National Security Archive
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Iran 1953: State Department Finally Releases Updated Official History of Mosaddeq Coup
Formerly Secret Documents from State, CIA Provide New Information about Covert Operations Planning and Implementation Plus Contemporaneous Analyses Continue reading
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NSA: The White House, the CIA and the Pike Committee, 1975
The Ford administration came close to igniting a constitutional showdown with Congress more than 40 years ago over demands by a House panel known as the Pike Committee for evidence of possible abuses by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). At the height of congressional pushback against the “imperial presidency” in the mid-1970s, Representative Otis G.… Continue reading
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NSA: Anatoly S. Chernyaev Diary, 1977
The National Security Archive marks what would have been Anatoly Sergeyevich Chernyaev’s 96th birthday today with the publication for the first time in English of his extraordinary diary for 1977, written from inside the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, where he was then a Deputy Director of the International Department. Continue reading
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NSA: Chiquita Papers: Uncertainty Fueled Staff Concerns about Payments to Guerrillas and Paramilitaries
Chiquita’s Colombia-based staff questioned the company’s payments to illegal armed groups, and asked whether Chiquita had gone beyond extortion and was directly funding the activities of leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary groups, even while top company executives became “comfortable” with the idea. Continue reading
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NSA: Agustin Edwards: A Declassified Obituary
26 April 2017 — National Security Archive Declassified CIA, White House Documents Reveal Collaboration between Chilean Media Mogul and Highest Level of Nixon Administration Kissinger Set up Secret Meetings for Edwards with Nixon and CIA Director Richard Helms Documents Record Edwards Covert Coup Plotting to Overthrow Allende in Chile National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book Continue reading
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NSA: Secret South Korean Nuclear Weapons Program Created Anxiety in Washington in Mid-1970s
President Park Chung-hee reportedly instructed South Korean scientists to build nuclear bombs by 1977, according to a secret report to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. The Ford administration accumulated other evidence that raised worries about proliferation and regional instability. Continue reading
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CIA Covert Aid to Italy Averaged $5 Million Annually from Late 1940s to Early 1960s, Study Finds
CIA covert aid to Italy continued well after the agency’s involvement in the 1948 elections – into the early 1960s – averaging around $5 million a year, according to a draft Defense Department historical study published today for the first time by the National Security Archive at The George Washington University. Continue reading
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The Last Superpower Summits
The historic summit meetings between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and two U.S. presidents, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, built an intensive learning process on both sides that ended the Cold War, but missed numerous other opportunities to make the world safer, according to the new book, The Last Superpower Summits, featured today in the… Continue reading
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NSA: Operation Condor: Condemned to Life!
A tribunal in Rome, Italy, today sentenced two former heads of state and two ex-chiefs of security forces from Bolivia and Peru, and a former Uruguayan foreign minister to life imprisonment for their involvement in the coordinated, cross-border system of repression known as “Operation Condor.” The National Security Archive, which provided testimony and dozens of… Continue reading
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NSA:: New book combines Soviet and U.S. transcripts of highest-level meetings that ended the Cold War
Previously secret transcripts of the summit meetings between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev from 1985 to 1988, and then George H.W. Bush with Gorbachev from 1989 through 1991, show the Soviet leader pursuing an arms race in reverse, Reagan recommending quiet dialogue on human rights, and Bush seeking new nuclear weapons before coming around to… Continue reading
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OPERATION CONDOR: Officials of Amnesty International Targeted for ‘Liquidation’
Operation Condor, the trans-border, multinational effort by Southern Cone secret police services to track down and “liquidate” opponents of their regimes in the 1970s, targeted officials of Amnesty International as well as other human rights groups, and planned overseas missions in Paris and London, according to a comprehensive CIA report on Condor operations just released… Continue reading
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NSA: Obama Declassifies Top Secret Intelligence Files on Repression in Argentina
Washington D.C., December 12 – Operation Condor, the trans-border, multinational effort by Southern Cone secret police services to track down and “liquidate” opponents of their regimes in the 1970s, targeted officials of Amnesty International as well as human rights groups, and planned overseas missions in Paris and London, according to a comprehensive CIA report on… Continue reading
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The Vela Incident: South Atlantic Mystery Flash in September 1979 Raised Questions about Nuclear Test
A CIA-sponsored panel of well-respected scientists concluded that a mysterious flash detected by a U.S. Vela satellite over the South Atlantic on the night of 22 September 1979 was likely a nuclear test, according to a contemporaneous report published today for the first time by the National Security Archive and the Nuclear Proliferation International History… Continue reading
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The Iran-Contra Affair 30 Years Later: A Milestone in Post-Truth Politics
Exactly thirty years ago, President Ronald Reagan announced to the nation – after weeks of denials – that members of his White House staff had engaged in a web of covert intrigue linking illicit U.S. support for a guerrilla war in Central America with a legally and politically explosive arms-for-hostages bargain with the Islamic Republic… Continue reading
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NSA: CIA Releases Controversial Bay of Pigs History
The CIA today released the long-contested Volume V of its official history of the Bay of Pigs invasion, which it had successfully concealed until now by claiming that it was a “draft” and could be withheld from the public under the FOIA’s “deliberative process” privilege. The National Security Archive fought the agency for years in… Continue reading
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Gorbachev’s Nuclear Initiative of January 1986 and the Road to Reykjavik
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s radical proposal in January 1986 to abolish nuclear weapons by the year 2000 met with derision on the part of many U.S. officials, who treated it as pure propaganda, but was welcomed by President Reagan, according to declassified documents posted today by the National Security Archive. The records reveal serious internal… Continue reading
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NSA: Bombing of Cuban Jetliner 40 Years Later
On the 40th anniversary of the first and only mid-air bombing of a civilian airliner in the Western Hemisphere, the National Security Archive today called on the Obama Administration to declassify all remaining intelligence records on Luis Posada Carriles to shed light on his activities, provide historical evidence for his victims, and make a gesture… Continue reading
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Unilateral U.S. nuclear pullback in 1991 matched by rapid Soviet cuts
The unilateral nuclear withdrawals announced by President George H.W. Bush 25 years ago this week drew an eager response from Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to produce what experts call “the most spontaneous and dramatic reversal” ever of the nuclear arms race, according to newly declassified documents from Soviet and U.S. files posted today by the… Continue reading
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International Right to Know Day Impact Stories
Today we celebrate the 14th annual International Right to Know Day by highlighting a few of the year’s most impactful news stories that were made possible by people taking advantage of right to know (RTK) laws around the world. Continue reading
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CIA: “Pinochet personally ordered” Letelier bombing
A CIA special intelligence assessment in 1987 concluded that Chilean General Augusto Pinochet ordered an “act of state terrorism” on the streets of Washington, D.C., that took the lives of former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier, and his 25-year-old colleague, Ronni Moffitt, forty years ago this week. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 