40 YEARS OF FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACTION
2021 postings and publications
This page shows all EBBs, News, Books, and Unredacted postings.
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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…
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 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 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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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 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…
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)