Peter Kornbluh, Senior Analyst, has worked at the Archive since April 1986. He currently directs the Archive's Cuba and Chile Documentation Projects. He was co-director of the Iran-Contra documentation project and director of the Archive's project on U.S. policy toward Nicaragua. From 1990-1999, he taught at Columbia University as an adjunct assistant professor of international and public affairs.
His most recent book is Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana (UNC Press, 2014), a Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year. He is the author/editor/co-editor of a number of Archive books: the Archive's first two documents readers: The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 and The Iran-Contra Scandal: The Declassified History, both published by the New Press, and Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba (The New Press, 1998). On the 30th anniversary of the Chilean military coup in September 2003 he published The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability, which the Los Angeles Times selected as a "best book" of the year. The Pinochet File has been translated into Spanish and published in Barcelona as Pinochet: Los Archivos Secretos. A smaller book on the United States and the overthrow of the government of Salvador Allende has been published in Chile under the title: Los EEUU y el Derrocamiento de Allende.
His articles have been published in Foreign Policy, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, Cigar Aficionado, the New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, andLos Angeles Times, among many other journals and newspapers. He has appeared on national television and radio broadcasts, among them "60 Minutes," "The Charlie Rose show," "Nightline," CNN, "All Things Considered," and "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross. He has also worked on, and appeared in, numerous documentary films, including the Oscar-winning "Panama Deception," the History Channel's "Bay of Pigs Declassified," "The Trials of Henry Kissinger," and most recently the Netflix documentary, “Crack: Cocaine, Corruption, Conspiracy." In November 2003, he served as producing consultant on the Discovery Times documentary, "Kennedy and Castro: The Secret History," which was based on his article in Cigar Aficionado, "Kennedy and Castro: The Secret Quest for Accommodation." Kornbluh also served as historical consultant on Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 bio-pic on Che Guevara, starring Benicio Del Toro. He is currently working on a Hollywood film with Gal Gadot and her production company, Pilot Wave, based on his major article in Politico, “My Dearest Fidel.”