United States and Canada
Apr 10, 2012 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., April 10, 2012 – The "FBI's most valued secret agents of the Cold War," brothers Morris and Jack Childs, together codenamed SOLO, reported back to J. Edgar Hoover starting in 1958 about face-to-face meetings with top Soviet and Chinese Communist leaders including Mao and Khrushchev, while couriering Soviet funds for the American Communist Party, according to newly declassified FBI files cited in the new book by Tim Weiner, Enemies: A History of the FBI (New York: Random House, 2012).
Apr 3, 2012 | News
Washington, DC, April 3, 2012 – The State Department today released a February 2006 internal memo from the Department's then-counselor opposing Justice Department authorization for "enhanced interrogation techniques" by the CIA. All copies of the memo (Document 1), which reflect strong internal disagreement within the George W. Bush administration over the constitutionality of such techniques, were thought to have been destroyed. But the State Department located a copy and declassified it in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the National Security Archive. Philip D.
Mar 23, 2012 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., March 23, 2012 – A central element of the current debate over how to deal with Iran's nuclear program has focused on the possible difficulty of destroying the Qom underground uranium enrichment facility via air strikes. However, documents posted today by the National Security Archive show that Qom is only the latest in a long series of alleged and real underground facilities that for decades have been a high priority challenge for U.S. and allied intelligence collection and analysis efforts, as well as for military planners.
Mar 12, 2012 | News
Washington, DC, March 12, 2012 – Attorney General Eric Holder kicked off Sunshine Week 2012 by rehashing widely discredited statistics released by the Department of Justice after it was awarded the Rosemary Award by the National Security Archive for the worst open government performance by a federal agency in 2011.
Mar 1, 2012 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., March 1, 2012 – During the 2008 campaign, Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama debated the question: who was best suited to be suddenly awakened at 3 a.m. in the White House to make a tough call in a crisis. The candidates probably meant news of trouble in the Middle East or a terrorist attack in the United States or in a major ally, not an 'end of the world' phone call about a major nuclear strike on the United States. In fact at least one such phone call occurred during the Cold War, but it did not go to the President.
Feb 13, 2012 | Briefing Book
Purchase Intel Wars: The Secret History of the Fight Against Terror at Amazon. Review of Intel Wars by Dina Temple-Raston, The Washington Post, February 17, 2012. Other posts by Matthew Aid Project Azorian The CIA's Declassified History of the Glomar Explorer. The Secret Sentry Declassified Declassified Documents Reveal the Inner Workings and Intelligence Gathering Operations of the National Security Agency.
Dec 22, 2011 | News
Washington, DC, December 22, 2011- The new E-Book series by bestselling thriller writer James Grady features the National Security Archive as the scene of a key plot sequence, and also as the location for Grady's video introduction to the series, posted today on the Archive web site at www.nsarchive.org.
Nov 25, 2011 | Briefing Book
Washington D.C., November 25, 2011 – President Ronald Reagan was briefed in advance about every weapons shipment in the Iran arms-for-hostages deals in 1985-86, and Vice President George H. W. Bush chaired a committee that recommended the mining of the harbors of Nicaragua in 1983, according to previously secret Independent Counsel assessments of "criminal liability" on the part of the two former leaders posted today by the National Security Archive.
Oct 28, 2011 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., October 28, 2011 - CIA director William Colby rebuffed criticisms from senior Agency operators about disclosure of CIA misdeeds by describing the difference between "bad secrets," "non-secrets," "good secrets" and "lesser" secrets, according to a previously SECRET internal CIA history of the Colby tenure, published today on the Web by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org).
Oct 11, 2011 | Briefing Book
Annex A. Reproduction of DVD Box (front and back) Annex B. Table of Contents Annex C. List of Interviewees
What follows is a subjective report on some highlights of the 4 DVDs with a sometimes critical assessment of the coverage. Viewers should skip (or postpone reading) the report, so they can see the documentary without preconceptions. Some may find the commentary useful later as they consider what they have seen and revisit some of the chapters.
Disk 1, 1945-1954: Chapters 1 through 9