National Security Archive
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SECRET CIA REPORT: Pinochet “Personally Ordered” Washington Car-Bombing
Washington D.C., October 8, 2015 – The CIA concluded that there was “convincing evidence” that Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet “personally ordered his intelligence chief to carry out the murder” of exiled critic Orlando Letelier in Washington D.C., according to a SECRET memo prepared for President Ronald Reagan in 1987. “Pinochet decided to stonewall on the… Continue reading
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National Security Archive: THE PINOCHET FILE: U.S. DECLASSIFIES MISSING DOCUMENTS IN THE LETELIER-MOFFITT CASE
Washington D.C., October 8, 2015– Chile’s intelligence service assassinated exiled critic Orlando Letelier with a car bomb in 1976 on “direct orders” from Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, according to newly declassified documents personally delivered this week by Secretary of State John Kerry to Chilean president Michelle Bachelet. Continue reading
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National Security Archive 16 September 2015: President’s Daily Briefs from Kennedy and Johnson Finally Released
The CIA and the LBJ Library are releasing online a collection of 2,500 declassified President’s Daily Briefs (PDBs) from the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. The PDBs are Top Secret documents containing the most current and significant intelligence information that the CIA believes that the President needs to know, and are records that CIA Director George… Continue reading
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National Security Archive: New Documents Trace Controversial Use of Drones and other Aerial Surveillance for Domestic National Security
“FBI spy plane zeroes in on Dearborn area” was the headline in The Detroit News on August 5, 2015. The story, which broke the news that the FBI had conducted at least seven surveillance flights recently over downtown Detroit, also raised a broader issue. It illustrated the fact that along with the controversy concerning electronic… Continue reading
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National Security Archive: OBAMA’S SECRET DIPLOMACY WITH CUBA
On the eve of Secretary of State John Kerry’s historic trip to Havana tomorrow to raise the American flag over the newly reopened U.S. Embassy, the National Security Archive today distributed a ground-breaking article revealing key details of the behind-the-scenes political operations and secret negotiations that have led to the normalization of diplomatic relations. Continue reading
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National Security Archive: The Kissinger Telcons: New Documents Throw Light on Sensitive Ford and Kissinger Views
The 905 telcons released in full contain highest-level verbatim conversations between Kissinger and a wide range of officials and journalists about the evacuation of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War, the crisis in Cyprus, Middle East negotiations, revelations of CIA misdeeds, Ronald Reagan’s challenge to Ford in the 1976 primaries, and other topics,… Continue reading
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National Security Archive: The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II
Extensive Compilation of Primary Source Documents Explores Manhattan Project, Petitions Against Military Use of Atomic Weapons, Debates over Japanese Surrender Terms, Atomic Targeting Decisions, and Lagging Awareness of Radiation Effects Continue reading
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National Security Archive 31 July 2015: Los Quemados: Chile’s Pinochet Covered up Human Rights Atrocity
Washington D.C., July 31, 2015 – General Augusto Pinochet refused to accept a police report identifying his own military as responsible for burning two teenage protesters alive in July 1986, according to declassified U.S. documents posted today by the National Security Archive. Pinochet’s action initiated a high-level cover-up of the infamous human rights atrocity known… Continue reading
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National Security Archive: Court Rejects Chiquita's Bid to Hide Terror Payment Records
In an important victory for transparency and corporate accountability, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., has ruled that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) should release to the National Security Archive some 9,257 pages of records produced by Chiquita Brands International to the SEC as part of an investigation of the company’s illegal… Continue reading
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The Gas Centrifuge Secret: Origins of a U.S. Policy of Nuclear Denial, 1954-1960
In 1954, Washington Ruled Against Brazilian Attempt to Purchase West German Centrifuges for Its Nuclear Program as Contrary to U.S. “Interests” Continue reading
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OPERATION CONDOR: National Security Archive Presents Trove of Declassified Documentation in Historic Trial in Argentina
Washington, D.C., May 6, 2015 – The National Security Archive today posted key documents on Operation Condor, presented by its Southern Cone analyst, Carlos Osorio, at a historic trial in Buenos Aires of former military officers. During 10 hours on the witness stand recently, Osorio introduced one hundred documents into evidence for the court proceedings.… Continue reading
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National Security Archive: Perestroika in the Soviet Union: 30 Years On
Washington, DC, Posted March 11, 2015 — Thirty years ago today, in the Kremlin, the Soviet Politburo unanimously elected its youngest member, Mikhail Gorbachev, to the pinnacle of Soviet power — General Secretary of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This election ushered in the “perestroika” period of revolutionary change, which… Continue reading
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Archive Sues State Department Over Kissinger Telcons
Kissinger had removed the telcons, along with his memcons and office files, from State when he left office at the end of 1976. A lawsuit by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to recover the documents failed in 1980 with a Supreme Court ruling that the plaintiffs lacked standing. Continue reading
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KISSINGER CONSIDERED ATTACK ON CUBA FOLLOWING ANGOLA INCURSION
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger ordered a series of secret contingency plans that included airstrikes and mining of Cuban harbors in the aftermath of Fidel Castro’s decision to send Cuban forces into Angola in late 1975, according to declassified documents made public today for the first time. Continue reading
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Covert Diplomacy to Normalize Relations With Cuba: A Historic Press Conference at the Pierre
In July 1975, Henry Kissinger sent two of his deputies to meet with representatives of Fidel Castro at the Pierre Hotel in New York City. It was there ”in room 727” that the historic first secret talks between Washington and Havana to normalize relations were held. But they would not be the last… Continue reading
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Iran 1953: US Envoy to Baghdad Suggested to Fleeing Shah He Not Acknowledge Foreign Role in Coup
Washington, D.C., July 2, 2014 — On August 16, 1953, the same day the Shah of Iran fled to Baghdad after a failed attempt to oust Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, the agitated monarch spoke candidly about his unsettling experience to the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. In a highly classified cable to Washington, the ambassador reported:… Continue reading
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National Security Archive: "The Battle for Iran," 1953: Re-Release of CIA Internal History Spotlights New Details about anti-Mosaddeq Coup
During early planning for the 1953 Iran coup, U.S. Ambassador Loy Henderson warned not only that the Shah would not support the United States’ chosen replacement for Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq but that the Army would not play its hoped-for leading role without the Shah’s active cooperation, according to a newly released version of an… Continue reading
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NYPD Raids in Harlem: “They want to stop this whole generation”
5:30 am: more than 400 heavily armed men break down doors, put guns to the heads of grandmothers and toddlers, pull a teenage girl out of bed and handcuff her face-down on the floor at gun point, in her underwear. Women try to hide their sons. Dozens of young males, age 15 to 30, are… Continue reading
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Multi-Megaton Bomb Was Virtually “Armed” When It Crashed to Earth in North Carolina, Sandia Lab Report Concluded
A recently declassified report by Sandia National Laboratory, published today by the National Security Archive, provides new details on the 1961 Goldsboro, North Carolina, nuclear weapons accident. While both multi-megaton Mk 39 bombs involved in the mishap were in the “safe” position, the report concluded, by the time one of them hit the ground it… Continue reading
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U.S. Covert Intervention in Chile: Planning to Block Allende Began Long before September 1970 Election
Covert U.S. planning to block the democratic election of Salvador Allende in Chile began weeks before his September 4, 1970, victory, according to just declassified minutes of an August 19, 1970, meeting of the high-level interagency committee known as the Special Review Group, chaired by National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 