Secrecy and FOIA

Washington, D.C., August 8, 2024 – On the week of the 79th commemoration of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, the National Security Archive today publishes a fascinating new collection of papers from the office files of Leslie Groves, the director of the Manhattan Project, the U.S. effort during World War II to develop and produce the world’s first nuclear weapons.

Washington, D.C., July 23, 2024 - A major report on the current state of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) recently released by the National Coalition for History (NCH) includes a critical assessment of the state of declassification: “For the sake of accountability and a fuller historical record, NARA needs more funding so it can make steady progress in reviewing and declassify

Washington, D.C., July 16, 2024 - On 16 July 1945, 79 years ago, the United States, under the Manhattan Project, staged the first test of a nuclear weapon in the New Mexican desert. The first trial of a plutonium implosion weapon, the explosion on the ground produced radioactive fallout contaminating over 1,100 square miles of the state, although some debris spread as far north as Canada.

Washington, D.C., June 28, 2024 – This week, Washingtonian magazine published a glowing profile of the National Security Archive, its executive director Tom Blanton, and the Archive’s decades-long effort “to help the public see the unredacted truth about our history.”

Washington, D.C., March 15, 2024 - The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is requesting less funding for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 than it received in FY 2024, threatening to worsen an already dire budget crisis for the steward of priceless U.S. government records.

Washington, D.C., February 13, 2024 - State Department lawyers advised Henry Kissinger that transcriptions of his telephone conversations made when he served as national security adviser and Secretary of State were his personal papers and not “subject to disclosure under the FOIA,” according to recently declassified records from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

Washington, D.C., December 6, 2023 - Recent U.S. government decisions on the declassification of historical records on nuclear proliferation demonstrate the good, the bad and the ugly in the current national security secrecy system.

On the plus side are releases that add historically valuable information to the public record, such as the opening of documents that were reclassified after having been released at the National Archives, a newly declassified Kissinger-Nixon telcon, and U.S. embassy messages from 1980 on nuclear nonproliferation policies.

Washington, D.C., November 29, 2023 - Henry Kissinger’s death today brings new global attention to the long paper trail of secret documents recording his policy deliberations, conversations, and directives on many initiatives for which he became famous—détente with the USSR, the opening to China, and Middle East shuttle diplomacy, among them.

Washington, D.C., March 23, 2023 - The United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs invited the National Security Archive to testify today about ways to modernize the nation’s security classification system.