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.
![US ambassadors](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/2022-01/panel1_0.jpg?itok=3RkHj3_k)
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., January 25, 2022 – The National Security Archive updates today the publication last year of interview transcripts from eight former U.S.
![Convening of a COP session at the Kyoto climate change conference in late 1997. (Photo credit: UN image, Frank Leather)](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/2022-01/Kyoto%20Conference.jpg?itok=q7xKsE9q)
| Briefing Book
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…
![The New York Times December 26, 1991, front page.](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/2021-12/NYT%20front%20page%201991-12-26_1.jpg?itok=lKu5ccHf)
| Briefing Book
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…
![Kosygin Luncheon](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/2021-12/kosygin%20luncheon%20a4353-31a_med.jpg?itok=0TNiL6vU)
| Briefing Book
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…
![NATO Logo overlaid with code](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/2021-12/NATO%20-%20BALTIC%20GHOST.png?itok=zUkwHRBB)
| Briefing Book
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…
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/2021-11/1_naples_1994_.jpg?itok=mmv4Ja6F)
| Briefing Book
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…
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/walter-rodney-via-roape.net_.jpg?itok=XZU2FMBM)
| Briefing Book
Washington D.C., November 12, 2021 (Updated February 3, 2022) – More than four decades after the murder of Guyanese scholar-political activist Dr.
![The Abraham Lincoln (SSBN-602) cut through the Atlantic Ocean in this undated photo. (U.S. Navy photo posted on NavSource, original provided by Pelican Harbor Submarine Veterans)](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/2021-10/submarine.jpg?itok=8xSwLSNP)
| Briefing Book
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…
![The paramilitary known as “Macaco” (Carlos Mario Jiménez) is arrested upon his arrival in Colombia on July 20, 2019. (Source: Colombia Attorney General’s Office)](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/2021-10/macaco_2_0-FGN.jpg?h=6bf9126f&itok=7v61aNvm)
| Briefing Book
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…
![khalilzad-baradar](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/2021-09/khalilzad-baradar1.jpg?itok=1pPVmL9a)
| Briefing Book
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
![Barack Obama throws flowers in the River Plate](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/2021-09/Obama_0.jpg?itok=OdVxeWQ8)
| Briefing Book
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…
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/2021-09/main-image.jpg?itok=TW8QswhU)
| Briefing Book
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…
| Briefing Book
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…
![Pistech Nuclear reactor building](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/2021-08/263%2C%20CIA%2C%201493129%20%28Pistech%20Nuclear%20Reactor%20Building%2C%20April%201978%29.jpg?itok=J6zBxarp)
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., August 30, 2021 –
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., August 19, 2021 – The U.S.
![Kovalev giving press conference January 2, 1995](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/kovalev-2.jpg?itok=MNzqFXbq)
| Briefing Book
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…
![President Richard Nixon greets Prime Minister Edward Heath](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/2021-07/37-whpo-e0152-30.jpg?itok=phyANzB0)
| Briefing Book
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…
![panel](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/panel.jpg?itok=j-yCkNzQ)
| Briefing Book
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…
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/1_36.jpg?itok=OX64Mya2)
| Briefing Book
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,…
![](/sites/default/files/styles/nsarchive_square_thumbnail/public/thumbnails/image/osirak_reactor_damage.jpg?itok=2z_-4Z0N)
| Briefing Book
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.