40 YEARS OF FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACTION
Briefing Books
“Briefing Books” are one-stop resources covering a full range of topics in U.S. foreign policy. Containing from 5 to 100+ documents, each briefing book features an introductory essay, individual document descriptions, related photo or video content, plus links for further reading.
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Washington, D.C., December 12, 2025 - Ten years ago today, 195 countries adopted the historic Paris Agreement and committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst consequences of…
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Washington D.C. December 4, 2025 - Fifty years ago today, Senator Frank Church convened the first public congressional hearing ever held on CIA covert operations to overthrow a foreign…
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Washington, D.C., November 26, 2025 - On General Augusto Pinochet’s 60th birthday, November 25, 1975, four delegations of Southern Cone secret police chieftains gathered in Santiago, Chile, at the…
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Washington D.C., November 20, 2025 - Fifty years ago today, a special Senate Committee led by Idaho Senator Frank Church lifted the veil of secrecy on the clandestine efforts of the Central…
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Washington, D.C., November 14, 2025 - The State Department quietly deleted important archival records from an official history detailing how a 1983 NATO war game could have led to a catastrophic…
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Washington, D.C., October 30, 2025 – The CIA experienced “as many failures as successes” in exploring the intelligence applications of LSD and other drugs, according to the October 1975 U.S.
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Washington, D.C., October 15, 2025 - The 1968 crash of a nuclear-armed B-52 bomber near the U.S.
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Washington, D.C., September 30, 2025 - Eight months into President Donald Trump’s second term, the administration has fundamentally distorted the federal information landscape as it continues to…
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Washington, D.C., September 26, 2025 - The eleventh anniversary of the enforced disappearance of 43 Mexican students from the Ayotzinapa college brings a grim reckoning.
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Washington, D.C., September 25, 2025 - Newly published documents and photographs concerning the radiation and blast effects of the August 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki provide graphic…
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Washington, D.C., September 3, 2025 - Covert CIA surveillance of a Soviet agent under diplomatic cover in Mexico City in 1968 led to the acquisition of intelligence on the “entire clandestine…
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Washington, D.C., August 21, 2025 - Newly declassified notes from Vladimir Putin’s first presidential summit with an American leader reveal some of the constants in the Russian leader’s approach:…
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The first full U.S. report on the results of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, 80 years ago this week, made a “conservative estimate” that around 100,000 people had been killed, according to a newly…
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Washington, D.C., August 4, 2025 - Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin met with longtime fossil fuel advocates Alex Epstein, Ted Ellis, and Marc Marie in a March 2025 meeting to…
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Washington, D.C., July 16, 2025 - Early in the morning of 16 July 1945, 80 years ago, the U.S. Manhattan Project staged the first test of a nuclear weapon in the New Mexican desert.
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Washington, D.C., June 30, 2025 – For over 20 years, the U.S.
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Washington, D.C., June 25, 2025 – During August 1976 talks with the Shah of Iran over the sale of U.S. nuclear reactors, U.S.
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Washington, D.C., June 3, 2025 - The Trump administration’s intention to acquire Greenland, including possibly by force, has put a focus on the history of its strategic
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Washington, D.C., May 22, 2025 - Early in the morning of October 7, 1963, the top leadership of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) gathered in the office of the Director of Central Intelligence (…
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Washington, D.C., May 19, 2025 – Mexico welcomed CIA espionage activities in Mexico during the Cold War and even initiated some of them, according to recently declassified documents published today…