Cuba and Caribbean

Washington, DC, December 18, 2015 - On the first anniversary of the historic breakthrough in U.S.-Cuban relations, the National Security Archive announced that the book, Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations Between Washington and Havana, has been released in Spanish under the title, Diplomacia Encubierta con Cuba: Historia de las Negociaciones Secretas Entre Washington y La Habana. The book was published last week in Mexico by Fondo de Cultura y Economica.

Washington D.C., August 13, 2015 – On the eve of Secretary of State John Kerry’s historic trip to Havana tomorrow to raise the American flag over the newly reopened U.S. Embassy, the National Security Archive today distributed a ground-breaking article revealing key details of the behind-the-scenes political operations and secret negotiations that have led to the normalization of diplomatic relations. The article appears in the September issue of Mother Jones magazine and was written by Archive analyst Peter Kornbluh and American University Professor William M. LeoGrande.

Washington, D.C., April 28, 2015 – President Lyndon Johnson regretted sending U.S. troops into the Dominican Republic in 1965, telling aides less than a month later, "I don't want to be an intervenor," according to new transcripts of White House tapes published today (along with the tapes themselves) for the first time by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org). Johnson ordered U.S. Marines into Santo Domingo 50 years ago today.

Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana
By William M. LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh
(University of North Carolina Press, October 2014)

In the News

The Real Reason It's Nearly Impossible to End the Cuba Embargo
Peter Kornbluh and William M. LeoGrande, The Atlantic, October 5, 2014

Los diálogos secretos entre Cuba y Estados Unidos
Nora Gámez Torres, el Nuevo Herald, October 5, 2014

Washington, DC, October 1, 2014 – Secretary of State Henry Kissinger ordered a series of secret contingency plans that included airstrikes and mining of Cuban harbors in the aftermath of Fidel Castro's decision to send Cuban forces into Angola in late 1975, according to declassified documents made public today for the first time. "If we decide to use military power it must succeed.

A Historic Press Conference at the Pierre WHAT: In July 1975, Henry Kissinger sent two of his deputies to meet with representatives of Fidel Castro at the Pierre Hotel in New York City. It was there-in room 727-that the historic first secret talks between Washington and Havana to normalize relations were held. But they would not be the last... For over fifty years, U.S.

Washington, DC, May 21, 2014 – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit yesterday joined the CIA's cover-up of its Bay of Pigs disaster in 1961 by ruling that a 30-year-old volume of the CIA's draft "official history" could be withheld from the public under the "deliberative process" privilege, even though four of the five volumes have previously been released with no harm either to national security or any government deliberation. "The D.C.

Washington, D.C., February 21, 2014 – Inane and contradictory declassification actions on military records of the Cuban Missile Crisis indicate serious flaws in the Defense Department's declassification procedures for historical records, according to documents posted today by the National Security Archive. One of the biggest secrets of the crisis was that a deal involving the trade of Soviet missiles in Cuba for U.S.

Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba
Edited by Peter Kornbluh

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Washington, DC, December 11, 2013 – The last Soviet nuclear warheads in Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis did not leave the island until December 1, 1962, according to Soviet military documents published today for the first time in English by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org). At 9 o'clock in the morning on December 1, 1962, the large Soviet cargo ship Arkhangelsk quietly left the Cuban port of Mariel and headed east across the Atlantic to its home port of Severomorsk near Murmansk.