Briefing Books

“Briefing Books” are one-stop resources covering a full range of topics in U.S. foreign policy. Containing from 5 to 100+ documents, each briefing book features an introductory essay, individual document descriptions, related photo or video content, plus links for further reading.
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Was the USSR Producing Enough Food?
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., November 20, 2024 – The failure of the U.S. intelligence community to adequately warn policymakers about the poor Soviet grain harvest of 1972—resulting in higher food prices in the…
Illustration from a 1985 report by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist Michael MacCracken, showing smoke and soot lofted from nuclear detonations on day 1 and the passage of the smoke 5, 10, and 20 days later (See Document 13, “Global Atmospheric Effects of Nuclear War”)
Investigating the Climate Impacts of Nuclear War
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., October 30, 2024 - A 1983 study from scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore Laboratory said that a full-scale nuclear war between the superpowers would “…
Wedding photo
The Pinochet Regime at 50
The Assassination of General Carlos Prats and Sofía Cuthbert
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., October 1, 2024 - On the 50th anniversary of the Pinochet regime’s first act of international terrorism, the National Security Archive is posting a compilation of documents,…
Hersh, NYT article, Kissinger collage
The CIA-in-Chile Scandal at 50
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., September 9, 2024 – Fifty years ago, as the New York Times prepared to break a major exposé on CIA covert operations in Chile, the architect of those operations, Henry Kissinger,…
Grove's bage
Manhattan Project Director’s Files Illuminate Early History of Atomic Bomb
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., August 8, 2024 – On the week of the 79th commemoration of the U.S.
Ronald Reagan riding horse
Ronald Reagan: Climate Hero
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., August 1, 2024 – The most successful multilateral environmental treaty of all time drew Ronald Reagan’s support despite opposition from his more conservative advisers, because the…
National Archive
History Coalition Warns of Critical Needs at National Archives
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., July 23, 2024 - A major report on the current state of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) recently released
10.7 seconds after explosion
The First Atomic Explosion, 16 July 1945
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., July 16, 2024 - On 16 July 1945, 79 years ago, the United States, under the Manhattan Project, staged the first test of a nuclear weapon in the New Mexican desert.
Wayne
Wayne S. Smith: His Declassified Legacy on Cuba
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C. July 12, 2024 - “Cuba,” as former Foreign Service officer, Wayne S. Smith, was fond of observing, “seems to have the same effect on American administrations as the full moon has on…
Clinton-Yeltsin-NATO
NATO-Russia charter 1997 was “forced step,” said Yeltsin
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., July 9, 2024 - Hailed at the time as an historic change “burying” a Cold War rivalry, the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997 was privately characterized as a “forced step” by Russian…
ebb 853 collage
“Godfather” of Colombian Army Intelligence Convicted in Palace of Justice Killings
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., June 21, 2024 – On Wednesday, a Colombian court condemned former Colombian Army Gen.
Pinochet-Contreras-collage
The Pinochet Regime Declassified
DINA: “A Gestapo-Type Police Force” in Chile
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., June 18, 2024 - On June 18, 1974, the official registry of the Chilean military dictatorship published Decree 521 on the “creation of the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA…
President Jimmy Carter with the Joint Chiefs and Secretary of Defense Harold Brown meeting for breakfast, 20 November 1977
Ivory Item: Carter First U.S. President to Participate in Nuclear Drill
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., May 31, 2024 - On 6 October 1977, President Jimmy Carter and top U.S.
Chernyev in his home office in 2012
Waiting for Gorbachev: The Chernyaev Diary, 1984
| Briefing Book
Washington D.C., May 25, 2024 - The National Security Archive today marks what would have been Anatoly Sergeyevich Chernyaev’s 103rd birthday with the publication for the first time in…
Fidel in The USSR poster
Fidel Castro’s Victory Tour: New Evidence from Russian Archives
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., April 29, 2024 - New evidence from Russian archival sources and published today by the National Security Archive details Fidel Castro’s extraordinary April-May 1963 trip to the USSR…
On the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, President Nixon and First Lady Pat Nixon plant a California Giant Sequoia tree
The “Carbon Dioxide Problem”: Nixon’s Inner Circle Debates the Climate Crisis
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., April 26, 2024 - High-level officials inside the Nixon administration debated climate change and the impacts of sea-level rise, extreme temperatures, and fossil-fuel consumption as…
President Jimmy Carter approaching the National Emergency Airborne Command Post [NEACP]
New State Department History Details Nuclear Targeting and Continuity of Government, 1977-1980
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., April 18, 2024 - After nine years of unwanted delays, the State Department’s Office of the Historian (OH) last month published a new Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS)
Rosalynn Carter meets with President Alfonso López Michelson
Jimmy Carter’s Colombia Blacklist Revealed
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., April 15, 2024 – A highly sensitive blacklist of allegedly corrupt Colombian officials assembled by the U.S.
President of the Russian Federation Brussels, Belgium 9 December 1993 Meeting between NATO Secretary General M. Wörner and Russian President B. Yeltsin at the Chateau du Stuyvenbergh
The Short-lived NATO-Russia Honeymoon
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., April 4, 2024 - Top NATO and U.S.
 President Boris Yeltsin meeting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Kremlin, Moscow on December 31, 1999
Putin’s First Election, March 2000
| Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., March 21, 2024 - Vladimir Putin’s first election as president of Russia 24 years ago was “reasonably free and fair,” according to a declassified U.S.