National Security Archive
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Reconnaissance Flights and U.S.-China Relations
Washington, D.C., October 16, 2020 – Over the years, aerial and naval encounters have threatened to destabilize U.S-China relations as the two powers contest each other’s rights in international airspace and waters. Continue reading
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The Bridge: Connecting Past and Present through Archival Research on Russia
Despite all indications to the contrary, many of the most important Russian archives are open and are worth investigating. Continue reading
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Inside the Gorbachev-Bush “Partnership” on the First Gulf War 1990
Washington, D.C., September 9, 2020 – Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev quickly decided that joint action with the United States was the most important course for the USSR in dealing with Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait 30 years ago, rather than the long-standing Soviet-Iraq alliance, and built what he explicitly called a “partnership” with the U.S. that… Continue reading
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COUP 53: New Documentary on Overthrow of Iran’s Mosaddeq
Washington, D.C., August 17, 2020 – Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service – MI6 – took part in the 1953 kidnapping of the chief of police of Tehran, Iran, according to a recently recovered interview of an ex-MI6 operative that is featured in a new documentary film, COUP 53. The full interview transcript is posted today for the first… Continue reading
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The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II
Washington, D.C., August 4, 2020 – To mark the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the National Security Archive is updating and reposting one of its most popular e-books of the past 25 years. Continue reading
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Argentina’s House of Horrors
Forty-four years after the Argentine military began disappearing thousands of citizens following the March 24, 1976, coup, human rights investigators have located one of the first clandestine torture sites used by state intelligence operatives. The clandestine center was identified after the declassification of thousands of U.S. intelligence records last year, among them a secret CIA… Continue reading
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The U.S. Nuclear Presence in Western Europe, 1954-1962
Declassified Records Reflect Debates over Nuclear Weapons Stockpile, Use Decisions, and Independent Nuclear Capabilities Continue reading
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Justice for the Jesuits
Declassified U.S. Documents, Compiled by Archive, Used as Evidence in Spanish Prosecution. Former Salvadoran Colonel Inocente Orlando Montano Is on Trial For 1989 Slaying of Jesuit Priests in San Salvador Continue reading
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The Bolton Book Battle
19 June 2020 — The National Security Archive Trump Cites National Security Secrets to Block Bolton’s Book – Don’t Believe It National Security Archive Posts Documents Showing Government Secrecy Claims Often Exaggerated in Prepublication Reviews From Bolton in 2020 to Retired CIA Operative Kermit Roosevelt in the 1970s, Prepublication Review Has Plagued Memoirs of Former Officials Continue reading
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New Evidence on Clinton Administration Negotiations with North Korea
– American and South Korean assessments of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il shifted during the course of negotiations in the 1990s over the North’s controversial nuclear program, according to recently declassified documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and posted today by the nongovernmental National Security Archive at The George Washington University. Continue reading
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The Walter Rodney Murder Mystery in Guyana 40 Years Later
The U.S. Embassy in Guyana in 1980 had strong evidence to believe that the death of internationally-known historian and activist Walter Rodney in the capital of Georgetown was a political assassination, according to declassified documents obtained and posted today for the first time by the National Security Archive at The George Washington University. Continue reading
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The Washington/Camp David Summit 30 Years Ago
Soviet and U.S. documents detail Gorbachev and Bush discussions on Germany, future of Europe, regional hot spots, and Moscow’s economic crisis Continue reading
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False Warnings of Soviet Missile Attacks Put U.S. Forces on Alert
Washington D.C., March 16, 2020 – During the Cold War, false alarms of missile attacks were closely held matters although news of them inevitably leaked. Today the National Security Archive revisits the false alerts of the Jimmy Carter administration when on four occasions warning screens showed hundreds and hundreds of Soviet ballistic missiles heading toward North… Continue reading
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The CIA’s ‘Minerva’ Secret
OPERATION CONDOR COUNTRIES USED CRYPTO AG DEVICES WITHOUT REALIZING THE CIA OWNED THE COMPANY, NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE DOCUMENTS REVEAL Encryption revelations raise questions about U.S. official knowledge of Argentina “dirty war” atrocities, Chile’s Letelier assassination, Southern Cone military dictatorships Continue reading
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Starting to Crack a Hard Target: U.S. Intelligence Efforts Against the Soviet Missile Program through 1957
U.S. Learned of the First ICBM Test from a Soviet Press Release and the Second from a Remark Made to a French Politician UNAWARE OF SPUTNIK I AND II UNTIL THEY WERE IN ORBIT Continue reading
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NSA: Documenting Iran-U.S. Relations, 1978-2015
Washington, D.C., December 19, 2019 – For 40 years, since the first year of the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, the United States and Iran have been the bitterest of political adversaries. Yet, every U.S. president has at a certain point reached out to the theocratic regime in Tehran, either for a… Continue reading
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Archive, CREW, Historians Sue Pompeo, State Department over Failure to Create Records
Washington D.C., November 5, 2019 – The National Security Archive, together with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), sued Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the Department of State today for violating the Federal Records Act by failing to create and preserve essential State… Continue reading
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1979 Iran Hostage Crisis Recalled
On November 4, 1979, a group calling itself the Students Following the Line of the Imam stormed the gates of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seized control of the compound, and took several dozen American diplomats, Marine guards, and others hostage. Thus began a 444-day ordeal that shocked the world, fundamentally altered the political scene… Continue reading
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Nuclear Weapons and Turkey Since 1959
MEMBERS OF CONGRESS WORRIED IN 1960 THAT LEADERS OF A COUP “MIGHT SEIZE CONTROL” OF WEAPONS Continue reading
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The Vela Flash: Forty Years Ago
Controversy Hovers over Possible Nuclear Signal Detected in South Atlantic in 1979; Israeli or South African Origin Suspected by Some Experts – and President Carter Continue reading
The New Dark Age 