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., June 4, 2001 – In June 1999 the National Security Archive published Tiananmen Square, 1989: The Declassified History, an online collection of declassified State Department documents…
Briefing Book 46
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson Jeffrey T. Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., May 23, 2001 – A key part of the Central Intelligence Agency’s mission, since its creation in 1947, has been the conduct of human intelligence operations – which have included the…
Briefing Book 45
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 45
Published – May 18, 2001
Edited by William Burr
For more information contact:
William Burr 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., May 18, 2001 – The National Security Archive publishes here for the first time President Dwight D.
News 20010518
William Burr202 / 994-7032
WASHINGTON, DC - President Dwight D. Eisenhower's top secret instructions that delegated nuclear-launch authority to military commanders and the Secretary of Defense under specific emergency…
Briefing Book 37
Edited by Tamara Feinstein Tamara Feinstein 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Update May 10, 2001: The National Security Archive recently received responses to FOIA requests we sent out earlier this year on Vladimiro Montesinos. These new documents focus on Montesinos' early…
News 20010430
In his new exposй of the National Security Agency entitled Body of Secrets, author James Bamford highlights a set of proposals on Cuba by the Joint Chiefs of Staff codenamed OPERATION NORTHWOODS.…
Briefing Book 44
Edited by Michael Evans Michael Evans 202/994-7029 or mevans@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., April 23, 2001 – On Friday, April 20, 2001, a Peruvian Air Force jet, acting on intelligence supplied by a U.S. intelligence plane, shot down a civilian aircraft that was mistakenly…
Briefing Book "lot files"
One of the major primary sources for research on the history of U.S.
Briefing Book 41
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7032
Washington, D.C., April 9, 2001 –The ongoing Chinese-American controversy over the EP-3 aircraft that landed on Hainan Island on 31 March 2001 is the latest moment in a long and complex history of U.…
Briefing Book 42
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 42
Published – April 5, 2001
Edited by Gregory F. Domber
For more information contact:
Gregory F. Domber 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., April 5, 2001 – On April 5 Poland celebrates the twelfth anniversary of the signing of the Round Table Agreements -- a landmark power-sharing agreement negotiated by…
News 20010405
Gregory F. Domber202 / 994-7076
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Twelve years ago today in Warsaw members of Poland’s communist government, officials of the Catholic Church, and representatives of the Solidarity trade union signed the Round…
Briefing Book 43
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7032
Washington, D.C., April 2001 – The Bush administration is in the midst of a nuclear posture review. In his May 1 speech, President George W. Bush announced his support for missile defense and cuts in…
Briefing Book
Havana, Cuba: Documents discussed on the second day of an historic meeting of former adversaries in Havana show that CIA officials believed that the Cuban people would welcome a U.S.-sponsored…
News
Havana, Cuba: Documents released this afternoon on the second day of an historic meeting of former adversaries in Havana highlight missed opportunities for U.S.-Cuban rapproachment following the…
News
Havana, Cuba: British documents released on the first day of an historic conference on the Bay of Pigs show that CIA Director Allen Dulles hoped that British refusal to sell military items…
Briefing Book
Havana, Cuba: On the eve of an historic meeting in Havana, former combatants, covert operatives, policy makers and Cuban government officials gathered to discuss one of the most infamous…
News 20010306
On March 6, 2001, The New York Times reported the existence of a recently declassified State Department document revealing that the United States facilitated communications among South American…
Briefing Book 40
Edited by Tom Blanton Tom Blanton 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., March 2, 2001 – The Bush administration has floated the name of Otto Juan Reich for possible nomination as Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs (see Al Kamen, "In…
News 20010117
Jeffrey Richelson703/684-8274
Washington, D.C. -- During the early morning hours (Baghdad time) of January 17, 1991, the United States and its allies initiated Operation Desert Storm in accord with United Nations resolutions and…
Briefing Book 39
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 39
Published –January 17, 2001
Edited by William Burr and Jeffrey T. Richelson
For more information contact:
