When the United States government considered the rebellion in Chiapas, it did so through the twin lenses of its primary national interests: money and power. The Zapatista uprising - which exploded on January 1, 1994, the eve of the inauguration of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) - challenged an image of Mexico that had been peddled for months in the halls of the U.S. Congress in an effort to gain approval for the historic trade pact.
Twenty years ago, on December 20, 1983, Donald Rumsfeld, currently the U.S. Secretary of Defense, met with Saddam Hussein during the first of Rumsfeld's two now-famous visits to Baghdad. At the time, the United States was courting Iraq as a buffer to the greater threat the Reagan administration perceived in the Islamic Republic of Iran. As has now been widely reported, the U.S. had already been providing the Iraqi regime with intelligence and other support in its war with Iran. Within a year of Rumsfeld's first visit, Baghdad and Washington had re-established diplomatic relations.
Washington D.C., November 5, 2003 - A White House tape of President Kennedy and his advisers, published this week in a new book-and-CD collection and excerpted on the Web, confirms that top U.S. officials sought the November 1, 1963 coup against then-South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem without apparently considering the physical consequences for Diem personally (he was murdered the following day). The taped meeting and related documents show that U.S.
During Guatemala's protracted and savage internal conflict, which raged from 1963 to 1996, tens of thousands of Guatemalan citizens fled the violence in their country for the safety of Mexico. Whether they arrived as refugees, illegal immigrants, exiled political activists or members of one of the four guerrilla groups, most of them found safe haven on Mexican soil. Having survived the war, many of them today cherish a strong and enduring affection for Mexico.
Thirty years ago, on 6 October 1973 at 2:00 p.m. (Cairo time), Egyptian and Syrian forces launched coordinated attacks on Israeli forces in the Sinai and the Golan Heights. Known variously as the October War or the Yom Kippur War, this conflict lasted until late October when Washington and Moscow, working through the United Nations, forced a cease-fire on the warring parties.
Washington, D.C., March 20, 2003 - U.S. Army lawyers identified more than 500 Iraqis allegedly guilty of war crimes during the Gulf War period, according to a November 1992 Defense Department report posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. Obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General summary [with a November 19, 1992 Defense Department cover memo titled, "Report on Iraqi War Crimes (Desert Shield/ Desert Storm)" signed by John H.
Today, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published an article, "Nixon's Nuclear Ploy,'' by National Security Archive senior analyst William Burr and Miami University historian Jeffrey Kimball,(1) that discloses for the first time one of the Nixon administration's most secret military operations. During October 1969, President Richard Nixon ordered the Pentagon to undertake secretly a series of military measures designed to put U.S. nuclear forces on a higher state of readiness. For nearly three weeks, U.S. nuclear bombers were on higher alert, while U.S.
Washington D.C. - Today, on the 31st anniversary of the creation of Bangladesh, the National Security Archive published on the World Wide Web 46 declassified U.S. government documents and audio clips concerned with United States policy towards India and Pakistan during the South Asian Crisis of 1971. The documents, declassified and available at the U.S.
Washington, D.C., 31 October 2002-- Forty years ago today, the U.S. Navy forced to the surface a Soviet submarine, which unbeknownst to the Navy, was carrying a nuclear-tipped torpedo. This was the third surfacing of a Soviet submarine during the Cuban Missile Crisis. After a day of persistent tracking by the U.S. destroyer, the Charles P. Cecil, commanded by Captain Charles Rozier, Soviet submarine B-36, commanded by Captain Aleksei Dubivko, exhausted its batteries forcing it to come to the surface. On 27 and 30 October respectively, U.S.
Havana, Cuba, 12 October 2002, 1 p.m. - During the third session of the historic 40th anniversary conference on the Cuban missile crisis, participants including Cuban president Fidel Castro and former US secretary of defense Robert McNamara discussed newly declassified documents showing that the crisis did not end after the famous "13 days," but continued at a high level until late November, in large part because of Cuban rejection of Soviet concessions. The documents show that the Soviet nuclear-armed tactical weapons in Cuba stayed there after the missiles were withdrawn, and may even have been intended for Cuban custody.