Policy Making and Diplomacy

EXPERT OPINION Declassified U.N. Cables Reveal Turning Point in Rwanda Crisis of 1994 By Mark Landler, The New York Times, June 3, 2014 The United Nations Security Council in Rwanda By Michael Barnett, the George Washington University, June 1, 2014   RELATED POSTS Rwanda: The Failure of the Arusha Peace Accords International Community's Lack of Support for Military Demobilization and Rwandans' Inability to Implement Accords Led to Genocide in 1994 May 21, 2014 Sitreps Detail Rwanda's Descent into Genocide 1994 April 7, 2014

Washington, DC, March 27, 2014 – In February 2014, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) posted 300,000 State Department telegrams from 1977 — the first year of the Jimmy Carter administration — on its Access to Archival Databases system. This posting is another step in carrying out the commitment that NARA and the State Department have made to putting on-line major State Department document databases and indexes as they are declassified.

Washington, D.C., May 25, 2013 – Today the National Security Archive is publishing — for the first time in English — excerpts from the diary of Anatoly S. Chernyaev from 1973, along with edits and a postscript by the author. As in the previous installment of the diary, for 1972, Chernyaev, deputy head of the International Department of the Central Committee (and later a key foreign policy aide to Mikhail Gorbachev), continues to marvel at the contradictory and enigmatic person at the pinnacle of the Soviet leadership — General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev.

Washington, D.C., April 11, 2013 – For decades, the erratic behavior of North Korea's enigmatic leaders has often masked a mix of symbolic and pragmatic motives, according to declassified documents posted today by the National Security Archive. During earlier crises, Kim Jong Un's father and grandfather postured and threatened the region in ways markedly similar to the behavior of the new leader, the records show. While the current Kim is acting even more stridently in some cases, the documents reveal a past pattern characterized by bellicose conduct.