William Burr and Jeffrey T. Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., January 17, 2001 – On the morning of August 2, 1990 the mechanized infantry, armor, and tank units of the Iraqi Republican Guard invaded Kuwait and seized control of that…
News 20010112
William Burr202/994-7032 Jeffrey Richelson703/684-8274
Washington, D.C. -- President John F. Kennedy and top advisers considered bombing strikes and covert paramilitary operations to destroy China's nascent nuclear weapons program in the early 1960s,…
Briefing Book 38
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 38
Published –January 12, 2001
Edited by William Burr and Jeffrey T. Richelson
For more information contact:
William Burr and Jeffrey T. Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., January 12, 2001 – International Security has just published, in its Winter 2000/2001 issue, an article, "Whether To 'Strangle the Baby in the Cradle'": The United States…
Briefing Book 36
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7032
Washington, D.C., December 18, 2000 – President Clinton's decision in September to postpone deployment of a National Missile Defense (NMD) system puts the issue in the lap of the next president,…
Briefing Book 28
Edited by Malcolm Byrne Malcolm Byrne 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., November 29, 2000 – The CIA history of operation TPAJAX excerpted below was first disclosed by James Risen of The New York Times in its editions of April 16 and June 18, 2000, and…
News 20001113
Peter Kornbluh 202/994-7000
Washington D.C.: The National Security Archive today hailed the release of more than 16,000 secret U.S. records on the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, and Washington’s role in the violent overthrow…
News 20001024
Peter Kornbluh 202/994-7116
Washington D.C.: Under pressure from the Clinton White House and human rights groups, the CIA has agreed to release more than 700 documents on covert operations in Chile that the Directorate of…
News 20001006
Jeffrey Richelson 202/994-7000 Michael Evans 202/994-7029
On Friday, October 6, the National Security Archive at The George Washington University published a newly declassified United States Signals Intelligence Directive (USSID). This version of USSID 18…
News 20000929
Pending in the Senate is a proposal to enact an “Official Secrets Act” for the United States. Section 303 of the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2001, S. 2507, would make it a crime for government…
Briefing Book 35
Edited by Jeffrey T Richelson Jeffrey T Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., September 27, 2000 – In September 1992 the Department of Defense acknowledged the existence of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), an agency established in 1961 to manage the…
News 20000919
For more information Peter Kornbluh 202/994-7000
After twenty-seven years of withholding details about covert activities following the 1973 military coup in Chile, the CIA released a report yesterday acknowledging its close relations with General…
Book By Csaba Békés, János Rainer and Malcolm Byrne
“There is no publication, in any language, that would even approach the thoroughness, reliability, and novelty of this monumental work …. [I]t will change forever our views of what happened in…
News 20000817
For more information Peter Kornbluh 202/994-7000
Context On February 1st, 1999, the Clinton White House ordered the U.S. national security agencies to “retrieve and review for declassification documents that shed light on human rights abuses,…
News 20000808
For more information Tom Blanton (Archive) 202 / 994-7000 Tom Susman/Todd Richman (Ropes & Gray) 202 / 626-3900
WASHINGTON D.C., 8 August – U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has overruled the CIA’s claim that it can neither confirm or deny the existence of CIA-prepared biographies of nine former…
News
For more information:
Tom Blanton/Kate Martin (Archive) 202 / 994-7000
Tom Susman/Todd Richman (Ropes & Gray) 202 / 626-3900
Plaintiff's Original Complaint
and Today's Court Filing
Exhibits in Support of
Today's Court Filing
WASHINGTON, D.C., August 2, 2000 – Lawyers for the National Security Archive…
Briefing Book 34
Edited by Thomas S. Blanton, Michael L. Evans and Kate Martin 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., July 17, 2000 – On July 13, 2000 the Senate passed a measure in the FY 2001 Defense Authorization Act that – if approved by the full Congress – would severely undercut the public's…
Briefing Book 33
Peter Kornbluh, Project Director – 202/994-7029 Rafael Cohen, Research Assistant – 202/994-7000 with editorial assistance by Michael Evans 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., June 30, 2000 – On Friday, June 30, 2000, the U.S. government released hundreds of formerly secret CIA, Defense, State, Justice Deparment, and National Security Council records…
News
From: Center for National Security Studies, Federation of American Scientists, National Security Archive
