Policy Making and Diplomacy

U.S.-Iran: Lessons from an Earlier War

Advance Praise for Becoming Enemies For those seeking to understand the roots of modern enmity between the U.S. and Iran, Becoming Enemies is a truly unique and wonderful resource. — Karim Sadjadpour, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace A fascinating, eye-opening book. — Haleh Esfandiari, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Becoming Enemies provides a profound understanding ... [and] a fascinating story ... a rare "fly-on-the-wall" perspective on how ... the United States got itself into the mess it is in today in the Persian Gulf. — Kenneth M.

The Soviet Cuban Missile Crisis: Castro, Mikoyan, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Missiles of November

Washington, DC, October 10, 2012 – In November 1962, Cuba was preparing to become the first nuclear power in Latin America—at the time when the Kennedy administration thought that the Cuban Missile Crisis was long resolved and the Soviet missiles were out. However, the Soviet and the Cuban leadership knew that the most dangerous weapons of the crisis—tactical Lunas and FKRs—were still in Cuba. They were battlefield weapons, which would have been used against the U.S. landing forces if the EXCOMM had decided on an invasion, not the quarantine.

The Armageddon Letters

Washington, DC, October 1, 2012 – The Armageddon Letters - a transmedia project (multiplatform storytelling) launched on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis - takes visitors behind the scenes during the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the most dangerous crisis in recorded history.

Soviet Dissidents and Jimmy Carter

Moscow, Russian Federation, 18 September 2012 – The first-ever Web publication of previously secret U.S. documents on Soviet dissidents, matched with reports and letters by the dissidents themselves from the Memorial Society Archives in Moscow, illuminate the landmark turning point during Jimmy Carter's presidency in the late 1970s when U.S.

Jimmy Carter's Controversial Nuclear Targeting Directive PD-59 Declassified

Washington, D.C., September 14, 2012 – The National Security Archive is today posting - for the first time in its essentially complete form - one of the most controversial nuclear policy directives of the Cold War. Presidential Directive 59 (PD-59), "Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy," signed by President Jimmy Carter on 25 July 1980, aimed at giving U.S.

Inside U.S.-Soviet Relations during the Carter-Brezhnev Period

Washington, DC, August 15, 2012 – High hopes for a "reset" of U.S.-Soviet relations in the late 1970s were shattered by ingrained suspicions and negative international trends to which both sides contributed under President Jimmy Carter and General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, according to declassified documents and unique "critical oral history" transcripts posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

Trilateralism and Beyond

A new book and newly-released documents illuminate the history of U.S. efforts to deal with the Korean security dilemma during and since the Cold War. Among the key "lessons learned" are the limits to the ability of Beijing or Moscow to influence North Korea and persuade it to adopt less provocative and destabilizing behavior and policies, and the challenges facing efforts by the United States, South Korea and Japan to work together to address this critical unresolved legacy of the Cold War.

Anatoly S. Chernyaev Diary, 1972

Translated and edited by Anna Melyakova and Svetlana Savranskaya "Anatoly Chernyaev's diary is one of the great internal records of the Gorbachev years, a trove of irreplaceable observations about a turning point in history. There is nothing else quite like it, allowing the reader to sit at Gorbachev's elbow at the time of perestroika and glasnost, experiencing the breakthroughs and setbacks. It is a major contribution to our understanding of this momentous period." — David E.