Update - Washington, D.C., April 11, 2008 – The policy debate over using U.S. reconnaissance satellites to obtain imagery of targets in the United States dates back to the earliest days of spy satellites, according to an updated collection of declassified documents published today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org). Obtained and edited by Archive senior fellow Dr.
Washington D.C., July 13, 2007 - Throughout the 1960s and most of the 1970s, while the U.S. government conducted its space reconnaissance program under a veil of absolute secrecy, officials debated whether information about the program (including the "fact of" its existence and certain photographs) should be disclosed to other elements of the government, public, allies, and even the Soviet Union, according to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and archival research and posted today by the National Security Archive.
Washington, DC, May 5, 2006 - Many U.S. government officials and scientists disagreed with the findings of a presidential panel that the double flash signal picked up by a U.S. nuclear detonation detection satellite (Vela 6911) in late September 1979 was possibly not a nuclear test, according to a number of studies posted today by the National Security Archive. The signal appeared to come from a 3,000 mile area that included the South Atlantic, Indian Ocean, tip of Africa, and part of Antarctica.
Washington, DC, March 28, 2006 - The Central Intelligence Agency and National Reconnaissance Office used the nation's spy satellites and spy planes to obtain high-resolution images of the nuclear facilities of allies, adversaries and neutral nations alike, as illustrated in a collection of overhead reconnaissance images posted on the Web today by the National Security Archive. Today's posting includes 15 photographs and five photographic interpretation reports from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. The images were obtained by U-2 spy planes and CORONA and KH-7 reconnaissance satellites.
Washington, D.C., December 14: Front page stories in The Washington Post ("New Spy Satellite Debated on Hill," Dec. 11, 2004) and The New York Times ("New Spy Plan Said to Involve Satellite System," Dec. 12, 2004) describe a secret satellite program that the Senate intelligence committee has voted to cancel but survives in the current intelligence budget due to strong support from the House and Senate appropriations committees and the House intelligence committee. Senator John D.
Today, October 16, 2002, the National Security Archive publishes on the Web a comprehensive documentary history of U.S. aerial espionage in the Cold War and beyond. This publication comes 40 years to the day after CIA analysts briefed President John F. Kennedy on what is probably the most famous overhead reconnaissance photograph of all time.
As noted in Biowar: The Nixon Administration's Decision to End U.S. Biological Warfare Programs, public attention has become intensely focused upon the threat of attack by biological agents, as the continuing reports of anthrax-contaminated mail facilities and congressional offices appear in the news. The effort to determine who sent the anthrax-laced letters, how they have managed to become so widely dispersed, and to come to grips with the health threat posed have revealed the uncertainties surrounding any such outbreak.
Perhaps the most troubling and terrifying development in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11th is the emergence of biological warfare as a real, instead of a potential, threat for our government and the public to confront. To provide the historical context for this new threat, the National Security Archive published on October 25, 2001 key declassified documents on President Richard Nixon's decision to halt the U.S. biological warfare program. In this updated briefing book, the Archive is making available the official history of the U.S. Army's activities in the U.S.
Washington, D.C., August 5, 2013 – Today, on the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology, the National Security Archive posts an update to its 2001 electronic briefing book on Science, Technology and the CIA. The posting adds 20 new items to the 45 documents in the previous version. The new records cover all eras of the CIA's exploitation of science and technology, from its initial involvement during the tenure of Allen Dulles (1953-61) to its post-Cold War activities.
Washington, D.C., September 10, 2001 – Mention of the Central Intelligence Agency generally elicits visions of espionage and covert action operations. It may also produce images of the multitude of finished intelligence products the agency turns out – from the tightly controlled President's Daily Brief, available only to the president and a select circle of advisers, to a number of less restricted intelligence assessments. The CIA's role in the application of science and technology to the art of intelligence is far less appreciated.