Re: Freedom of Information Act Exemption for Defense Intelligence Agency Files in…
News
For more information contact:
Jeffrey Richelson – (703) 684-8274
Michael Evans – (202) 994-7029
On Friday, June 23, the National Security Archive published on the Internet a selection of recently declassified documents detailing restrictions intended to ensure that U.S. persons are not…
Briefing Book 32
By Kate Doyle Director, Guatemala Documentation Project Report Editor Kate Doyle, Senior Analyst and Project Director The Guatemala Documentation Project Database Editor Carlos Osorio, Senior Research Associate Contributing Editors Michael Evans, Senior Research Associate Tamara Feinstein, Research Associate Gretta Tovar Siebenttrit, Research Associate Sarah Heidema, Intern Special Thanks Zulima Alvarez
Introduction In July 1994, the Guatemalan government and the URNG signed the Human Rights Accord establishing the Historical Clarification Commission. That same month, the National Security Archive…
Briefing Book 31
Edited by William Burr William Burr - 202/994-7032
Washington, D.C., May 24, 2000 – The release of Cold War-era Soviet and East European documents on war plans and nuclear planning raises questions about U.S. war planning during the same period. A…
Briefing Book 30
Edited by Tom Blanton Tom Blanton 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., May 9, 2000 – Late last month, the U.S. Department of State released under the Freedom of Information Act an interagency study of recent U.S. humanitarian interventions titled, "…
Briefing Book 29
Edited by Peter Kornbluh Assisted by Rafael Cohen, Michael Evans and Catherine Nielsen Peter Kornbluh 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., May 3, 2000 – Shortly after the CIA's botched paramilitary invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, President John F. Kennedy established a commission to investigate the failure and to…
Briefing Book 26
Edited by William Burr William Burr 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., March 31, 2000 – During late 1998 and 1999, the Wen Ho Lee espionage controversy and debate over U.S. corporate technology transfers to China made the Chinese nuclear weapons…
News 20000323
By Peter Kornbluh
In May of 1978, the CIA’s National Foreign Assessment Center issued this comprehensive analysis of the Pinochet regime’s responses to being identified as responsible for the most significant act of…
News 20000317
Edited by Peter Kornbluh
On March 17, 2000, Long Island University named The National Security Archive as winner of a Special George Polk Award for 1999 "for serving as an essential journalistic resource and for expanding…
Briefing Book 27
Edited by Tom Blanton Tom Blanton 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., March 14, 2000 – Today's Washington Post features an op-ed on page A17 titled "Hardly a Distinguished Career," written by National Security Archive director Tom Blanton and…
Briefing Book 25
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 25
Published – February 14, 2000
Edited by Kate Doyle and Michael Evans
For more information contact:
Kate Doyle or Michael Evans 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
On January 21, Guatemalan police detained retired Col. Byron Lima Estrada and his son, Capt. Byron Lima Oliva, in connection with the 1998 assassination of Bishop Juan José Gerardi. Although…
Briefing Book 24
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson assisted by Michael Evans Jeffrey Richelson 202/994-7000 Michael Evans 202/994-7029
Washington, D.C., January 13, 2000 – The National Security Agency (NSA) is one of the most secret (and secretive) members of the U.S. intelligence community. The predecessor of NSA, the Armed Forces…
Briefing Book 23
: Robert S. Norris, NRDC, 202/289-2369 William M. Arkin, 802/457-3426 William Burr, National Security Archive, 202/994-7032 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., December 13, 1999 – For more than 40 years, the United States has kept secret the fact that it once deployed nuclear weapons on two Japanese islands, Chichi Jima and Iwo Jima,…
Briefing Book 21
Edited by Malcolm Byrne Malcolm Byrne 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., November 5, 1999 – The shocking seizure of the American embassy and its staff in Tehran on November 4, 1979, placed U.S.-Iran relations firmly in the deep freeze. Whatever hopes…
Briefing Book 22
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the National Security Archive and its research partners in East and Central Europe today released previously secret documents from…
Briefing Book 20
Edited by William Burr :?William Burr 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., October 13, 1999 – In recent years, India and Pakistan have made the front pages by testing nuclear weapons and defying the nuclear nonproliferation regime established by the United…
News 19991008
On October 8, 1999, the U.S. Government released 1100 documents on Chile. Among them is a declassified State Department report on the case of Charles Horman, an American citizen who was killed by the…
