United States and Canada

National Security Archive Launches Cyber Vault Web Site

Washington, D.C., March 30, 2016 – The National Security Archive is pleased to announce the launch of its new Cyber Vault project web site. 

 The growing prominence of cyber activity as a global security concern with tangible effects on everyday lives has given rise to the production of a vast amount of documentation by governments and private industry.  The Cyber Vault will serve as a centralized repository for key parts of the documentary record on this critical topic.

National Security Archive Board Member General William Y. Smith Dies at 90

Washington, D.C., January 26, 2016 - The National Security Archive mourns the passing of Gen. William Y. Smith, one of the Archive's original board members and longest supporters, on January 19, 2016. Gen. Smith helped form the original advisory board of the Archive in the 1980s, served on the audit committee of the Archive's Board of Directors from 1999 to 2016, and played an instrumental role in multiple Archive projects, including conferences in Havana and Hanoi that dramatically re-wrote the histories of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War. As a young military aide, Gen.

The Clinton White House and Climate Change: The Struggle to Restore U.S. Leadership

Washington, D.C., December 11, 2015 – The Clinton administration came to office in 1993 determined to restore the United States as the preeminent global protector of the environment, but saw its hopes for a major climate treaty run aground on a series of international and domestic political and procedural setbacks, according to a selection of declassified and previously unpublished records posted today by the nongovernmental National Security Archive, based at The George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org).

U.S. Climate Change Policy in the 1980s

Washington, D.C., December 2, 2015 – Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush actively promoted measures to combat climate change, with Reagan in 1987 overruling objections within his own Cabinet to a major proposed treaty to protect the ozone layer, according to recently declassified records posted today by the George Washington University-based National Security Archive (www.nsarchive.org).

The Anwar al-Awlaki File

Related Materials

The Lessons of Anwar al-Awlaki
Four years after the United States assassinated the radical cleric in a drone strike, his influence on jihadists is greater than ever. Was there a better way to stop him?
The New York Times Magazine, August 27, 2015

 

About the Book:

"Scott Shane has done a masterful job of fleshing out the missing link in the evolution of Al Qaeda." 
Lawrence Wright

Washington Post Op-Ed Highlights Dubious Secrets

The Washington Post article "America classifies way too much information - and we are all less safe for it" By Tom Blanton July 31 at 8:06 PM Tom Blanton is director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University. Warning: If you hold a security clearance, reading this column could expose you to information that potentially violates your security agreement. Reading this column will certainly expose you to information that is currently classified by some securocrats, though not by others.

White House Efforts to Blunt 1975 Church Committee Investigation into CIA Abuses Foreshadowed Executive-Congressional Battles after 9/11

Washington, D.C., July 20, 2015 - Forty years ago this year, Congress’s first serious inquiry into CIA abuses faced many of the same political and bureaucratic obstructions as Senate investigators have confronted in assessing Intelligence Community performance since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.