Russia and Former Soviet Union
Anatoly S. Chernyaev Diary - 1976
Washington, DC, May 25, 2016 – Today the National Security Archive is publishing – for the first time in English – the diary of Anatoly S. Chernyaev covering the year 1976, along with edits and a postscript by the author.
The Moscow Helsinki Group 40th Anniversary
Washington D.C., May 12, 2016 – The legendary Moscow Helsinki Group celebrates its 40th anniversary today, marking four decades since the day in 1976 when dissident physicist Yuri Orlov gathered a small group of activists in the apartment of academician Andrei Sakharov to establish what is now the oldest functioning human rights organization in Russia.
The Gorbachev File
Washington, D.C., March 2, 2016 – Marking the 85th birthday of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org) today posted a series of previously classified British and American documents containing Western assessments of Gorbachev starting before he took office in March 1985, and continuing through the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Soviet Politburo Discussed Billion-Dollar Spy
Washington, D.C., February 5, 2016 – The top leaders of the Soviet Union discussed the case of controversial CIA spy Adolf Tolkachev during the Politburo meeting on September 25, 1986, according to the transcript published today in the Russian original and in English translation by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org).
U.S. Cold War Nuclear Target Lists Declassified for First Time
The SAC [Strategic Air Command] Atomic Weapons Requirements Study for 1959, produced in June 1956 and published today for the first time by the National Security Archive www.nsarchive.org, provides the most comprehensive and detailed list of nuclear targets and target systems that has ever been declassified. As far as can be told, no comparable document has ever been declassified for any period of Cold War history. The SAC study includes chilling details.
Kazakhstan and Nunn-Lugar: A Non-Proliferation Success Story
Related Materials
Nunn-Lugar Revisited
U.S.-Russian cooperation on threat reduction from the Soviet Union in 1991 to Syria in 2013
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 447
Project Sapphire 20th Anniversary
More than a half-ton of weapons-grade uranium removed from Kazakhstan in 1994
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 491
Photos
1. The Bal Qar Gai conference “yurt.” Tom Blanton at the head of the conference table.
Anatoly S. Chernyaev Diary, 1975
"Anatoly Chernyaev's diary is one of the great internal records of the Gorbachev years, a trove of irreplaceable observations about a turning point in history. There is nothing else quite like it, allowing the reader to sit at Gorbachev's elbow at the time of perestroika and glasnost, experiencing the breakthroughs and setbacks. It is a major contribution to our understanding of this momentous period." — David E.
Perestroika in the Soviet Union: 30 Years On
Washington, DC, March 11, 2015 – Thirty years ago today, in the Kremlin, the Soviet Politburo unanimously elected its youngest member, Mikhail Gorbachev, to the pinnacle of Soviet power — General Secretary of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
U.S. Intelligence and the Soviet Space Program
Washington, DC, February 4, 2015 – During much of the Cold War Soviet space activities — civilian and military — were a major focus of U.S. intelligence collection and analysis. As one of the key areas of technological competition with Moscow — one where the Soviet Union jumped to an early lead in some space activities — the space race generated profound concern in Washington over the need to understand and respond to new developments. To that end, U.S.