Briefing Book 19
Edited By Jeffrey T. Richelson; : Jeffrey T. Richelson 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., September 24, 1999 The relationship between the United States and the People's Republic of China (PRC) over the fifty years since the PRC was established on October 1, 1949 has been…
Briefing Book 17
June 30, 1999--The National Security Archive, Center for National Security Studies and Human Rights Watch hailed today’s release of more than 20,000 pages of U.S. documents on Chile. The records,…
Briefing Book 16
Edited By Jeffrey T. Richelson and Michael L. Evans; :?Jeffrey T. Richelson or Michael L. Evans 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., June 1, 1999 – The relationship between the United States and the People's Republic of China over the fifty years since the PRC was established on October 1, 1949 has been…
News 19990527
For More Information Please Call Jeffrey T. Richelson, Project Director(202) 994-7000 Michael L. Evans, Project Associate(202) 994-7029
Several years ago, the National Security Archive initiated a project to obtain critical declassified documentation on key aspects of the U.S.-China relationship, focusing on the period from 1969 to…
Briefing Book 15
:?Kate Doyle, National Security Archive (202) 994-7035 ?Patrick Ball, American Association for the Advancement of Science (202) 326-6799 ?Hugh Byrne, Washington Office on Latin America (202) 797-2171 ?Anne Manuel, Human Rights Watch (202) 612-4321
Washington, D.C., May 20, 1999 – The Guatemalan military kept detailed records of its death squad operations, according to a document released by four human rights and public interest groups today.…
News 19990513
WASHINGTON, May 13, 1999 — Challenging seven years of the CIA's broken promises on declassification, the National Security Archive at George Washington University today filed a Freedom of Information…
News 19990427
Thursday, April 29, 1999 2:00-4:00 p.m. Funger Hall (2201 G. St, NW), Room 108 Followed by a book signing (books will be on sale). For more information, call 994-7000 Co-sponsored by the Elliot…
Briefing Book 14
:?202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., April 23, 1999 – This documentary supplement to the article, "Did NATO Win the Cold War? Looking over the Wall," has been prepared on the occasion of the Washington summit marking…
Briefing Book 13
Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson; : Jeffrey T. Richelson at 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C., April 14, 1999 – The use of overhead platforms to observe events on the earth can be traced to the French Revolution, when France organized a company of aerostiers, or balloonists,…
Briefing Book 12
: 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C. – To commemorate the historic competition of a U.S. and Cuban baseball team on a diamond in Havana this Sunday, the National Security Archive today posted a collection of documents…
News 19981023
ContactSusan Peacock (202)994-7213
Washington, D.C. October 23, 1998 -- The CIA yesterday declassified its secret Inspector General's report on controversial CIA activities in Honduras during the 1980's. The report states officially…
Briefing Book 11
By Kate Doyle and Carlos Osorio
THE DOCUMENTS Document 1 [U.S. Counter-Terror Assistance to Guatemalan Security Forces] ?January 4, 1966 ?United States Agency for International Development, Secret cable U.S. Public Safety Advisor…
Briefing Book 10
By Kate Doyle
Washington, D.C. – Mexico's tragedy unfolded on the night of October 2, 1968, when a student demonstration ended in a storm of bullets in La Plaza de las Tres Culturas at Tlatelolco, Mexico City. The…
News 19980911
On the 25th anniversary of the military coup in Chile, the National Security Archive today released a collection of declassified U.S. government documents that chronicle the dramatic events in Chile…
Briefing Book 8
By Peter Kornbluh
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 8
For more information contact:
Peter Kornbluh 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C. – September 11, 1998 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet. The violent overthrow of the democratically-elected Popular Unity…
Briefing Book 7
By Bill Burr
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 7
For more information contact:
Bill Burr 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C. – In August 1948, the U.S. Air Force created the Office of Atomic Energy-1 [AFOAT-1], giving it responsibility for managing the Atomic Energy Detection System [AEDS] discovering…
News 19980604
Contact PersonPeter Kornbluh 202-994-7116
Washington, D.C.: Thirty-seven years after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, the CIA today released a secret after-action report entitled "Record of Paramilitary Action Against the Castro Government…
Book By Stephen I. Schwartz with Thomas S. Blanton, William Burr et al.
