The Oliver North File

The Oliver North File:

His Diaries, E-Mail, and Memos on
the Kerry Report, Contras and Drugs.

Link to electronic briefing book (outside THF network).

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The Iran-Contra Affair

The Iran-Contra Affair

From The National Security Archives, George Washington University.

"On November 25, 1986, the biggest political and constitutional scandal since Watergate exploded in Washington when President Ronald Reagan told a packed White House news conference that funds derived from covert arms deals with the Islamic Republic of Iran had been diverted to buy weapons for the U.S.-backed Contra rebels in Nicaragua." Read more in the online briefing book.

Link to electronic briefing book (outside THF network).

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The 1956 Hungarian Revolution

The 1956 Hungarian Revolution

From The National Security Archive, George Washington University.

Press release:

"There is no publication, in any language, that would even approach the thoroughness, reliability, and novelty of this monumental work …. [I]t will change forever our views of what happened in Hungary between 1953- 1963." - István Deák, Columbia University

The National Security Archive announces the publication of a new volume of top-level documentation from the former Warsaw Pact and the West that provides important new information and insights into one of the darkest moments of the Cold War.

Taken from the former Soviet Union, Hungary and the United States, as well as from other East European and Western archives, these materials - many of which were previously unavailable to an English-speaking audience - provide a comprehensive picture of the decision-making on all sides of the Hungarian events of October-November 1956. Highlights include:

• U.S. attitudes toward the use of violence in Eastern Europe. Newly declassified portions of top-level U.S. policy documents and National Security Council minutes show that senior officials were prepared to consider the resort to violence in Eastern Europe in furtherance of U.S. interests.

• The role of Radio Free Europe (RFE). Internal RFE documents confirm that the Radio overstepped its bounds in encouraging Hungarian hopes of imminent Western assistance.

• The Suez crisis. Notes of Kremlin and White House discussions indicate the possible impact of the late October 1956 attack on Suez on the Soviet decision to intervene with overwhelming force in Hungary in early November.

• The character and fate of Imre Nagy. Hungarian and Soviet documents provide a more complex portrait of reform Communist Prime Minister Imre Nagy, whom the U.S. saw as a Soviet disciple but who went further than any other leader in the socialist camp other than Tito in asserting independence from the USSR. Other records give previously unknown details on the discussions between various leaders over whether to try and execute Nagy.
  

• The two faces of János Kádár. Hungary's long-time Communist leader has always been something of an enigma. Notes of Kremlin and Warsaw Pact meetings as well as internal Hungarian records add important insights into his attempts both to assert freedom of action vis-à-vis Moscow and to crack down brutally on internal dissent, especially against Nagy and his circle.

• Kremlin vacillations. Taken together, the materials in this volume offer an extraordinary picture of the thinking of Soviet leaders, their indecisiveness in the face of the Hungarian crisis and the reasons underlying their eventual decision to crush the revolution."

Link to Electronic Briefing Book (outside THF network).

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Fighting the War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973

Fighting the War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973:

From The National Security ARchive, George Washington University.


 "Previously secret U.S. Air Force official histories of the Vietnam war published by the National Security Archive disclose for the first time that Central Intelligence Agency contract employees had a direct role in combat air attacks when they flew Laotian government aircraft on strike missions and that the Air Force actively considered nuclear weapons options during the 1959 Laos crisis.
The newly declassified histories, which were released through Freedom of Information Act litigation by the National Security Archive with the law firm James & Hoffman, include the Air Force's detailed official history of the war in northern Laos, written during the 1990s but hidden in classified form for years. Also declassified were Air Force historical studies on specific years of the Vietnam War, documenting in great detail the Air Force's role in planning and implementing the air war in North and South Vietnam. Among other significant disclosures in these histories are:

• Air Force interest in nuclear options during at least two flash points in the Southeast Asian conflict: Laos in 1959 and in 1968 during the battle of Khe Sanh.
• CIA operational commitments for the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion hampered the Agency's ability to carry out Kennedy administration policy in Laos.
• CIA proprietary Air America directed search and rescue missions in Laos in addition to its role in combat operations.
• The U.S. ambassador in Laos served as the field commander of the so-called "secret war" there, a role that has been largely undocumented."

Link to electronic briefing book (outside THF network).

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The CIA's Vietnam Histories

The CIA's Vietnam Histories:

From John Prados & The National Security Archive, George Washington University.

"The Central Intelligence Agency participated in every aspect of the wars in Indochina, political and military, according to newly declassified CIA histories. The six volumes of formerly secret histories (the Agency's belated response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by National Security Archive senior fellow John Prados) document CIA activities in South and North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in unprecedented detail. The histories contain a great deal of new material and shed light on aspects of the CIA's work that were not well known or were poorly understood."

Link to electronic briefing book (outside THF network).

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Death of Che Guevara: Declassified

Death of Che Guevara:

The Death of Che Guevara: Declassified by Peter Kornbluh, from The National Security Archive, George Washington University.

"On October 9th, 1967, Ernesto "Che" Guevara was put to death by Bolivian soldiers, trained, equipped and guided by U.S. Green Beret and CIA operatives. His execution remains a historic and controversial event; and thirty years later, the circumstances of his guerrilla foray into Bolivia, his capture, killing, and burial are still the subject of intense public interest and discussion around the world. As part of the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Che Guevara, the National Security Archive's Cuba Documentation Project is posting a selection of key CIA, State Department, and Pentagon documentation relating to Guevara and his death. This electronic documents book is compiled from declassified records obtained by the National Security Archive, and by authors of two new books on Guevara: Jorge Castañeda's Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara (Knopf), and Henry Butterfield Ryan's The Fall of Che Guevara (Oxford University Press). The selected documents, presented in order of the events they depict, provide only a partial picture of U.S. intelligence and military assessments, reports and extensive operations to track and "destroy" Che Guevara's guerrillas in Bolivia; thousands of CIA and military records on Guevara remain classified. But they do offer significant and valuable information on the high-level U.S. interest in tracking his revolutionary activities, and U.S. and Bolivian actions leading up to his death." Link to electronic briefing book (outside THF network).

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Intelligence and Vietnam: The Top Secret 1969 State Department Study

Intelligence and Vietnam: The Top Secret 1969 State Department Study

From The National Security Archive, George Washington University. 

"In late 1968, Thomas L. Hughes, the director of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), commissioned this study, intended as an in-house classified review and evaluation of INR's performance on the subject of Vietnam during the eight years of the Kennedy and Johnson presidencies. As Mr. Hughes explains in the retrospective preface he generously provided for this posting, he tasked two former INR analysts who were intimately familiar with INR's product but no longer serving in the Bureau - W. Dean Howells and Dorothy Avery - to produce the study. They wrote the chronological review of INR reporting, compiled the annexes of source material, and wrote the thematic summaries as well. Recently retired INR staffer Fred Greene then reviewed the material and wrote the critique section. Mr. Hughes refrained from supervising or editing the results."

Link to electronic briefing book & report (outside THF network).

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