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.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/320.jpg?itok=bmW9ubKL)
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., June 13, 2010 - The Washington summit 20 years ago this month between Presidents George H.W. Bush and Mikhail S.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/plazas.jpg?itok=qqlco-4C)
| Briefing Book
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…
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/khobar_towers_400.jpg?itok=3g6KAsG1)
| Briefing Book
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)…
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/275.jpg?itok=wwPBtpj8)
| Briefing Book
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…
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/315.jpg?itok=-M35-OOg)
| Briefing Book
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…
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/314.jpg?itok=GJJN2k0P)
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., April 29, 2010 - Previously unpublished documents from inside the Kremlin shed new light on how Soviet and American scientists breached the walls of Soviet military secrecy in the…
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/313.jpg?itok=BoFLgctG)
| Briefing Book
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…
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/letelier.jpg?itok=MVvFt2ZK)
| Briefing Book
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…
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/how_much.jpg?itok=NTtQB3JI)
| Briefing Book
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…
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/poodle_blanket.jpg?itok=0ioeq4Hz)
| Briefing Book
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…
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/image002_1.jpg?itok=-P6uSi55)
| Briefing Book
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…
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/obama_signs_foia_memo.jpg?itok=o1fCQdSn)
| Briefing Book,
| FOIA Audit
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…
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/main.jpg?itok=OIHPF3Kp)
| Briefing Book
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…
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/project_azoria_glomar_color_300.jpg?itok=B3BQTNdk)
| Briefing Book
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…
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/1981_400.jpg?itok=ENm2HESs)
| Briefing Book
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…
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/air_force.jpg?itok=981o7fsf)
| Briefing Book
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.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/gore_350.jpg?itok=gHH5WE7D)
| Briefing Book
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…
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/30_anniversary.jpg?itok=krotJdlk)
| Briefing Book
"Each side took steps to ensure its own security which the other in turn perceived as threatening its security." -- Raymond L.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/top_400.jpg?itok=Pisj6zH1)
| Briefing Book
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…
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/299.jpg?itok=buVGGWst)
| Briefing Book
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.