Briefing Book 6
By Joyce Battle
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 6
For more information contact:
Joyce Battle 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
This briefing book contains material from the National Security Archive's project on U.S. policy toward South Asia, which is documenting nuclear developments in India and Pakistan from the 1950s to…
News 19980513
Washington, D.C. -- May 12, 1998 --In the wake of India's first nuclear weapons tests in 24 years, the National Security Archive has published 22 declassified U.S. government analyses of the Indian…
Briefing Book 9
WASHINGTON, D.C. - 20 March 1998 -- Recently declassified U.S. government documents, now published by the National Security Archive disclose one of the Cold War's deepest secrets, that during the…
Book By Willam M. Arkin
News 19980222
Contact personPeter Kornbluh 202-994-7116
Washington D.C.: A key document in the history of covert warfare, the CIA's own internal investigation into the April 1961 debacle at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, was made public today.
News 19980120
ContactSusan Peacock (202) 994-7213
Washington D.C. January 21, 1998 -- The National Commissioner for Human Rights in Honduras, Dr. Leo Valladares, today called on the Clinton administration to "meet its commitment" to assisting his…
Book By Leo Valladares Lanza and Susan C. Peacock
News 19971017
The National Security Archive is leading a campaign to open secret U.S. files on human rights abuses in Latin America and the Caribbean to public scrutiny. President Clinton has stated repeatedly…
Briefing Book 5
Edited by Peter Kornbluh Peter Kornbluh - 202/374-7281 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com
Washington, D.C. – On October 9th, 1967, Ernesto "Che" Guevara was put to death by Bolivian soldiers, trained, equipped and guided by U.S. Green Beret and CIA operatives. His execution remains a…
Briefing Book 4
Edited by Kate Doyle and Peter Kornbluh Kate Doyle or Peter Kornbluh at202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C. – These documents, including an instructional guide on assassination found among the training files of the CIA's covert "Operation PBSUCCESS," were among several hundred records…
Briefing Book 3
Contact: Dr. Robert A. Wampler
202-994-7237; 202-994-7005 (FAX)
E-mail: wampler@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu
The National Security Archive is today releasing on its World Wide Web site a set of recently-declassified U.S. documents obtained by Dr. Robert Wampler, Director of the Archive's U.S.-Japan Project…
Book By Vladislav M. Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov
Winner of the Lionel Gelber Prize (1996)
Book By Thomas S. Blanton
Briefing Book 2
202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Washington, D.C. – An August, 1996, series in the San Jose Mercury News by reporter Gary Webb linked the origins of crack cocaine in California to the contras, a guerrilla force backed by the Reagan…
Book By Tina Rosenberg
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction (1996)
Winner of the National Book Award (1996)
Book By John Prados
Briefing Book 1
William Burr
Washington, D.C. – The National Security Archive has initiated a special project on the Chinese nuclear weapons program and U.S. policy toward it. The purpose is to discover how the U.S. government…
Book By Tom Blanton
Winner of the American Library Association's James Madison Award Citation
News
Donations and Unpublished Papers on Nuclear History and Nuclear Policy at the National Security Archive
Book By Jeffrey T. Richelson
In Romanian as Un Secol De Spionaj (Bucharest: Humanitas, 2000, 623 pp.)
Book By John Prados
Special Exhibit
Of all the requests made each year to the National Archives for reproductions of photographs and documents, one item has been requested more than any other. That item, more requested than the Bill of…
Book By James Hershberg
James B. Conant (1893-1978) was one of the giants of the American establishment in the twentieth century. President of Harvard University from 1933 to 1953, he was also a scientist who led the US…
Book By Anatoli I. Gribkov (Author), William Y. Smith (Author), Alfred Friendly (Author)
Book By John Prados
Book By Scott Armstrong, Malcolm Byrne, Tom Blanton, and the National Security Archive