Washington, D.C., March 21, 2024 - Vladimir Putin’s first election as president of Russia 24 years ago was “reasonably free and fair,” according to a declassified U.S. Embassy message from Moscow, one of ten documents on Russia’s 2000 presidential race published today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. Written by then-U.S.
Washington, D.C., January 25, 2024 - Declassified highest-level records from the Moscow summit 30 years ago this month detail U.S. President Bill Clinton’s strong personal support for Russian President Boris Yeltsin, their close cooperation on security issues, and deep concern about Yeltsin backtracking on economic reforms newly understood by the Clinton team as too “harsh” on the Russian people.
Washington D.C., October 4, 2023 – Thirty years ago in Moscow, Russian President Boris Yeltsin ordered tanks and airborne troops to shell and storm the “White House,” the Russian Parliament (Supreme Soviet) building, to suppress the opposition trying to impeach and remove him – a landmark turning point in Russia’s failure to develop democracy.
Washington, D.C., August 11, 2023 – Recently unearthed documents from the Romanian national archives shed new light on the Comintern, the Soviet-led international organization that from 1919-1943 was at the forefront of Moscow’s efforts to establish hegemony over Communist parties in Romania, the rest of Europe and worldwide.
Washington, D.C., June 5, 2023 – Declassified highest-level records from the first six months of the Clinton administration’s relations with the Russian Federation in 1993 reveal a remarkable array of cooperative diplomatic initiatives and Bill Clinton’s direct personal support for Boris Yeltsin in the latter’s growing conflict with his own elected parliament over radical economic reforms known as “shock therapy.”
Washington D.C., May 25, 2023 - The National Security Archive today marks what would have been Anatoly Sergeyevich Chernyaev’s 102nd birthday with the publication for the first time in English of his Diary for 1983. At the time, Chernyaev was deputy director of the International Department of the Central Committee responsible for the International Communist Movement (ICM).
Washington, D.C., February 7, 2023 – With the Cold War coming to an end and the Soviet Union dissolving, President Bill Clinton was determined not to miss a historic opportunity to help Russia transform into a democratic capitalist state, according to a set of declassified State Department records published today by the National Security Archive.
Washington D.C., January 30, 2023 – The George H.W. Bush administration was reluctant to embrace the “relations of deep mutual trust and alliance” proposed by the newly independent Russian Federation and its leader, Boris Yeltsin, in early 1992, according to declassified U.S. documents published today by the National Security Archive.
Washington D.C., October 4, 2022 – Federal judge James Boasberg today supported a CIA claim that a public document about a famous nuclear war scare should be censored “to protect ‘intelligence activities’ or ‘intelligence sources or methods,’” despite the fact that his ruling and the CIA’s argument actually highlight the information and undermine any such protection.
Washington D.C., August 30, 2022 – The National Security Archive mourns the passing today of Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, 1931-2022, first and last president of the Soviet Union, who ended the Cold War and enabled through his "glasnost" our work to open archives around the world.