40 YEARS OF FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACTION
2009 postings and publications
This page shows all EBBs, News, Books, and Unredacted postings.
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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 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 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 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 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
Still Orphans of the Cold War? President Obama’s Decision to Postpone Meeting with the Dalai Lama in Historical Context
NOVEMBER 16, 2009
Unredacted blog
by Kate Doyle
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…