Washington, D.C., January 13, 2000 – The National Security Agency (NSA) is one of the most secret (and secretive) members of the U.S. intelligence community. The predecessor of NSA, the Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA), was established within the Department of Defense, under the command of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on May 20, 1949.
WASHINGTON, May 13, 1999 — Challenging seven years of the CIA's broken promises on declassification, the National Security Archive at George Washington University today filed a Freedom of Information lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the CIA to force the declassification of key documents on the agency's role in the European elections of 1948 and the coup in Iran in 1953.
Washington, D.C., April 14, 1999 – The use of overhead platforms to observe events on the earth can be traced to the French Revolution, when France organized a company of aerostiers, or balloonists, in April 1794. The United States employed balloons during the Civil War, although little intelligence of value was obtained. In January 1911, the San Diego waterfront became the first target of cameras carried aboard an airplane. Later that year the U.S. Army Signal Corps put aerial photography into the curriculum at its flight training school.
Washington, D.C. – In August 1948, the U.S. Air Force created the Office of Atomic Energy-1 [AFOAT-1], giving it responsibility for managing the Atomic Energy Detection System [AEDS] discovering foreign atomic tests and other nuclear-weapons related activities. AFOAT/1 [later renamed the Air Force Technical Applications Center, or AFTAC] soon had an early triumph--the discovery of the first Soviet atomic test in 1949.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - 20 March 1998 -- Recently declassified U.S. government documents, now published by the National Security Archive disclose one of the Cold War's deepest secrets, that during the most dangerous phases of the U.S.-Soviet confrontation during the early 1960s top military commanders had presidentially-authorized instructions providing advance authority to use nuclear weapons under specified emergency conditions.
Of all the requests made each year to the National Archives for reproductions of photographs and documents, one item has been requested more than any other. That item, more requested than the Bill of Rights or even the Constitution of the United States, is the photograph of Elvis Presley and Richard M. Nixon shaking hands on the occasion of Presley's visit to the White House.
The Meeting
The Documents
The Photos
The Meeting