Policy Making and Diplomacy

Washington, DC, April 3, 2012 – The State Department today released a February 2006 internal memo from the Department's then-counselor opposing Justice Department authorization for "enhanced interrogation techniques" by the CIA. All copies of the memo (Document 1), which reflect strong internal disagreement within the George W. Bush administration over the constitutionality of such techniques, were thought to have been destroyed. But the State Department located a copy and declassified it in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the National Security Archive. Philip D.

Washington, D.C., April 1, 2012 – The United States secretly supported the United Kingdom during the early days of the Falklands/Malvinas Island war of 1982, while publicly adopting a neutral stance and acting as a disinterested mediator in the conflict, according to recently declassified U.S. documents posted today by the National Security Archive.

Washington, D.C., January 15, 2012 – Casting new light on one of the most controversial and enduring mysteries of the Vietnam War, a new book using evidence from long-hidden communist sources suggests that the U.S. Government missed a major chance to open peace talks with North Vietnam in late 1966, more than eighteen months before the opening of the Paris peace talks and more than six years before the accords that finally ended US direct involvement in the fighting. The revelations contained in Marigold: The Lost Chance for Peace in Vietnam by James G.

Washington, D.C., July 27, 2011 - The United States and Great Britain undertook a secret diplomatic campaign in the late 1970s to prevent a major nuclear proliferation threat – Pakistan's attempted covert purchasing of "gray area" technology for its nuclear weapons program – according to recently declassified "NODIS" (no distribution) State department telegrams published today by the National Security Archive. The Archive obtained the documents through a mandatory declassification review request. The documents do not mention the name A. Q.

"Anatoly Chernyaev's diary is one of the great internal records of the Gorbachev years, a trove of irreplacable 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."

Washington D.C., November 4, 2010 – President Obama’s new Executive Order on “Controlled Unclassified Information” issued today builds on recommendations from open government groups and the findings of the National Security Archive’s 2006 audit of “Pseudo-Secrets” that uncovered 28 different and uncoordinated policies on marking and restricting official unclassified information.

Washington, D.C., October 1, 2010 – Contrary to statements by President George W. Bush or Prime Minister Tony Blair, declassified records from both governments posted on the Web today reflect an early and focused push to prepare war plans and enlist allies regardless of conflicting intelligence about Iraq’s threat and the evident difficulties in garnering global support.

Washington, D.C., September 22, 2010 – Following instructions from President George W. Bush to develop an updated war plan for Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered CENTCOM Commander Gen. Tommy Franks in November 2001 to initiate planning for the “decapitation” of the Iraqi government and the empowerment of a “Provisional Government” to take its place.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and President George W. Bush.  (Source: Department of Defense)

Washington, DC, May 30, 2010 - A highly confidential U.S. overture to Iran in summer 1999 foundered because the intelligence community and FBI believed members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) had a role in the infamous Khobar Towers bombing of June 1996, and because U.S. officials overestimated the Iranian president’s ability to manage the sensitive matter of U.S. relations within Iran’s power structure, according to newly declassified documents.

Washington, D.C., May 25, 2010 - Today the National Security Archive publishes its fifth installment of the diary of Anatoly Chernyaev, the man who was behind some of the most momentous transformations in Soviet foreign policy at the end of the 1980s in his role as Mikhail Gorbachev's chief foreign policy aide. In addition to his contributions to perestroika and new thinking, Anatoly Sergeevich Chernyaev was and remains a strong proponent of openness and transparency, providing his diaries and notes to historians trying to understand the end of the Cold War.