United States and Canada
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
Sep 16, 2011 | Briefing Book, Special Exhibit
What Were the 11 Missing Words? Enter the National Security Archive’s Reader Contest! Washington, DC, September 16, 2011 - For the first time ever, all three major editions of the Pentagon Papers are being made available simultaneously online. The posting today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org), allows for a unique side-by-side comparison, showing readers exactly what the U.S. government tried to hide for 40 years by means of deletions from the original text.
Jul 12, 2011 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., July 12, 2011 - What were the 11 words the government didn’t want you to see? The aspect of the June 13 release of the full Pentagon Papers that has received the most attention is perhaps the U.S. Government’s attempt to keep under wraps 11 words on one page that had in fact been in the public domain since the government edition of the Papers was published by the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) in 1972.
Jul 4, 2011 | Briefing Book, FOIA Audit
Washington, D.C., July 4, 2011 - Forty-five years after President Johnson signed the U.S. Freedom of Information Act into law in 1966, federal agency backlogs of FOIA requests are growing, with the oldest requests at eight agencies dating back over a decade and the single oldest request now 20 years old, according to the Knight Open Government Survey by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org).
Jun 10, 2011 | Briefing Book
Washington, DC, June 13, 2011 - The complete version of the Pentagon Papers released today by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) includes a substantial amount of information not previously published. Approximately 34% of the report is available for the first time, according to NARA. The public release today of the full Pentagon Papers—40 years after their leaked publication in the media—is a welcome event on many levels: including closing a bizarre chapter in the annals of U.S.
Apr 21, 2011 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., April 21, 2011 - The United States Government’s system for the release of classified material into the public domain continues to be riddled with error, ignorance, arbitrary actions, and simple inaction, while often impaired by parochial agency interests that have nothing to do with the protection of national security secrets, an analysis of a recently declassified document plus associated materials shows.