United States and Canada
Feb 19, 2011 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., February 19, 2011 - "The Power of Decision" may be the first (and perhaps the only) U.S. government film depicting the Cold War nightmare of a U.S.-Soviet nuclear conflict. The U.S. Air Force produced it during 1956-1957 at the request of the Strategic Air Command. Unseen for years and made public for the first time by the National Security Archive, the film depicts the U.S. Air Force's implementation of war plan "Quick Strike" in response to a Soviet surprise attack against the United States and European and East Asian allies.
Dec 16, 2010 | News
Washington, DC, December 16, 2010 - Efforts to tighten the secrecy system and crackdown on leakers and the media will be "fundamentally self-defeating," according to Thomas Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archive, who testified today before the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Dec 9, 2010 | News
Washington, DC, December 9, 2010 - Friends and family of the late Smith Bagley joined the National Security Archive staff and board on December 9 to dedicate and celebrate the new Smith Bagley Research Center in the Archive’s renovated Gelman Library offices. The noted philanthropist, entrepreneur, and activist had long supported the Archive’s work to open government files at home and abroad, dating back to the organization’s founding in 1985. After his untimely death in January 2010, the Arca Foundation (which Mr.
Nov 16, 2010 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., November 16, 2010 - To counter a Soviet bomber attack, U.S. war plans contemplated widespread use of thousands of air defense weapons during the middle years of the Cold War according to declassified documents posted today at the National Security Archive's Nuclear Vault and cited by a recently published book, Continental Defense in the Eisenhower Era: Nuclear Antiaircraft Arms and the Cold War (Palgrave Macmillan) by historian Christopher J. Bright. The U.S.
Nov 13, 2010 | Briefing Book
NEW - November 24, 2010 - Download the Complete Redacted Report as Released by the Department of Justice (PDF - 16MB) NEW - November 15, 2010 - Download the Complete Unredacted Report as Published in the New York Times (PDF - 57MB) Washington, D.C., November 13, 2010 - The Department of Justice censored dozens of pages of a candid history of Nazi-hunting (and Nazi-protecting) by the U.S.
Nov 4, 2010 | News
Washington D.C., November 4, 2010 – President Obama’s new Executive Order on “Controlled Unclassified Information” issued today builds on recommendations from open government groups and the findings of the National Security Archive’s 2006 audit of “Pseudo-Secrets” that uncovered 28 different and uncoordinated policies on marking and restricting official unclassified information.
Aug 11, 2010 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., August 11, 2010 - The next nuclear policy challenge for the Obama administration, right after Senate action on the New START Treaty, will be Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which President Obama sees as a condition for a world free of nuclear weapons. As he declared in his Hradcany Square speech, "After more than five decades of talks, it is time for the testing of nuclear weapons to finally be banned." Most U.S. presidents since Dwight D.
Jul 29, 2010 | News
Washington, DC, July 29, 2010 - National Security Archive Director Tom Blanton made a guest appearance on “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central on Tuesday, July 27, to discuss Wikileaks’ release of over 90,000 Secret documents on the war in Afghanistan. Blanton told Stephen that the alleged leaker of the documents may just be applying the “Facebook mentality” to classified documents. The day before, Blanton visited Washington radio talk show host Kojo Nnamdi (WAMU 88.5 FM) for a – somewhat more serious – conversation about the implications of the leak.
Jun 16, 2010 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., June 16, 2010 - U.S. presidents long before President Obama have sought an international fissile material cutoff off treaty but the reasons they have failed remain with us today, according to declassified documents posted today by the National Security Archive. The proposed treaty would cut off the worldwide production of fissile material--plutonium and highly-enriched uranium--for nuclear weapons. (Note 1) According to Dwight D.
Mar 15, 2010 | Briefing Book, FOIA Audit
Washington, DC, March 15, 2010 - Despite President Barack Obama's and Attorney General Eric Holder's 2009 memoranda calling for reform in government agencies' administration of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the latest government-wide FOIA Audit released today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University found: Ancient requests--as old as 18 years--still persist in the FOIA system. A minority of agencies have responded to the Obama and Holder Memos with concrete changes in their FOIA practices.